Researching Arthur Exell

Exell's first contact with Africa was in 1932/3 when he travelled to the islands in the Gulf of Guinea – São Tomé and Principe, Bioko and Annobón. His reports on the expedition were published in 1944 as a "Catalogue of the Vascular Plants of S. Tome", which for many years served as the standard reference to the islands' flora. The expedition also acquainted Exell with the Portuguese botanists Luis Carrisso and Francisco de Ascensão Mendonça of Coimbra University. Accompanied by them and his wife, Exell launched into a study of the flora of Angola, at that time a Portuguese colony. Also in their group was John Gossweiler (1873–1952), the government botanist in Angola. During the journey Carrisso suffered a fatal heart attack. Exell continued his collaboration with Coimbra University and Mendonça, publishing the first volume of the "Conspectus Florae Angolensis" (1937–1951).

During the Second World War, Exell's knowledge of Portuguese – he was also fluent in French and German – led to his being seconded to the Government Communications Headquarters at Bletchley Park, and working as a cryptographer in Cheltenham. Returning to the British Museum (Natural History) in 1950, he founded the 'Association pour l'Etude Taxonomique de la Flore d'Afrique Tropicale' (AETFAT) and started the Flora Zambesiaca project, the flora covering the catchment area of the Zambesi River, which at the time comprised the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Bechuanaland, the Caprivi strip and Mozambique. He visited the region in 1955 with Mendonça to make further collections. He was co-editor of Flora Zambesiaca from 1962 onwards, and was awarded a D.Sc. by the University of Coimbra in Portugal in 1962. In 1971 the Portuguese government conferred on him the 'Comendador Da Ordem De Santiago da Espada'. He also received the Order of the British Empire in 1961, and was a member of the Linnean Society of London and other scientific societies.

Exell left the British Museum as Deputy Keeper of Botany in 1962. Working from home, he carried out part-time work for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. On his retirement, he and his wife moved to the village of Blockley in the Cotswolds, becoming involved in local affairs.