Research trips and alpine flowers
- Date:
- 20th century
- Reference:
- UGC 198/6/2
- Part of:
- Papers of Guido Pellegrino Arrigo Pontecorvo, geneticist, Professor of Genetics, University of Glasgow, Scotland
- Archives and manuscripts
About this work
Description
Box of slides from Pontecorvo's research trips abroad and slides of close-up shots of plants and flowers and their habitats, taken and used by Pontecorvo for his research into plants at high altitudes for a book that he was writing.
The Wellcome Library does not hold a digitised copy of UGC 198/6/2 as part of Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics. Items from UGC 198/6/2 can be viewed in the searchroom at Archive Services, University of Glasgow. Please visit the Glasgow University Archive Services website or see the complete catalogue for full details.
Publication/Creation
Physical description
Biographical note
A list of trips was found with the collections (likely to have been compiled by Pontecorvo's daughter, Lisa) and is as follows:
USA 1956: Trip to Boulder, Colorado and Estes Park in the Rockies with botanist Bill Webber after giving the New York Jessup lectures and en route for Pasadena to work;
Peru 1960: The Andes-Callejon de Huaylas in Cordillera Blanca after 3 months Royal Society exchange visitorship to Rio de Janeiro. Pontecorvo made it a condition to have the 4th month unpaid in Peru as they did not have the Royal Society exchange programme at that time. During this trip he also visited tropical rain forests in Brazil;
USA March-April 1961: Trip to Southern colleges including Tuskegee in Alabama, South Carolina, Athens, Georgia, and Utah to see Everglades and Blue Ridge Mountain;
USA 1967: Trip to Pullman, Washington State. Visited Portland, Oregan and Mount Hood, Seattle and Mount Rainier;
USA 1971: Visit to Middlebury Liberal Arts College in Vermont (so that he could go to Yucatan at Easter);
Portugal and Spain May-June 1973: Lecture tour to Lisbon and Coimbra with a visit to Serra da Estrella and, in Spain, lectures in Seville followed by a visit to Sierra de Cazorla with local botanists;
Iran Jan-June 1975: Shiraz University Royal Society exchange and visit to mountains with local botanists;
Tehran May-June 1975: Visit to Elburz;
India May-June 1979: Lecture trip with visit to three areas of the Himalayas;
China May-Jun 1988: Royal Society exchange visit included botanical visits to Tien Shan Mountains (Xinjiang) and Kunlun Mountains (Quinghai).
In addition to these research trips Pontecorvo also explored Scotland, parts of Europe and the Swiss Alps near his chalet in St Luc, Val d'Anniviers.