Braam van Wyk is a member of the lecturing staff at the University of Pretoria, where he is a professor in the department of plant science. He did his tertiary training at the Potchefstroom University for Christian higher education and the University of Pretoria. Braam is a plant taxonomist and has authored or co-authored numerous publications on the botany of southern Africa, including several books. Among his published works are Field guide to the wild flowers of the Highveld (Struik, 1997), How to identify trees in southern Africa (Struik, 2007) and Field guide to trees of southern Africa (Struik, 2013).