Leslie Charles Leach

Who was Leslie Charles Leach?

Leslie Charles Leach "Larry" was a Rhodesian taxonomic botanist.

Leach arrived in Rhodesia in 1938 and carried on business in Salisbury as an electrical engineer. He developed an interest in succulent plants, particularly Stapeliae, Euphorbieae and the genus Aloe. He gave up the business world in 1956 and devoted himself to a self-financed taxonomic study of the three groups with a special interest in the "Flora Zambesiaca" region. He collected extensively in Mozambique and East Africa, also covering Angola, South West Africa and South Africa.

Between 1972-81 Leach worked as Honorary Botanist of the staff of Rhodesia's National Herbarium and described himself as 'probably Rhodesia's only unpaid civil servant'. He coerced the Aloe, Cactus and Succulent Society of Rhodesia into producing a taxonomic series supplementary to Excelsa. Consequently four volumes, including monographs of the Stapeliae, Orbea, Stapelia, Huernia and Tridentea, were authored by Leach and published between 1878-88.

In 1981 he settled in South Africa, working at the National Botanic Garden at Worcester from 1982-89, and finishing his work on the succulent Stapeliae of Southern Africa, publishing the results in Excelsa.