Thomas Robert Noel Lothian OBE, NDH (NZ), LFRAIPR, JP (25 December 1915 – 24 September 2004) was a long-term director of the Adelaide Botanic Garden and an Australian botanist. Lothian was born on 25 December 1915 in the Melbourne suburb of Mont Albert. After completing school at Scotch College, Melbourne, he studied at Burnley Horticultural College. He worked in botanical gardens in Melbourne and at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens in New Zealand, then started study at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1938. Lothian was an exchange student at the Munich Botanic Garden when the Second World War broke out, catching the last train out of Germany in 1939. After returning to the United Kingdom to complete studies at Kew Gardens, he joined the Australian Army and as a lieutenant managed army fa