Rupert Barneby; Self-Taught Expert on Plants

Rupert C. Barneby, 89, international authority on beans who named hundreds of plant species as curator of the New York Botanical Garden. Barneby was born in England and educated at Harrow and at Cambridge University. He was passionate about plants, insects and fossils as a child, but his father disapproved of any career that did not involve the army, navy or the church. So Barneby moved to America, landing first in Hollywood. With his companion and fellow eccentric, Harry Dwight Ripley, he collected rare plants in the Mojave Desert. After moving to New York in 1943, he built mammoth rock gardens in homes on Long Island and in upstate New York. Eventually, he made friends with the staff of the New York Botanical Garden. He became honorary curator of Western botany in 1959 and curator in 1980. Barneby was self-taught in botany and specialized in taxonomy, the science of classifying organisms into related groups. He had three genera, or groups of species (Barnebya, Barnebyella and Barnebydendron), and 25 species named after him. He also wrote five major botanical books for which he made fine pencil drawings. On Dec. 5 in the Bronx, N.Y.