Biographies of scientists and explorers
honored in the names of plants 
shown on this web site 

Last names beginning with N-Z on this page.   A-F   G-M

Navarrete, Francisco Fernandez, (d.1742): Spanish botanist, physician, and philosopher in the court of King Felipe V of Spain.  The genus Navarretia was named for him by Spanish botanists Ruiz and Pavon in 1794.  Navarretia breweri  Navarretia sinistra subspecies sinistra

Nelson, Aven, 1859-1952: Professor of Botany at the University of Wyoming, President of the University,  and founder of the Rocky Mountain Herbarium at Laramie.  He botanized extensively in the Rocky Mountains and published such seminal works as his 1896 First Report on the Flora of Wyoming and his 1903 revision of John Coulter's Manual of Rocky Mountain Botany, newly titled, New Manual of Botany of the Central Rocky Mountains.

Newberry, John Strong, 1822-1892: American physician, geologist, paleontologist, botanist, and Professor at Columbia University's School of Mines.  In 1855 he was assistant-surgeon and geologist in Lieutenant Williamson's exploration between San Francisco and the Columbia River.  With the 1857-1858 Ives Expedition he was the first geologist to see and describe the Grand Canyon.  He was in the Macomb Expedition which explored the San Juan and upper Colorado Rivers in 1859, was appointed by Congress to the founding Governing Board of the National Academy of Sciences, was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1867) and President of the New York Academy of Sciences (1867-91), and was an organizer and first vice-president of the Geological Society of North America.  Hymenopappus newberryi,  Cymopterus newberryi

Nocca, Domenico, 1758-1841: Italian clergyman, Director of the Botanical Garden of Montova, Italy, Director of the Botanical Gardens of the University of Pavia in Italy from 1797-1826, and Chair of the Botany Department from 1802-?   Noccaea montana

Nuttall, Thomas, 1786-1859: Avid, expert, and intrepid collector, plant taxonomist, botanical writer, ornithologist, and Professor.  Nuttall came to the U.S. from England in 1807 and in 1808 met, learned from, and began making collecting trips for famed University of Pennsylvania Professor and naturalist, Benjamin Barton.

In 1810 on Nuttall's third Barton collecting trip, this one to the Great Lakes, he learned of a John Jacob Astor Company trip up the Missouri, headed to St. Louis instead of to Philadelphia and Barton, and in the spring of 1811 headed West on a collecting journey. Nuttall collected along the route the Lewis and Clark Expedition had covered, but whereas Nuttall's collection made it East to be studied; much of Lewis' collection was lost (see Lewis). Nuttall's companions on this and all his trips were amazed at his enthusiasm, his devotion to collecting, and his total joy in the beauty of the world they traveled through. 

Nuttall amassed a considerable collection on the Astor trip and intended to take it to Barton, but when he returned to St. Louis in the fall of 1811 he, as a British citizen, felt it more prudent to return to England (via New Orleans) than risk being caught up in the imminent War of 1812.

Photo, Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

In England Nuttall began work on his collection for Barton, and he met with Frederick Pursh and discussed their various collections. Friction between Nuttall and Pursh (over what we would call "intellectual rights", i.e., who should receive credit for which discoveries and which plant names were to be accepted) soon prompted frantic publishing by Nuttall and Pursh in order to gain first credit. Both published a number of articles and Pursh published the two volume Flora Americae Septentrionalis (1814). Nuttall returned to the U.S. and published his own two volume work, Genera of North American Plants (1818). (The entire text of this publication can be read on-line at http://www.botanicus.org/title/b11912170 ). 

Nuttall went on to make many more collecting expeditions, he wrote an acclaimed ornithology text book, and he became Harvard Professor of Natural History in 1823. Nuttall resigned from Harvard when his friend Nathaniel Wyeth asked him to join his 1834-1837 expedition to the Oregon coast.  Nuttall suggested asking his young acquaintance, ornithologist John Townsend, to be on the trip and this turned out to be a fortuitous choice since Townsend was not only an excellent birder (his drawings were used by Audubon in Birds of America ) but also a good writer who chronicled the expedition in his very interesting journal, Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River (1839).  Nuttall and Townsend amassed significant collections (including some from Hawaii which they visited two winters): Townsend collected hundreds of bird specimens and Nuttall collected thousands of plants which he, Gray, and Torrey described and published about six years later in Torrey and Gray's, Flora of North America.  Nuttall published The North American Sylva from 1842 to 1849. 

Astragalus nuttallianus,  Delphinium nuttallianum, Calochortus nuttallii, Monolepis nuttalliana, Nuttallia pterosperma, Viola nuttallii

Osterhout, George Everett, 1858-1937: Amateur botanist and naturalist who moved to Colorado and collected extensively for many decades.  He published a series of journal articles detailing his botanical findings under the title of "New Plants from Colorado".  Nelson and Rydberg cited his collections often in their publications.  Penstemon osterhoutii

Packer, John George, 1929-: Canadian botanist, Professor of Botany at the University of Alberta (1958-1988), Professor Emeritus.  Co-author with Cheryl Bradley of Checklist of the rare vascular plants in Alberta (1984), one of the editors of the English edition of Flora of the Russian Arctic (2000), co-author with his wife of Some Common and Interesting Plants of San Miguel de Allende (Mexico). He also revised E. H. Moss's Flora of Alberta (1983) and worked to protect Mountain Park in the Canadian Rockies from an open-pit coal mine. Specializes in plant systematics. Contributor to the Flora of North America.  Packera crocata , Packera dimorphophylla, Packera multilobata, Packera neomexicana, Packera oodes, Packera pseudaurea, Packera mancosana, Packera werneriifolia

Palmer, Edward, 1829-1911: Prolific botanical collector in the Southwest and in Mexico.  Collected over 100,000 species, among which were 1,000 new to science.  Palmer was interested in native uses of plants and he is credited as one of the founders of ethnobotany.  He is considered one of the most productive amateur collectors ever.  Palmer made his living by selling collections he made to museums in the United States and England.   Cleomella palmeriana

Parry, Charles Christopher, 1823-1890: Highly respected and loved Doctor, explorer, and naturalist; member of various Western botanical surveys including the acclaimed Mexican Boundary Survey (see this on-line source for the Survey reports by Parry, Torrey, and Engelmann); first botanist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture; collected in Colorado and nearby states for forty-eight years; named at least six Colorado peaks (including Gray's Peak and Torrey's Peak); widely publicized the flora of the West to encourage horticulture and the settling of the new lands he had explored. 

Parry met John Torrey in 1845, George Engelmann in 1848, and Joseph Hooker in 1870. In 1872 he led Asa Gray and nineteen others to the top of Gray's Peak (14,274 feet) to formalize the naming of the peak.

Photo, National Library of Medicine

In the summer of 1862 he led Eastern farmers and sometimes collectors, Elihu Hall and J. P. Harbour, on a Colorado collecting expedition which gathered ten sets of over 700 species.  This remains, according to William Weber, "the largest [collection] [ever] made in Colorado in a single season".  Asa Gray, who described the collection, said, "[it] is full, excellent, and of great interest".  See Hall and Harbour.

Parry was, according to Weber's book, King of Colorado Botany (an appellation given him by the eminent Joseph Hooker), "the first resident Colorado botanist".  On and off for twenty years he spent his summers in a cabin at the base of Gray and Torrey's peak and collected voraciously, specializing in alpine plants. "Through the distribution of his botanical collections he introduced the Colorado flora to the world." 

Parry was a believer in Manifest Destiny, and wanted his discoveries of the beauties of Colorado to entice others to come to Colorado and "build a mountain empire".

Parry collected about one hundred new Colorado species, including the following plants shown on this web site: Engelmann Spruce and Colorado Blue Spruce,  Campanula parryi, Pedicularis parryi, Penstemon harbourii, Polemonium foliosissimum, Primula parryi, Clementsia rhodantha, Ligularia amplectens, Trifolium parryi, Trollius albiflorus. 

Eighty new Colorado species were named for Parry including the following shown on this web site: Primula parryi,  Lomatium parryi, Oreochrysum parryi, Pedicularis parryi, Pneumonanthe parryi, Trifolium parryi, Campanula parryi, Arnica parryi,  Oxytropis parryi.  (See also Porter.)

