 He was jointly awarded the Hamilton Memorial Prize in 1966 from The Royal Society of New Zealand, the same year he was appointed to the editorial board of the "New Zealand Journal of Botany".Most of McNabb's later publications, largely published in this journal, were about fungal taxonomy.Fungus species named in honor of McNabb include "Paxillus mcnabbii" (now "Austropaxillus mcnabbii"), and "Entoloma mcnabbianum".