Collections & Research Staff

Timothy A. Dickinson
Senior Curator

B.Sc., Botany and Biochemistry, McGill University, 1969
M.Sc., Biology, McGill University, 1974
Ph.D., Plant Systematics, University of Western Ontario, 1983

Timothy A. Dickinson is Senior Curator of Botany at the Museum, and oversees the ROM's Green Plant Herbarium (TRT).

As a child, Tim was intrigued by illustrations in science books of things like pollen tubes and flatworms, and he would look for pollen tubes in the flowers of discarded Easter lilies. In high school, he talked his way into a scientist's lab at a nearby university, where he learned how to section planaria, a flatworm that he collected under rocks in a suburban stream, cultured, and embedded in plastic. Nothing came of his attempt to create giant planaria by treating them with a carcinogen, or by keeping them in a greased bowl, but the planaria did reproduce, and he learned about basic lab methods and microscopy.

In university, Tim enjoyed learning about plants and fungi in small botany classes. After graduation, he found a job in the herpetology department of a university museum cataloguing specimens collected from around the world, many of them by his boss’ graduate students. After he audited a vertebrate evolution course, he decided that he would rather be a graduate student than a curatorial assistant, and returned to the discipline of botany for his field of study.

For his M.Sc. research, Tim studied two plants in which the flower clusters are found on the leaves, instead of being attached to the stems. He found that in the case of Helwingia japonica, the flower cluster arises in the “normal” location, but is then carried up onto the leaf blade as the leaf develops. In Phyllonoma integerrima, however, the flower cluster actually arises just below the tip of the young leaf. This work left him unsatisfied, because it was all done in the lab using specimens primarily collected by others.

Tim’s Ph.D. research on hawthorns gave him a chance to work both in the field and in the lab, and began his career of trying to understand the relationship between hawthorn taxonomy and hawthorn reproductive biology. As a cross-appointed Associate Professor of Botany in the University of Toronto’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tim and his students are documenting hawthorn reproductive behavior and working to develop an appropriate classification.

In addition to his many scientific publications arising from his research endeavours, Tim is also a co-author of The ROM Field Guide to Wildflowers of Ontario, which earned the Canadian Museums Association Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Canadian Museum Publishing” in 2004.

Recent Publications

2009	Lo, E.Y.Y., S. Stefanović, and T.A. Dickinson. "Population genetic structure of diploid sexual and polyploid apomictic hawthorns (Crataegus; Rosaceae) in the Pacific Northwest." Molecular Ecology, 18(6): 1145-1160.
2009	Lo, E.Y.Y., S. Stefanović, K.I. Christensen, and T.A. Dickinson. "Evidence for genetic association between East Asian and Western North American Crataegus L. (Rosaceae) and rapid divergence of the Eastern North American lineages based on multiple DNA sequences." Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution, 51: 157-168.
2008	Dickinson, T.A., Lo, E.Y.Y., Talent, N., and R.M. Love. "Black-fruited hawthorns of western North America - one or more agamic complexes?" Botany/Botanique, 86(8): 846-865.
2007	Dickinson, T. and N. Talent. "How they do that - To catch a clone.” Rotunda, 40(3): 45-46.
2007	Talent, N. and T.A. Dickinson. "Ploidy level increases and decreases in seeds from crosses between sexual diploids and apomictic triploids and tetraploids in Crataegus L. (Rosaceae, Spiraeoideae, tribe Pyreae)." Canadian Journal of Botany, 85: 570-584.
2007	Dickinson, T.A., E. Lo, and N. Talent. "Polyploidy, reproductive biology, and Rosaceae: understanding evolution and making classifications." Plant Systematics and Evolution, 266(1-2): 59-78.
2007	Lo, E., S. Stefanovic, and T.A. Dickinson. "Molecular reappraisal of relationships between Crataegus and Mespilus (Rosaceae, Pyreae) – two genera or one?” Systematic Botany, 32(3): 596-616.
2007	Talent, N. and T.A. Dickinson. “Endosperm formation in aposporous Crataegus L. (Rosaceae, Spiraeoideae, tribe Pyreae): parallels to Ranunculaceae and Poaceae.” New Phytologist, 173: 231-249.
2005	Talent, N. and T.A. Dickinson. “Polyploidy in Crataegus and Mespilus (Rosaceae, Maloideae): evolutionary inferences from flow cytometry of nuclear DNA amounts.” Canadian Journal of Botany, 83(10): 1268-1304.
2005	Evans, R.C. and T.A. Dickinson. “Floral Ontogeny and Morphology in Gillenia (“Spiraeoideae”) and Subfamily Maloideae C. Weber (Rosaceae).” International Journal of Plant Science, 166(3): 427–447.
2004	Dickinson, T., D. Metsger, J. Bull, and R. Dickinson. The ROM Field Guide to Wildflowers of Ontario. Toronto: ROM/McClelland & Stewart.
1999	Evans, R.C. and T.A. Dickinson. “Floral ontogeny and morphology in subfamily Spiraeoideae (Rosaceae).”  International Journal of Plant Science, 160(5): 981-1012. [NOTE: R.C. Evans was awarded the Canadian Botanical Association’s "Taylor A. Steeves Award in Plant Structure and Development" for this paper at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the CBA/ABC]

ROM Images
Plants

Other Links
University of Toronto Faculty Page
Dickinson Lab
The ROM Field Guide to Wildflowers of Ontario - sample pages
The ROM Green Plant Herbarium

Contact Information
Royal Ontario Museum
Department of Natural History
100 Queen's Park
Toronto, ON  
M5S 2C6

Tel: 416.586.8032
Fax: 416.586.7921/5553
E-mail: Timothy Dickinson

 

 

Tim Dickinson in his office at the ROM. Photo credit: Deb Metsger.

With pole pruner eyeing a specimen to collect in Georgia, 1986. Photo credit: Meher Shaik.

Cockspur hawthorn (Crataegus crus-galli) in Georgia. © N. Talent