I was born in Liverpool, England, but I grew up in Wellington. I was always interested in birds, fish, and plants and at high school this became a passion for biology, especially evolution and DNA. At Victoria I studied Botany and Zoology for a BSc and then BSc(Hons) in Botany where taxonomy became my research interest. I did my PhD at Canterbury University—supervised by Dr (later Prof) David Lloyd—on the taxonomy of the speedwell hebes (Veronica, but Parahebe at the time). From 1975–1994 I was a scientist at the DSIR Botany Division at Lincoln, working on taxonomy of weeds and native plants. Shortly after the DSIR was restructured into Crown Research Institutes I was appointed to the chair in Botany at Victoria (1994–2009). Since retiring in 2009 I have been part-time teaching at VUW, researcher at Te Papa, and now living in Nelson and completing a book: He Puāwai, a natural history of New Zealand flowers (Auckland University Press, 2025).