Peter V. Bruyns has a PhD in Mathematics from Oxford University (1986), where he was a Rhodes Scholar from 1981 to 1983. He has taught mathematics at the University of Cape Town since 1986. In 1993 he obtained an MSc in Botany at the University of Cape Town and is also affiliated to the Bolus Herbarium at that university. He has been involved in studying succulent plants since 1970, with over 100 publications in a wide range of peer-reviewed journals, mainly on the Systematics and Evolution of the families Apocynaceae, Crassulaceae, Didiereaceae, Euphorbiaceae and the Aizoaceae. These contributions include a widely acclaimed, monographic work in 2 volumes, Stapeliads of southern Africa and Madagascar, published by Umdaus Press in 2005, for which the University of Cape Town conferred its Book Award for 2010 on the author. Prof. Bruyns has explored many little-known areas of southern Africa, during which some 12000 herbarium specimens have been made. He has discovered several new species during the course of these travels, including at least six species of Euphorbia, of which one, E. bruynsii, was named after him in 1984 by L.C. Leach.