Ronald Melville

British botanist (1903-1985).

Ronald Melville (12 March 1903 – 6 August 1985) was an English botanist, based at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. He is chiefly remembered for his wartime research into rosehips as a source of vitamin C, prompted by the epidemic of scurvy amongst children owing to the reduced importation of fresh fruit. His research concluded that hips from the common Dog Rose, Rosa canina, held the highest concentration of the vitamin. In later years, he challenged the two-species taxonomy of the British elms proposed by Richens, identifying five distinct species, several varieties and numerous complex hybrid