I first met John Flenley as an undergraduate student in the Geography Department at Hull University during the late 1960's. He had just joined the department as lecturer in biogeography. As a teenager I had been interested in geology and plants but had never linked the two. With his secondyear lectures on plant biogeography and especially his practical course in palynology, I was smitten, and unknowingly my future career using fossil pollen to interpret geological history was laid out before me. Despite being just one of over 20 students, he took a great interest in what I did and thought, and made me feel that despite my naivety, I could eventually make a valuable contribution to science through research. I was not alone in this respect, every year one or more of his students would be similarly affected by his enthusiasm for biogeography, and today his influence is present around the globe in his many students who have followed in his footsteps. John was born in the small town of Ormskirk in Lancashire, UK, and went on to study botany at Cambridge, graduating in 1958. In Cambridge he was influenced on the one hand by the teachings of (Sir) Harry Godwin in palynology and the historical biogeography of the British flora, and on the other by the presence of the brilliant but eccentric E.J.H. Corner, who held the Cambridge Chair of Tropical Botany, and enticed a generation of Cambridge students into careers in the study of tropical rain forests. After graduation, he taught biology at Repton School in Derbyshire, and perhaps it was there that he developed his skills and interest in teaching. The influence of the Cambridge Sub-department of Quaternary Research however remained, and with financial help from The Royal Society he studied the vegetational history of the Isle of Canna in the Hebrides in his spare time. This clearly impressed Donald Walker, then head of the Research School of Pacific Studies in Australian National University (ANU) Canberra and former Godwin student. Walker was evaluating the Quaternary vegetational history of the Australasian region, and he offered John a fellowship to undertake a PhD to work in the Quaternary palynology of the New Guinea Highlands. John's thesis placed equal emphasis on the study of fossil pollen and the ecology of the present vegetation and set a precedent for subsequent palynological studies across the tropics. He joined the staff of the Department of Geography at Hull University in 1967 as lecturer, and eventually became reader. With his first Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) research application, he was advised to work in East Africa ‘as palynology had already been shown to provide useful results there’ but John wanted to resolve global, rather than local issues and submitted a proposal to study the Quaternary history of vegetation in Malaysia and Indonesia in the world's most diverse tropical forests, where no palynological work had previously been undertaken. It was during the field work for this program, when I was John's research assistant, camping in a tea plantation in Central Sumatra and living on a diet of corned beef and rice, that he roughed out the chapters for his book ‘The tropical rain forest – a geological history’, which subsequently became the bible for anyone interested in the study of the Quaternary history of tropical vegetation. During his later years at Hull, John was influential in the development of the Journal of Biogeography, and eventually became editor, a post that he held for over 10 years. He also helped to set up the Hull MSc in biostratigraphy, which he ran jointly with micropalaeontologists from the Department of Geology. He also maintained an interest in local issues, such as the history of vegetation in East Yorkshire and of DOI: 10.1111/nzg.12200

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约翰·R·弗伦利，1936–2018 年

1960 年代后期，我第一次见到约翰弗伦利是赫尔大学地理系的一名本科生。他刚刚加入该系，担任生物地理学讲师。十几岁的时候，我一直对地质学和植物感兴趣，但从未将两者联系起来。他二年级的植物生物地理学讲座，尤其是孢粉学的实践课程让我着迷，不知不觉中，我未来的使用化石花粉解释地质历史的职业摆在我面前。尽管他只是 20 多个学生中的一个，但他对我所做的和所想的非常感兴趣，让我觉得尽管我很天真，但我最终可以通过研究为科学做出宝贵的贡献。在这方面我并不孤单，每年他的一个或多个学生都会受到他对生物地理学的热情的类似影响，今天，他的影响遍及全球，影响了他的众多追随他脚步的学生。约翰出生在英国兰开夏郡的小镇奥姆斯柯克，1958 年毕业后继续在剑桥学习植物学。在剑桥，他一方面受到哈里·戈德温爵士在孢粉学和历史学方面的教义的影响。英国植物群的生物地理学，另一方面是才华横溢但古怪的 EJH Corner 的存在，他担任了剑桥热带植物学教席，并吸引了一代剑桥学生从事热带雨林研究。毕业后，他在德比郡的雷普顿学校教授生物学，也许正是在那里他培养了自己的教学技能和兴趣。然而，剑桥第四纪研究分部的影响仍然存在，在皇家学会的资助下，他利用业余时间研究了赫布里底群岛 Canna 岛的植被历史。这给当时澳大利亚国立大学 (ANU) 堪培拉太平洋研究学院院长、前戈德温学生的唐纳德沃克留下了深刻的印象。沃克正在评估澳大拉西亚地区的第四纪植被历史，他为约翰提供了奖学金，让他攻读博士学位，从事新几内亚高地第四纪孢粉学研究。约翰的论文同样重视化石花粉的研究和现有植被的生态学研究，并为随后热带地区的孢粉学研究开创了先河。1967年加入赫尔大学地理系任讲师，并最终成为读者。在他的第一个自然环境研究委员会 (NERC) 研究申请中，他被建议在东非工作，“因为孢粉学已经被证明在那里提供了有用的结果”，但约翰想要解决全球问题，而不是本地问题，并提交了一份提案给研究马来西亚和印度尼西亚在世界上最多样化的热带森林中的第四纪植被历史，以前没有进行过孢粉学工作。正是在这个项目的实地工作期间，当我是约翰的研究助理，在苏门答腊中部的一个茶园露营并以咸牛肉和米饭为食时，他粗略地为他的书“热带雨林”编写了章节– 地质历史”，后来成为任何对热带植被第四纪历史研究感兴趣的人的圣经。在赫尔的晚年，约翰对《生物地理学杂志》的发展产生了影响，并最终成为了编辑，他担任了 10 多年的职位。他还帮助建立了赫尔生物地层学理学硕士课程，并与地质系的微古生物学家共同开设了该课程。他还对当地问题保持着兴趣，例如东约克郡和 DOI 的植被历史：10.1111/nzg.12200