Philip Furley Fyson

Philip Furley Fyson (1877–1947) was a botanist and educator who worked in India. He is noted as the author of the first illustrated volumes on the flora of the South Indian hills. The Fyson prize is instituted in his honour by the Presidency College, Chennai for work in the area of Natural science.

Fyson was born in Japan to British missionary parents and his early education was in Scotland. He earned a first class in the Natural Science tripos at Cambridge and in 1904 he moved to Madras in South India to join the Presidency College of Madras.

From 1920 to 1925 he served as Inspector of Schools for Visakhapatnam and Ganjam districts. He later returned to the Presidency college in and became its Principal from 1925 to 1932.

He wrote a textbook of botany in 1912 for college students. He also wrote a book on Madras flowers with 100 illustrated plates, a Flora of the South Indian Hills and a monograph on the genus Eriocaulon. He helped establish and launch the Journal of Indian Botany through the Indian Botanical Society (started in 1919). The journal was later to become Journal of the Indian Botanical Society.

From 1906, he took great interest in the botany of the hills and spent time in the Sacred Heart College at Shembaganur, near Kodaikanal, working along with Fr. E. Gombert, on the local botany. In 1910 some 30 amateur women naturalists in the Kodaikanal and Ooty area were illustrating the local flora under the guidance of Lady Bourne. Sir Alfred Gibbs Bourne and Lady Bourne were interested in the botany of these hills and approached him for adding information on these plants. This led him to study the local flora and the Kew collections.

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