Patterson, Harry Norton, 1853-1919: Illinois newspaper publisher and amateur botanist who visited Colorado often.  He took over the Oquawka Spectator which he and his wife, Florence, published after his father, Edward (or Edwin) H. N. Patterson moved to Denver in 1875.  (Patterson, the elder, was well known.  He and Eugene Field were associates of Edgar Allen Poe and had attempted to have Poe move to Oquawka.  Patterson also corresponded with Poe about financing Poe's longed-for literary magazine, the "Stylus", but Poe died of alcohol poisoning before the two could work out the publishing details.)

H. N. Patterson was a correspondent with prominent American botanists of the time and he printed botanical labels for many collectors.  His botanical collections are housed in a number of herbaria around the United States.  In 1874 Patterson wrote A List of plants collected in the vicinity of Oquawka, Henderson County, Ills.  Of this list Patterson said, "709 species are enumerated (not including mosses), and of these I have found 654 within three miles of Oquawka."   In 1892 Patterson published "Patterson's Numbered Check-list of North American Plants North of Mexico". (Click to read.) 

Asa Gray named Astragalus pattersonii from a specimen "collected by Mr. H. N. Patterson [in 1876?]... in the foothills of Gore Mountains, Colorado".  (Asa Gray's words as quoted in "T. S. Brandegee's 1876 "The Flora of Southwestern Colorado", part of the Hayden Survey Report.)  Astragalus pattersonii,  Draba fladnizensis variety pattersonii

Porter, Thomas Conrad, 1822-1901: Professor of Botany at Pennsylvania's Lafayette College, Colorado flora collector, and participant in the Hayden Survey.  In 1874 he and John Coulter published the first Colorado Flora, Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado which, in Porter's words in the preface addressed to Hayden, drew "chiefly on collections made in 1861 and succeeding years, by Dr. C. C . Parry, whose indefatigable labors have added so much to our knowledge of the flora of... [Colorado]".  Many other collectors were consulted for this volume which, in Porter's words, described "all species not contained in Gray's Manual..." and other major botanical guides.

Three points that Hayden's makes in his "Prefatory Note" to the Synopsis are particularly interesting: Hayden tells us that this volume "is intended to be [one of] a series of [natural history] "handbooks", [and since] the mountain regions of Colorado are now so accessible to the traveling public ... this [book] will prove a most valuable aid to students and travelers who are annually visiting Colorado in great numbers". Thirdly, Hayden notes that the "mountainous portions [of Colorado] ... resemble the Alpine districts of Central Europe, not only in the scenery, but also in the ... vegetation".   Thus by at least 1874 field guides were being written, Colorado tourism was already booming, and botanists had noticed the similarities of Colorado montane flora to the montane flora of other regions of the world (see Hooker).  Ligusticum porteri

Preuss, Charles, 1803-1854: Highly acclaimed topographer and artist with Nicollet's and Fremont's expeditions. Preuss kept diaries which were published by Gudde and Gudde: Exploring with Fremont: The Private Diaries of Charles Preuss, Cartographer for John C. Fremont on His First, Second, Second, and Fourth Expeditions to the Far West.      Astragalus preussii

Pursh, Frederick, 1774-1820: Botanist, collector, author. Pursh came to the U.S. from Germany in 1799. Here he met the most accomplished American botanists and horticulturists: Muhlenberg, Marshall, John and William Bartram, Hamilton, and Barton.  Pursh embarked on many collecting expeditions in the wilds of the East:"These tours I principally made on foot, the most appropriate way for attentive observation, particularly in traveling over an extent of more than three thousand miles each season with no other companions than my dog and gun, frequently taking up my lodging in the midst of wild mountains and impenetrable forests, far remote from the habitations of men." (This quotation and those below are from the "Preface" to Pursh's 1814 Flora Americae Septentrionalis which can be read at http://www.botanicus.org/title/b11729004 .)

By 1805 Pursh had begun collecting for Benjamin Barton, famous botanist, University of Pennsylvania Professor, and author of the first United States botany textbook, Barton's Elements of Botany. In 1803 Jefferson asked Barton to train Meriwether Lewis in botany for the 1804-1806 Expedition. Jefferson also asked Barton to receive and work on the Expedition's botanical collections but Barton never fulfilled this request, apparently because of his poor health and his predisposition to procrastination.

The renowned horticulturists, Bernard McMahon, respected scientist and friend of Jefferson, Barton, and Pursh, suggested that Pursh take on the analysis of Lewis' collection.  Lewis was then to combine Pursh's work with details about the Expedition in an organized narrative. In 1807 Lewis met Pursh, was very impressed, and paid Pursh about $60 to begin the work which Pursh went on to complete in a few years. Tragically, Lewis committed suicide in 1809, having organized and written almost nothing about the Expedition. 

