Career
Lyndley ("Lyn") Craven worked for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation plant taxonomy unit of the New Guinea Survey Group, Division of Land Research and Regional Survey from 1964 to 1967. This was part of a unit that became the Australian National Herbarium, Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research. Craven"s duties included botanical support for land resources surveys.
Craven then left to study horticulture at Burnley Horticultural College, Victoria earning the degree of Diploma of Horticultural Science in 1970 before being briefly employed by the Parks and Gardens Branch of Department of the Interior, Canberra.
Participant of this department later became the Canberra Botanic Garden and eventually the Australian National Herbarium, Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research at the Australian National Botanic Gardens. In 1984, he earned the Degree of Master of Science from Macquarie University.
Craven was employed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation at the National Herbarium from 1971, until his retirement in 2009 from the position of Principal Research Scientist. Craven continued his association with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation as a post-retirement fellow, working actively on a range of taxonomic projects.
Craven worked on the genera Melaleuca and Syzygium (Family Myrtaceae) and related groups as well as Australian representatives of the genera Hibiscus and Gossypium.
He had many other interests including the herbarium library, botanical Latin, and agri-horticultural botany. Plant collecting was also a high priority. Lithops hermetica.