MYRON THE TRANSFORMER from Steve Hammer

摘要

Myron Kimnach, who left us on September 18th 2018, three months short of his 96th birthday, will be fondly remembered for the transformative impacts he had on institutions, scientists, plant families, employees, readers, taxonomies, and friends. As one of the latter - there were so many of us! - I'd like to record a few instances of his kindness and wide-ranging curiosity. Our bond began with Conophytum, forty years ago. At that time he had the most substantial, healthy, and best-recorded collectionof plants from Rawe, Tischer, and N.E.Brown in the world, along with a unique collection of letters and documents from Tischer, Bolus, Rawe, de Boer, Herre, and other savants. Over the years he shared all of the clones and information with me. In turn Idid my best to enliven his collection with new finds. He once remarked that each of my novelties was smaller than the last. That wasn't literally true, but it took far longer to propagate C.achabense, which first popped up in 1986, than C.pellucidum var. neohallii, which had greeted me in seed in 1980 and wasn't new even then, having been spotted by Hall in 1953.