Of Lewis' collection Pursh stated, "... when I consider that the small collection communicated to me, consisting of about one hundred and fifty specimens, contained not above a dozen plants well known to me to be natives of North America, the rest being either entirely new or but little known, and among them at least six distinct and new genera. This may give an idea of the discerning eye of their collector [Meriwether Lewis].

With Lewis' collection, his own collection, and many other specimens, Pursh began working on a new flora of America but, "While I was engaged in arranging my materials for this publication, I was called upon to take the management of the Botanic Garden at New York....  As this employment opened a further prospect to me of increasing my knowledge of the plants of the country, I willingly dropped the idea of my intended publication for that time, and in 1807 took charge of that establishment."

Pursh made several more collecting expeditions and "On my return to New York [in 1811], I found things in a situation very unfavourable to the publication of scientific works, the public mind being then in agitation about a war with Great Britain. I therefore determined to take all my materials to England, where I conceived I would not only have the advantage of consulting the most celebrated collections and libraries, but also meet with that encouragement and support so necessary to works of science, and so generally bestowed upon them there".

Exactly what happened to all of the Lewis collections after Pursh worked on them, is still not known.  Pursh returned most of the collection he had studied to McMahon, departed for England with about four dozen specimens of the Lewis collection, his own descriptive work and drawings of the specimens, and his own collections. In England he had access to numerous botanical collections, herbariums, and libraries, and had the encouragement and assistance of influential people, especially Joseph Banks and Lord Aylmer Lambert. 

In 1814 Pursh published Flora Americae Septentrionalis, or a Systematic Arrangement and Description of the Plants of North America.  In this work, Pursh gave considerable thanks to many individuals for their assistance, but he was apparently a bit lacking in his honesty about who had discovered which plants; this led him into controversy, especially with John Bradbury and Thomas Nuttall -- neither of whom Pursh credits in his Flora Americae.

Pursh was an alcoholic and apparently only the help of his friends kept him at his task of completing his Flora Americae, which included descriptions of 132 specimens from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. For nearly forty years Pursh's two volume work was a standard botany of North America.  It was superseded by Torrey and Gray's Flora of North America. 

All but a few of the Lewis and Clark Expedition specimens which Pursh had taken with him to England were bought at auction years later and returned to the United States.  The total number of Lewis and Clark Expedition plants known now is 232-237, all but eleven (those in the Kew Gardens Herbarium in London) are in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia  --  where both Lewis and Pursh began their Expedition botanical work.  

Pursh died young, drunk, impoverished, and forgotten in Canada, but James Reveal sums Pursh's contributions favorably: "While his Flora had many flaws, they were no more serious than those found in any other work treating a large portion of the world's flora. He has been criticized for his means of acquiring new and interesting plants and for ignoring the contributions of others, yet he was remarkably thorough for his time. He modified the Linnaean system of arranging plants into groups, making his groupings of plants much more natural than anything published to that time. He was careful to indicate whose specimens he saw and where he saw them, and where the plants grew in the wild."

Purshia stansburiana, purshia tridentata

There are many books and many on-line sources about Lewis and Clark; an excellent on-line starting point is http://www.lewis-clark.org .

Reeves, Tim, 1950?  Botanist, fern expert, and computer teacher at San Juan College in Farmington, New Mexico.  Cystopteris reevesiana

Richardson, John, 1787-1865: Surgeon and naturalist.  Served on two Arctic and Canadian expeditions with Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin: 1819-1821 and 1825-1826. Richardson saved Franklin's life on the first expedition as the group struggled with starvation, cannibalism, and murder.  Richardson contributed significantly to Franklin's natural history descriptions of these trips. Sir William Jackson Hooker described many of Richardson's specimens in his Flora Boreali-Americana.

