Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria
Australian National Herbarium
BIOGRAPHY
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He died 2nd June, 1895 at Moyston, near Ararat, Victoria,
In charge of Moyston School (near Ararat) for 27 years. To give us an adequate picture of Grampians vegetation, he combed the Ranges, compiling the first breviary of their flora, "Native Plants of the Grampians and their Vicinity"- ten papers in volumes II and III of Wings Southern Science Record (1882-83). Mosses were also systematically collected (q.v.).
Sullivan records an amusing circumstance connected with his location of Aotus on heathland at the foot-hills. Four suspicious men rode up on horseback to see what he was doing, and held a "pow-wow" on the best course of action. One thought him to be a surveyor, another an artist but the third and fourth maintained that he was a fugitive from the Kelly Gang.
Source: Willis, J.H. (1949) Botanical pioneers in Victoria - III. Victorian Naturalist 66:123-128
Was an active collector of mosses on and about the Grampians in the 1870's and 1880's, his material going to C. Muller who named several species after him. Using Muller's determinations, Sullivan wrote ' Mosses of Victoria, with Brief Notes' (Vic. Nat. IV, p. 106, Nov. 1887) wherein he mentions having collected 200 species from different parts of the Colony.
Source: Willis, J.H. (1949) Botanical pioneers in Victoria-II. Victorian Naturalist 66:103-109
Following is a list of his papers, so far as I can ascertain them :-
"On the Victorian Ranunculaceae" (abstract), (Vict. Nat., i., 19); "
"The Epacridaceae of the Grampians" (Vict. Nat.., ii" 23);
"Native Plants of the Grampians and Vicinity" (six papers in vol. ii. and four papers in vol, iii.);
"Droseraceae -Sundews " (ii., 202);
"Victorian Leguminosae" (Wing's Southern Science Record, ii" 249., 275);
'Mosses of Victoria, with brief Notes " (Wing's Southern Science Record., iv., 106).
He is commemorated by:
Caleya sullivani, F. v. M.,
Dicranum sullivani, C. M. (a moss).
Source: Maiden, J.H. (1908). Records of Victorian Botanists. Victorian Naturalist 25:101-117