The authorsWilliam LiltvedWilliam (Bill) Liltved, born into a family
of professional classical musicians, developed a passion for natural
history at an early age. His enchantment with the sea and its creatures
resulted in years of exhaustive research on the southern African marine Mollusca, culminating in the publication of numerous scientific papers and
his monographic work, Cowries and their relatives of southern Africa
(1989, 2000). Bill has worked at the South African Museum, Cape Town
(1979-1984) and the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco
(1985-1989). After returning to South Africa in late 1989, his interests
expanded to include aspects of the Cape flora, particularly the
Orchidaceae and Amaryllidaceae. Apart from the Cape orchids, Bill has
extensively photographed and recorded the seasonal phases of members of
the amaryllid genus Gethyllis (commonly known as ‘kukumakranka’), as well
as the Stapeliae (family Apocynaceae).
Bill is a research associate of the Compton Herbarium, South Africa National
Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), Kirstenbosch, Cape Town, and the California Academy
of Sciences, San Francisco. He has spent the past seventeen years
researching, writing and collating documentary material for The Cape
Orchids and other botanical projects.
Steven JohnsonSteven Johnson is a professor of Botany at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa and also holds the South African
Research Chair in Evolutionary Biology. Prior to this he was the Smuts
Fellow in Botany at the University of Cape Town. He has published
extensively on the systematics, ecology and pollination biology of the
Cape orchids, including over 100 articles in peer-reviewed scientific
journals, and several contributions to books, including Genera
Orchidacearum and Orchids of Southern Africa. In addition, he has been a
frequent contributor to botanical magazines aimed at the general public.
With Dr Anton Pauw he authored the prizewinning bestseller Table Mountain:
A Natural History (1999). He has received numerous accolades for his
scientific work, including the SAAB medal for best Ph.D. thesis in botany
(1995), the Young Scientist Award (1995), National Research Foundation's
President's Award (1998) and University of Natal Vice-Chancellor's
Research Award (2002). Steven has had a life-long interest in natural
history and is an accomplished photographer, with his close-up images of
flowers and their pollinators having appeared in many of the world's
wildlife and science periodicals, including National Geographic, Natural
History, Discover, BBC-Wildlife and Science News. Steven is an avid
mountaineer and, in the preparation for this book, accompanied Bill
Liltved on numerous expeditions in search of Cape orchids.
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