Richardson made accurate surveys of more of the Canadian Arctic coast than any other explorer. In 1847 Richardson commanded one of the rescue ships sent to find Franklin and his men, all of whom had failed to return from an 1845 expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. Franklin's ships, Richardson found, had been crushed and years later it was found that all expedition members had died in the attempt to walk out. Richardson wrote of the rescue attempt and the knowledge gained of the area in An Arctic Searching Expedition (1851). See also Thomas Drummond and Ross.  Geranium Richardsonii

Ritter, Benjamin Wade and Jeanette T., 1859-1935 & 1857-1920: He was a lawyer In Durango, Colorado and she a long-time Durango Library Board member.  They helped Alice Eastwood put together a collecting trip and she named several plants for them as a thank you.  Besseya ritteriana  See also Bessey.

Romanzoff, Nikolai, 1754-1826: early 19th century Russian Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs who sponsored several long exploratory voyages including Otto von Kotzebue's 1815-1818 voyage to the California Coast, Bering Sea, and explorations for a north-east passage.  The California Poppy, Eschscholzia californica, was first collected on this expedition and the ship's naturalist, Louis Charles de Chamisso, named it for the expedition's doctor, Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz.  Chamisso also named Spiranthes romanzoffiana

Ross, James, 1800-1862: British Arctic and Antarctic explorer. Participated in many arctic expeditions, four from 1819 to 1827 with W. E. Parry, located magnetic north pole. 1839-1843: Antarctic explorations discovering the Ross Sea and Ross Ice Shelf in his search for the south magnetic pole. Ross's ships, the Erebus and Terror, were used by Sir John Franklin in 1845 to search for a Northwest Passage. Both ships and all crew perished. See Richardson. Acomastylis rossii

Rothrock, Joseph, 1839-1922:  Surgeon, botanist, teacher, forester.  Attended Harvard and studied under Asa Gray.  Served with several Canadian and western U.S. expeditions including the Wheeler Expedition.  Professor of Botany at the University of Pennsylvania.  Considered the father of Pennsylvania forestry.  In 1886 he became the first president of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association and in 1895, Pennsylvania's first Commissioner of Forestry.  He worked the last forty years of his life for the management of Pennsylvania forests.  Rothrock was a friend of Gifford Pinchot and the two worked for forest protection at the federal and state levels.  Rothrock State Forest, in central Pennsylvania, honors him.  Arbor Day in Pennsylvania is the last Friday in April, and the entire week is observed as the Dr. Joseph T. Rothrock Memorial Conservation Week.  Townsendia rothrockii

Rudbeck, Olof Jr., 1660-1740: Physician, Professor of Medicine, son of Olof Rudbeck, Sr. When Linnaeus was young he lived with Olof Jr. for a time and received financial support from him. Linnaeus named Rudbeckia ampla for Olof Sr. and Jr.

Rudbeck, Olof Sr., 1630-1702: Physician, Professor of Botany and Medicine, historian, dedicated Uppsala University (Sweden) promoter. After receiving his medical degree and doing pioneering research on the lymphatic system, he studied botany for several years in Holland and upon returning to Sweden built a botanical garden, later renamed the "Linnæan Garden". Rudbeck compiled a twelve volume botanical work on 6,200 plants. Only the first two volumes were published before a fire which swept through Stockholm destroyed the printing blocks for the book. About 6,000 watercolor paintings of the plants survived and are now in the Uppsala University Library. Linnaeus named Rudbeckia ampla for Olof Sr. and Jr.

Rusby, Henry Hurd, 1855-1940: Physician, 20th century plant collector, explorer, teacher.  Collected over 10,000 plants in the Southwest and South America.  In 1889 he became Professor of Botany at Columbia and in 1904 he became Dean of the Faculty and served in this capacity until his retirement in 1930.  He was a founding member of the New York Botanical Garden.  According to the NYBG on-line biography of Rusby, his "association with the NYBG began even before the Garden was formally established....  In 1888 a botanic garden committee of eight distinguished club members including [Nathaniel Lord] Britton and Rusby was formed" to establish the NYBG.  Once the NYBG was established,  Rusby promoted "the study of economic botany ... throughout the first fifty years of its existence".  "Rusby’s neotropical explorations, particularly in the Amazon region set the precedent for the systematic and economic botany that has characterized subsequent research at NYBG. The productivity of his trips was due to his endurance and resourcefulness as an explorer. In 1921 when Rusby was 65 years old he embarked on his last field trip to South America as the Director of the Mulford Biological Exploration of the Amazon Basin."  Isocoma rusbyi

Rydberg, Per Axel, 1860-1931: Ph.D. Columbia. First Curator of and Field Agent with the New York Botanical Garden from 1899, USDA Field Agent, author of Flora of Montana and Yellowstone Park (1900), Flora of Colorado (1906), and Flora of the Rocky Mountains and Adjacent Plains (1917). These were based in part on his own collections over many years and on the collections and publications of previous botanical authorities. Rydberg often did his own botanical illustrations.  Rydberg collected only once in Colorado in 1891.

