David Neill arriving by light plane in the remote Cordillera del Condor in 2001.

by Lou Jost, Fundacion EcoMinga

David Neill, a pioneering Ecuadorian botanist, professor, conservationist, and dear friend, has died on Feb 22, 2025. He was the world expert on Ecuadorian trees, with an unparalleled ability to identify them, and to teach others to identify them as well. He played a key role in many of our own careers, especially that of Javier Robayo, our Executive Director, and myself. He was always kind and generous with his time, without a trace of vanity or egoism. I have never heard anyone say anything bad about him.

I had gotten to know him in the late 1990s in Ecuador through my orchid work. I think he knew every serious botanist who worked in Ecuador. In 2000-2001, as curator of the Herbario Nacional and the Missouri Botanical Garden, he began his first deep expeditions to the highest parts of the Ecuadorian Cordillera del Condor, a very remote and almost unexplored roadless mountainous region with very unusual geology. David was the one of the first scientists to visit the region, and he became the leader of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s multi-year project to study the Cordillera. Its exploration quickly became the main focus of his professional life. David wrote about its global importance:

“…It may well have the “richest flora of any similar-sized area anywhere in the New World”
(Schulenberg & Awbrey, 1997) and it almost certainly has one of the highest
concentrations of vascular plant species yet unknown to science of any place on
earth.”

You can imagine my excitement when in 2001 he invited me, a beginning botanist, to accompany him to this amazing region on two of his deepest early expeditions. David had spent much time building a relationship with the resident Shuar community before the expedition, and had helped train several community members in modern biology. We arrived in small high-lift planes, landing on tiny grass airstrips hand-cleared by the Shuar in the middle of untouched forests. We then had to hike at Shuar speed for many days to get to our high mountain targets. We explored geologically-unusual mountains that even the resident Shuar had never visited; as David excitedly wrote about this trip: “We were not only the first botanists to reach the summit on that day in March 2001, but with our hosts we were the first humans, in living memory at least, to set foot on that mountain top.” I named one of the new plants I discovered there after him, Lepanthes neillii, in honor of his leadership of this challenging expedition. David led all these expeditions with gentleness and humor, discovering many new species of plants, and also discovering unexpected biogeographic patterns.

David Neill, John Clark, Wilson Quishpe in the Cordillera del Condor 2001. Photo: Lou Jost.

Lepanthes neillii, a new species from the Cordillera del Condor. Photo: Lou Jost.

Our current Executive Director, Javier Robayo, also visited the Cordillera del Condor with David as part of one of David’s tree identification classes in 2004. These trips with David were formative experiences for both of us, and the first of many botanical adventures we have had with him. David has written about the Cordillera del Condor here and here; I reported on these trips at the time here and here.

David was also a pioneer of conservation in Ecuador. In 1986 he co-founded the Jatun Sacha Foundation, which established the first system of multiple private protected areas, including Jatun Sacha itself, the Bilsa and Guandera reserves, and others protecting unique ecosystems throughout Ecuador. It was a forerunner of later systems like those of EcoMinga and Jocotoco Foundations, and we have benefited from his example.

David did important work in our Rio Anzu and Rio Zunac Reserves, playing a role in the discovery of two of our new Magnolia species and five Sciodaphyllum species. During these trips our reserve guards from the Recalde family impressed him greatly with their enthusiasm, knowledge, and fearless tree-climbing ability, and he later invited them to assist on some of his expeditions elsewhere in Ecuador. Our guards, like all of us who got to know him well, have a great affection for him, and they are deeply impacted by his loss.

David on the Rio Nangaritza, Cordillera del Condor a few years ago. Photo: Darwin Recalde

David was a keen mentor to beginning botanists. The number of people he has influenced, not only in Ecuador but also in Peru and Colombia via his international plant courses, is immense. All of us who have had the honor to know him will never forget him, and the many plant species named after him are a fitting memorial to his impact: