Augustine Chikuni

Augustine Charles Chikuni was born on 25 October 1964 in a small village in Chiradzulu District, Malawi, the second-born son from a family of four children. He completed his primary schooling at Chimwalira School (1970–1979), near Nasawa Technical School, Zomba District, and secondary education at Mwanza Secondary School in Mwanza District (1979–1983). In August 1983, he went to Bunda College of Agriculture, University of Malawi, where he completed a B.Sc. (Agric.) in 1988. After his B.Sc. course he was employed as an Assistant Scientific Officer at the National Herbarium and Botanic Gardens of Malawi (NHBG). Realising that he had very little taxonomic background, he attended a short course in plant taxonomy at the Biology Department, Chancellor College, University of Malawi.

At the NHBG he was involved in the planning of the XIIIth AETFAT Congress, which took place in Zomba in April 1991. In October 1991, he went to Reading University, UK, where he completed an M.Sc. degree in Applied Plant and Fungal Taxonomy. He studied the genus Achyrospermum Blum. (Labiatae) from southern Tropical Africa. He returned to Malawi in October 1992 and continued as a Scientific Officer at the NHBG. On his return to Malawi he was requested by Prof. J.H. Senyani to assist with editing the proceedings of the plenary sessions of the XIIIth AETFAT Congress; the proceedings were published in 1994.

In 1995, Augustine was awarded a scholarship by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission to do a D.Phil. at the Plant Sciences Department, Oxford University, UK. He innocently chose to study the genus Brachystegia Benth. for his D.Phil. Although Brachystegia is one of the most difficult tropical African genera, he managed to complete a wide-ranging monographic study of the genus. He is at the moment preparing a monograph and a Flora zambesiaca account of Brachystegia. On returning to Malawi in February 1999, he continued as a Scientific Officer until November 1999, when he was appointed Acting Director of the NHBG. He acted as the National SABONET Coordinator for Malawi until June 2003.

Augustine is interested in ethnobotanical research, especially botanical pesticides and medicinal plant research. He is also interested in the systematics of tropical African Caesalpinioideae legumes, especially Brachystegia, Isoberlinia, and Julbernardia. Having used morphological characters in the taxonomic study of Brachystegia, he feels that molecular techniques should be used to sort out infrageneric classification, species relationships, and also the relationships of Brachystegia with other genera.

He liked climbing little hills and fishing as a young lad, and enjoyed singing gospel songs while at college. He now enjoys watching football and listening to music during his spare time.

SABONET News 5.1: 3