Photo, New York Botanical Garden

William A. Weber considers Rydberg, Greene, and Nelson the most important figures in Rocky Mountain botany. Rydberg split many genera and wanted each species to be distinct and distinguishable from all others, a lead that Weber (and this web site) follow.  In Rydberg's words from his 1906 Flora of Colorado: "[I] belong to that radical school which believes in small genera with closely related species rather than in larger ones with a heterogeneous mass of different groups of plants having relatively little relationship to each other."Arnica rydbergia, Rydbergia grandiflora, Toxicodendron rydbergii

Schkuhr, Christian, 1741-1811: Gardener. Conducted botanical studies and published Handbook of Botany to help people learn the Linnaean system and to familiarize people with the many uses of plants.  Platyschkuhria integrifolia variety oblongifolia

Scouler, John. 1804-1871: Botanist, physician, professor. Was on the Hudson Bay Company's voyage to the Columbia River, 1824–1825 with, among others, David Douglas (of Douglas Fir fame).  In Scouler's words opening his Journal of a Voyage to N.W. America:

"Attached to the study of medicine & its kindred sciences, I eagerly embraced the opportunity which unexpectedly presented itself of investigating the natural history of the NW coast of America.  Its botanical riches had already been explored by the zeal of Nelson & Menzies but the interesting collection of Governor Lewis convinced me that much remained to be done in the country West of the Stony Mountains [i.e., "Rocky Mountains"]. 

If many gleanings remained to reward the botanist the geology & zoology of the country were yet untouched and the success of Dr Richardson in a country better known encouraged me with the prospect of adding some new individuals to the class Rodentia.  While in London I received much useful information from Mr Menzies and Dr Richardson & the inspection of their specimens enabled me to form some idea of American botany & of the best manner of collecting and preserving the various subjects of natural history in the remote countries I was about to visit.

On the 25 July we left Gravesend furnished with every necessary for the collection and preservation of plants & animals.  In the prospect of a long voyage I deemed myself particularly fortunate in the company of Mr Douglass who was employed by the Horticultural Society in similar pursuits. In him I enjoyed the society of an old friend & zealous botanical associate."

On the way to the Pacific Northwest, Scouler and Douglas were the first to collect flora and fauna in the Galapagos.  Most of the collection was lost but "Sir Joseph Hooker cited thirteen Galápagos plants gathered by Scouler and five from Douglas in a paper he published on Darwin in 1847".  (ABC Bookworld)   When Scouler and Douglas arrived in the Pacific Northwest they continued to travel and collect together. 

In addition to his writings on natural history, Scouler, intrigued by the native people, also wrote seminal cultural observations: Account of a voyage to Madeira, Brazil, Juan Fernandez, and the Gallipagos Islands: performed in 1824 and 1825, with a view of examining their natural history    and   Observations On The Indigenous Tribes Of The N.W. Coast Of America; & Notes On The Geography Of The Columbia River    and   click to read his "Journal of a Voyage to N.W. America", published posthumously in 1905 in the volume VI of the Oregon Historical Quarterly and made available on-line by Google Books, pp. 54-75, 159-205, & 276-287.

Both Scouler and Douglas were protégés of William Hooker and they supplied Hooker with many specimens, some of which eventually became common plants in English gardens.  From 1833-1854, Scouler was Professor of geology, zoology, and botany with the Royal Dublin Society.  Hypericum scouleri  Salix scouleriana   Plagiobothrys scouleri

Shepherd, John, 1764-1836:  British botanist and in 1803 first Curator of the Liverpool Botanic Garden with which both Nuttall and Pursh were briefly associated. In 1808 published "A Catalog of Plants in the Botanic Garden at Liverpool". Nuttall named  Shepherdia argentea for John Shepherd in 1818.

