Abraham Erasmus van Wyk


Abraham Erasmus van Wyk, also known as Braam van Wyk is a South African plant taxonomist. He has been responsible for the training of a significant percentage of the active plant taxonomists in South Africa and has also produced the first electronic application for the identification of trees in southern Africa.

Education and career

Van Wyk was born in 1952 in Wolmaransstad, North-West Province, South Africa and grew up on a maize and cattle farm. In 1973, he completed a BSc at Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, followed by a BSc in 1974, a Higher Diploma in Education in 1976 and a MSc in 1977. All of the degrees he completed at PCHO with obtained with distinction. He then went on to the University of Pretoria where he obtained his PhD in botany with a thesis on the classification of the genus Eugenia in southern Africa.
Since 1977 he has been associated with the botany department of the University of Pretoria, where in 1989 he was appointed Professor of Botany and Curator of the Herold [Georg Wilhelm Johannes Schweickerdt|H.G.W.J. Schweickerdt Herbarium] of the university.
He has presented many academic and public lectures and courses on a variety of botanical topics. He has also regularly contributed to the Southern African Botanical Diversity Network project. Van Wyk enjoys making biology accessible to the public and has participated in a weekly science programme on radio for 18 years.
Van Wyk taught the following courses at University of Pretoria in 2012: BOT 251 Southern African flora and vegetation, BOT 366 Plant diversity, BOT 741 Plant taxonomy, BOT 742 Plant classification, and ZEN 809 Biogeography and macro ecology.

Research projects

Van Wyk's research project areas include Myrtaceae, Celastraceae, Icacinaceae, Chenopodiaceae and Araceae and are conducted in KwaZulu-Natal, Pondoland, Maputaland, Sekhukhuneland and the northeastern Drakensberg Escarpment. His research focuses on morphology, anatomy, pollen analysis, developmental biology, reproductive biology and biogeography.

Myrtus communis.jpg|Myrtaceae
Celastrus orbiculatus.jpg|Celastraceae
Icacina senegalensis MS 4743.JPG|Icacinaceae
Xanthosoma sagittifolium at Kadavoor.jpg|Araceae

Publications

Van Wyk has published, often with his postgraduate students, in a number of botanical subdisciplines, including anatomy, biography, bibliography, taxonomy, nomenclature, embryology, phytogeography, palynology, reproductive biology, phytosociology, systematics, floristics and ecology. He has authored over 390 works on botany of Southern Africa including the following books: