G.F. Laundon

Gillian Fiona Laundon (7 May 1938 – 8 February 1984) was a New Zealand-based mycologist with a focus on plant pathology and taxonomy.

Born Geoffry Frank Laundon on 7 May 1938 in Kettering, England to parents Frank and Marjorie, Laundon was educated at the University of Sheffield, receiving a B.Sc. honours degree (second class, 1st division) in Botany in 1959. Later in 1959 he became an assistant mycologist (later mycologist) at the Commonwealth Mycological Institute and specialised on rust fungi. In 1963 he married Margaret Keay Cox, and over the next several years had three children with her. In 1965 he emigrated to New Zealand and became mycologist at the Plant Health & Diagnostic Station at Levin, New Zealand and continued to research the taxonomy and nomenclature of rusts.

Gender transition

In 1977, in a highly unusual step at the time, Laundon publicly announced her gender transition in a scientific journal, taking the name Gillian Fiona Laundon, while still continuing with her research. Throughout this transition she had the support of her wife and their children and colleagues. In later years now known informally as Gillian Cox she (with her wife) set up an information and support service for transsexuals called "Transformation".

Laundon specialised on rust fungi (Urediniomycetes), first publishing new species in 1963. Among his most important contributions was a new system of spore terminology published in 1967, which was controversial at the time but was generally accepted by the time of her death. Laundon was an active member of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy and was on the Special Committee for Fungi and Lichens for a number of years, served on four international committees dealing with fungus nomenclature, and was invited to investigate the nomenclature of rust genera and write a chapter for Index Nominum Genericorum. Laundon was the first to realise there were two species involved when the poplar rusts were first found in New Zealand in 1972, a claim not verified until samples of the spores were examined with an electron microscope. She made significant contributions to the known plant pathogens in New Zealand, publishing many first reports of fungal diseases.

Laundon's interests were broader than just mycology. She designed and built a light meter that could be used for taking photographs through a microscope, and light incubators for a mycology laboratory, as well as learning to programme computers.

Over her career she collected at least 211 specimens and identified 539 that are in formal herbaria or culture collections. She also had the species Phoma laundoniae named in her honour.