Pole-Evans was born in Llanmaes in the Vale of Glamorgan, the son of an Anglican clergyman, Daniel Evans and Caroline Jane Pole.

He was educated at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, receiving a BSc in 1903 and going on to Cambridge where he studied mycology and plant pathology under Harry Marshall Ward FRS, obtaining an MA in 1905.

Pole-Evans was appointed as mycologist and plant pathologist, and joined Burtt Davy in the newly established Transvaal Department of Agriculture.

This resulted in a preliminary account entitled "The Plant Geography of South Africa", in which he recognised 19 botanical regions, each with distinctive ecological characteristics.

In 1930 Pole-Evans accompanied John Hutchinson and Jan Smuts on a two-month expedition through Southern and Northern Rhodesia to Nyasaland and Lake Tanganyika.

In the company of C. J. J. van Rensburg, an agrostologist, and J. Erens, a plant and seed collector, he set off on a four-month odyssey covering some 20,000 km (12,000 mi).

On this trip they travelled through Southern Rhodesia and Tanganyika to Kenya, going as far north as the border with Sudan and Abyssinia, returning through Uganda, the Ruwenzoris and the Belgian Congo.

[2][3] His dedication to botany in the service of the Department of Agriculture, set a high standard for a whole generation of South African botanists, inspiring an unparalleled expansion in the country's botanical science.