John E. Braggins

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John Edward Braggins (9 August 1944 – 1 October 2025) was a New Zealand botanist who studied ferns and liverworts. He taught at the University of Auckland from 1969 to 2000 and helped many young botanists start their careers. He identified 12 plant species and one suborder, including several New Zealand liverworts.

Braggins was born in Wellington and grew up in Dannevirke. He moved back to Wellington for high school and developed an early love of ferns, helped by a book his parents gave him. He earned a Bachelor of Science in 1966 and a Master of Science in 1969 from Victoria University of Wellington, studying the fern Botrychium. In 1969 he moved to Auckland as a university lecturer and completed his PhD in 1975 on Pteris ferns.

During his career, Braggins teamed up with colleagues like Mark Large to produce the Spore Atlas of New Zealand Ferns and Fern Allies (1991) and the book Tree Ferns (2004). He broadened his focus to liverworts and hornworts, becoming one of New Zealand’s leading experts in liverworts. He described nine liverwort species and contributed to major reference works in the field.

After retiring from the University of Auckland in 2000, Braggins remained active as an honorary research associate at the Auckland War Memorial Museum and as a freelance botanical consultant. He helped identify two Libertia species (2002) and several Frullania liverworts (2003–2011), along with other liverworts in 2013. In 2015 the suborder Myliineae was formally described, a group he had identified in 2005 with J. J. Engel. In 2020 he helped establish that Pteris carsei is a distinct species from Pteris comans, a distinction he had noted in his 1975 PhD work.

Braggins died on 1 October 2025 at the age of 81. His work earned him several honors, including the Borg-Warner Robert O. Bass Visiting Scientist award (1999) and the Allan Mere Award (2013). In 2024 he became Associate Emeritus of the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Two species were named in his honor: Bragginsella anomala (1997) and Lepidozia bragginsiana (2014), recognizing his role in liverwort collecting and in mentoring younger scientists.