Alastair Robinson

Alastair S. Robinson (born 1980) is a taxonomist and field botanist specialising in the carnivorous plant genus Nepenthes, for which he is regarded as a world authority.

[1][2] He is currently Manager Biodiversity Services at the National Herbarium of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, where he oversees identification and field botany services, the Victorian Conservation Seedbank, the Library and Artwork components of the State Botanical Collection, and the botanical journal Muelleria,[3] a peer-reviewed scientific journal on botany published by the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria,[4] for which he is Editor in Chief.

In 2007, Robinson co-discovered the giant Palawan pitcher plant, Nepenthes attenboroughii, for which he published the formal description and diagnosis in 2009, speculating on the paleogeographical evidence for the radiative speciation of an enigmatic group of ultramafic Philippine and Malaysian Nepenthes from a common ancestor on the island of Borneo.

[9][10] A slipper orchid endemic to Sulawesi, Indonesia, was commemoratively named Paphiopedilum robinsonianum after this authority following its discovery in 2013.

Specialisms also include stapeliads (Apocynaceae), terrestrial orchids, ecology and conservation biology.