Peter Sell 1931-2013. 

Peter Sell's funeral will be held at 2.30 pm on Thursday, 7th November, at St Peter & St Paul Parish Church, North End, Bassingbourn SG8 5PD and the burial will take place immediately after at Bassingbourn Cemetery. 

Peter Sell and Sarah Holme, Cambridge Botanic Garden
Image: P. Oswald

Peter's son Tim has said that botanist friends are welcome to attend the funeral and/or the burial, but has pointed out that a celebration of Peter's life is also being planned, at which botanists will be able to come together to pay tribute to this remarkable man and his contribution to British botany. 

Details will be posted here when available, but the location will be the Restaurant at the Cambridge Botanic Garden, where the photograph (right) was taken by Philip Oswald in June this year. Peter is seen here with botanical illustrator Sarah Holme, who is currently working on illustrations for Peter's and Gina Murrell's Flora of Great Britain and Ireland. 

Friends may wish to send flowers or donations to a nature-based charity, but there may be another way for botanists to pay tribute to Peter. The website of the Cambridge University Herbarium tells us that "1st January 2014 would have marked his 70th year working [in the herbarium], a milestone he anticipated with great pride". Offering one day's volunteering in a local herbarium might be a particularly fitting way for a botanist to celebrate Peter's life and work.