Who is Phil Forsline from The Botany of Desire and what is their importance?

Phil Forsline is, in the text, referred to as the curator of the Geneva Orchard, a sort of museum of apple tree varieties. Forsline is presented in the latter portion of Chapter 1, as a sort of horticultural expert on apples and their propagation. In the late 1990s, Forsline and others became concerned with preserving the apple's genetic diversity. The original range of the apple tree is thought to be Kazakhstan, and some of the oldest apple forests are threatened by human development. For this reason, Forsline and others made several expeditions to Kazakhstan and harvested large amounts of native seeds. Very little biographical data about Forsline is offered, though the author obviously holds a high opinion of Forsline's scientific reasoning.