Bernhardt, Peter   (1952 -  )

Born in 1952 in Brooklyn, USA;

He was was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1952 and grew up on Long Island.

His interest in natural history developed thanks to the woodland reserve two blocks from his house, his summer attendance at Meroke Day Camp and the influence of local plant breeder and garden designer, the late Joseph Reis.

His 1974 BA in Biology came from the State University of New York at Oswego and he credits his first attempt at botanical research (a project on how prickly pear cacti grow spines) to Professor James Seago.

After taking his Masters Degree in Biology from the State University of New York at Brockport in 1975 Peter spent over two years in the Peace Corps at the University of El Salvador in Central America collecting plants for the university's herbarium and teaching undergraduate courses and conducting field studies on the pollination.

After a few months as a technician at the New York Botanical Garden in 1977 he was contributing articles to their now defunct magazine, 'Garden'.

In 1977 he accepted a doctoral scholarship at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where he studied the breeding systems of box mistletoes (Amyema) under Malcolm Calder and Bruce Knox.

During his post-doc years at the Plant Cell Biology Research Center at Melbourne Uni he studied the pollination of wattles, canola plants, hibbertias and Thelymitra, Prasophyllum and Dipodium orchids.

He and his Australian wife, Linda, returned to the United States in 1984 where he became a a Professor of Biology at Saint Louis University, Missouri and a Research Associate of both the Missouri Botanical Garden (St. Louis, USA) and the Royal Botanic Gardens of Sydney (Australia).

His fieldwork in pollination biology took him to Kansas, Missouri and Oregon and abroad to Australia, Israel and China.

A sabbatical in 2009 took him back to Australia where he and Retha Meier studied how blue sun orchids (Thelymitra) are pollinated by native bees and why blue-flowered species often hybridize with each other or with the yellow lemon orchid (Thelytmitra antennifera). Consequently, his many books on plant life are often based on real experiences he's enjoyed in the field, the laboratory and his own home garden.

He is often a foreign correspondent and commentator for the ABC's 'The Science Show' with Robyn Williams.

In 2022, he received the scientific outreach award from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (the Peter raven Award) for outstanding contributions to public education in Systematic Botany.

Source: Extracted from:
https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/a2ab10edaf1f3932e3f63675178fe15c
https://independent.academia.edu/BernhardtPeter
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Bernhardt-2
Portrait Photo: 2026, Web, promo for book.

Collecting localities for 'Bernhardt, P.' from AVH (2026)

Data from 303 specimens