People

Utteridge, Timothy M. A.

Job Title South-East Asia specialist
Department Herbarium
Section Regional Teams
Science Teams Wet Tropics: SE Asia
Joined Kew 1999
Foreign Language(s) Conversational Indonesian and Cantonese

Qualifications & Appointments

BSc (Hons), Applied Biology, Univ. Greenwich 1993

MSc, Plant and Fungal Taxonomy, Univ. Reading 1994

PhD, Univ. Hong Kong, 1998

Prospect Union Representative

Role

Taxonomic and floristic research in SE Asia, especially Maesa, Icacinaceae; field guides to Thailand and Borneo; floristics of New Guinea.

Systematic research on the genus Maesa and the Icacinaceae. Maesa is a taxonomically complex genus with its centre in SE Asia, and work includes researching species variation in the region and will result in the production of floristic treatments. The Icacinaceae are poorly known and work is needed on generic limits, as well as undertaking floristic research. Also researching several other families from SE Asia, especially from New Guinea, describing new species etc., including the Annonaceae, Hamamelidaceae, Rubiaceae, Pittosporaceae and Scrophulariaceae. Member of the Mt Jaya project team, exploring New Guinea’s highest peak, and involved in fieldwork in the region, writing taxonomic accounts, and editing the book and seeing it through to publication. Research into collecting patterns on Mt Jaya and their effects on planning botanical inventories and databasing, and setting conservation priorities in New Guinea. The SE Asia team runs two Darwin Initiative grants. The first will produce a Field Guide to the Forest Trees of Southern Thailand; the second will undertake an inventory of potential conservation areas of Sabah. Approach is that of a generalist botanist building a broad knowledge of the flora of SE Asia and Indochina, with a special interest in New Guinea, undertaking identification of incoming herbarium material. The SE Asia team organises and runs an annual Tropical Plant Identification Course, which has been very well received since its launch in 2003.

Projects

Assessing and Conserving Plant Diversity in Commercially Managed Tropical Rainforests in Sabah

Field Guide to the Trees of Southern Thailand

Guide to the Alpine and Subalpine Flora of Mt Jaya

Interactive Key to the Malesian Seed Plants

Taxonomic Research on Ecologically Important Plant Families in South East Asia

UK Darwin Initiative Papuan Plant Diversity

Selected Publications 2001-2005

Utteridge, T.M.A. (2001). A new species of Medusanthera Seem. (Icacinaceae) from New Guinea: Medusanthera inaequalis Utteridge. Contributions to the flora of Mt Jaya, IV. Kew Bulletin 56: 233–237.

Pollard, B.J., Tenner, C., Utteridge, T.M.A. & van Slageren, M. (2003). Mountain biodiversity: a botanic garden’s experience. In Status and trends of, and threats to, mountain biodiversity and marine, coastal and inland water ecosystems: abstracts of poster presentations at the 8th meeting of the SBSTTA of the Convention on Biological Diversity. CBD Technical Series No. 8. 50–51.

Utteridge, T.M.A. & Saunders, R.M.K. (2004). The genus Maesa (Maesaceae) in the Philippines. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 145: 17–43.

Albach, D.C., Utteridge, T.M.A. & Wagstaff, S.J. (2005). Origin of Veroniceae (Plantaginaceae, formerly Scrophulariaceae) on New Guinea. Systematic Botany 30(2): 412–423.

Utteridge, T.M.A., Nagamasu, H., Teo, S.P., White, L.C., & Gasson, P. (2005). Sleumeria (Icacinaceae): A New Genus from Northern Borneo. Systematic Botany 30(3): 635–643.

Selected Publications pre-2001

Utteridge, T.M.A. (2000). Revision of the genus Cyathostemma (Annonaceae). Blumea 45: 377–396.

Utteridge, T.M.A. (2000). Two new species of Maesa (Myrsinaceae) from Puncak Jaya, New Guinea. Contributions to the flora of Mt. Jaya, I. Kew Bulletin 55: 443–449.

Utteridge, T.M.A. (2000). The subalpine members of Pittosporum (Pittosporaceae) from Mt Jaya, New Guinea. Contributions to the flora of Mt Jaya, II. Kew Bulletin 55: 699–710.

Utteridge, T.M.A. & Saunders, R.M.K. (2001). Sexual Dimorphism and Functional Dioecy in Maesa perlarius and M. japonica (Maesaceae/Myrsinaceae). Biotropica 33(2): 368–374.