Otto Vernon Darbishire

Otto Vernon Darbishire (16 March 1870 – 17 October 1934) was a British botanist who specialised in marine algae and lichens. He served as a lecturer at several institutions, including the universities of Manchester, Newcastle, and Bristol, where he became the first Melville Wills Professor of Botany. Darbishire was recognised for his contributions to lichenology, particularly his taxonomic work on the genus Roccella. He was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1920 and served as president of the British Mycological Society and the Bristol Naturalists' Society. Several lichen species have been named in his honour, and he introduced important terminological concepts to the field.