Frodin, David Gamman   (1940 - 2019)

Born 8 April 1940 in Chicago, USA; died 12 August 2019 in London, UK.

At age 11, David moved with his parents and sister from Chicago to Albany, New York, where he attended the Albany Academy for Boys.

In 1957, his father received a Fulbright scholarship to teach at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

At age 17 David Frodin enrolled at the Sydney Boys High School, where he studied for a year and developed an interest in tropical flora.

He received in 1963 his bachelor's degree in botany from the University of Chicago. He received two master of science degrees in botany: the first in 1964 from the University of Tennessee and the second in 1965 from the University of Liverpool.

From October 1965 to October 1966, Frodin worked as a scientific officer in Papua New Guinea at the Lae Herbarium under the auspices of the Division of Botany, Office of Forests of the Australian PNG Administration.

In Papua New Guinea he collected about 1000 botanical specimens. He was a member of the Tari Subdistrict Expedition in 1966 with Andrew N. Gillison, Cornelis Kalkman, and Willem Vink.

After the expiration of his contract with the Division of Botany, Office of Forests, Frodin visited Australian herbaria and made short field trips in Australia and the Far East until June 1967.

In 1967, he received a scholarship for doctoral study at the University of Cambridge. There he received in November 1970 his doctorate in botany with dissertation 'The complex of Cephaloschefflera in Schefflera' under the supervision of E. J. H. Corner.

After completing his doctorate, Frodin was from 1971 to 1985 a staff member of the Botany Department of the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), at Boroko.

In 1983 Frodin was appointed an associate professor in botany at UPNG, but he developed a serious medical condition.

During his PNG phase, he published the first printed edition of his Guide to standard Floras of the World (Cambridge University Press).

In 1985 he returned to the USA as a research associate under Benjamin Clemens Stone in the botany department of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science. After a few years Frodin became the botany department's collections manager, but in 1989 Frodin's departmental position was eliminated.

From 1989 to 1993 he took various assignments in the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea. In 1993 he was appointed a senior scientific officer at the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

In 2000 Frodin was forced to retire at age 60 from his salaried position at Kew, but for the rest of his of life he continued at Kew as an honorary research associate.

For the 2001 publication of the 2nd edition of his Guide to Standard Floras of the World, he was awarded the 2002 Engler Medal in Silver by the International Association of Plant Taxonomy.

Source: Extracted from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gamman_Frodin
Portrait Photo: https://rcamaraleret.com/onewebmedia/2020_Blumea_Obituaryfrodin.pdf

Collecting localities for 'Frodin, D.G.' from AVH (2026)

Data from 764 specimens in Australian herbaria