Peter Hadland Davis was born in 1981. He came to Edinburgh University in 1945 after serving in Palestine and Egypt during the Second World War. He took a First Class Honours degree then a Ph.D. and was appointed to the academic staff. In addition, a 1963 D.Sc. thesis by Davis was entitledContributions to the flora of Turkey. During the War he had become interested in the plants and people of South West Asia and North Africa and so with the help of funding he began to research and produce his great work, theFlora of Turkey and the east Aegean islands, travelling extensively again in Turkey and North Africa. Davis was appointed Professor of Plant Taxonomy at Edinburgh University and was the Honorary Curator at the Royal Botanic Garden in the city. His publications includeFlora of Turkey and the east Aegean islands(1965-1988), with J. CullenThe identification of flowering plant families: including a key to those native and cultivated in north temperate regions, and with V. H. HeywoodPrinciples of angiosperm taxonomy(circa 1963). Professor Peter Hadland Davis died in 1992.