Sibbald, Robert, 1641-1722: Scottish physician, botanist. Established the first botanical garden in Edinburgh, 1671. Helped establish the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, was elected president in 1684, and became, in 1685, the first Professor of medicine there. Physician to King James VII and Cartographer-Royal for Scotland.  Sibbaldia procumbens

Simpson, James Hervey, 1813-1883: Graduate of West Point and life-long employee of the Topographical Engineers.  Participated in and led many expeditions and gained considerable fame from the three Western expeditions he led.  Simpson was an avid collector, including information about Native American culture.  In 1858 he began a survey for a shorter travel route across what is now Utah and Nevada to California and it was on this expedition that he collected Pediocactus simpsonii.  Served in the Civil War and was made brigadier-general in March, 1865.  Soon thereafter was made Chief Engineer of the Interior Department, having charge of the inspection of the Union Pacific Railroad.

Smelowsky (or Smelovskii), Timotheus, 1769-1815: Russian pharmacist and botanist from St. Petersburg.  Smelowskia calycina

Stanley, Edward Smith, 1775-1851: Known as "Lord Stanley" and in 1834 upon his father's death, "13th Earl of Derby".  Stanley held a seat in Parliament from 1796-1812 but subsequently devoted himself to natural history pursuits.  He established a large game preserve and aviary, Knowsley Park, on his property with a budget of tens of thousands of pounds per year.  He also had a private zoological museum with over 20,000 specimens, mainly of birds and mammals. Stanley was a President of the Linnaean Society and of the London Zoo (The Zoological Society of London), of which he was a founder.

"He was a very great naturalist and, although primarily interested in birds, was also very interested in horticulture, and had a very large plant conservatory added on to the back of his home, Knowsley Hall." (Quote from Dr. Clemency Fisher, Curator at the Liverpool Museum, as communicated to me in an email, March, 2005.)

Stanley was a patron to many, including Edward Lear, painter and author of "The Owl and the Pussycat" and many other limericks.  For four years, starting in 1832, Stanley employed Lear to live on Stanley's estate and make paintings of his natural history collection.

In 1826 John James Audubon sought financial backing in England for his art work and he was introduced to Stanley.  Of their first meeting Audubon wrote, "My drawings were soon brought out.  Lord Stanley is a great naturalist, and in an instant he was exclaiming over my work, 'Fine!' 'Beautiful!' and when I saw him on his knees, having spread my drawings on the floor... I forgot he was Lord Stanley, I knew only he too loved Nature." (From Audubon's Journals)

In 1853 after Edward Stanley's death, his zoological collections formed the nucleus of the Derby Museum, now the Liverpool Museum. Thomas Nuttall, a British citizen born in Liverpool, knew and communicated in writing (and almost certainly in person) with Stanley.  In his 1818 Genera of North American Plants, Nuttall honored Stanley in the name of an eye-catching North American desert plant:  Stanleya pinnata  

Stansbury, Howard, 1806-1863: Highly accomplished and acclaimed surveyor and engineer, explorer, and naturalist. For the last 25 years of his life with the U. S. Corps of Topographical Engineers. In 1849 led a major expedition to the great Salt Lake surveying for a railroad route.  Stansbury was the first to accurately describe the geology of the Great Salt Lake, recognizing a "former ... inland sea". He and his second in command, Captain John Gunnison, also wrote extensively about the Mormons. Purshia stansburiana, one of my favorite flowering shrubs, was first collected by Stansbury on his 1849 Expedition.  The plant was brought east to Torrey for describing and he named it for Stansbury.

Steller, Wilhelm, 1709–1746: German botanist, zoologist, physician, and explorer, who worked in Russia and present-day Alaska.  Received his medical degree in Germany and then obtained work in Russia as a naturalist with the Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.  In 1741 joined Bering's ill-fated explorations of the islands and lands that became Alaska.  Stellar is considered the first white man to have stepped onto present day Alaskan soil.  One of Bering's two ships was marooned and many died.  Steller not only survived but made numerous observations of the sea life of the area and later published a book on them.  Steller's Sea Eagle, Steller's Jay, Steller's Sea Lion, Steller's Sea Cow (an extinct species that Steller studied in depth), and Steller's Eider are all named for him.  Cryptogramma stelleri

Stewart, Dugald, 1753-1828: Professor of Mathematics then of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh for twenty-five years. Highly respected and sought out as teacher. His pupils included Sir Walter Scott and James Mill (John Stewart Mill's father). His collected works were published in eleven volumes, 1854-1858. French botanist Alexandre Cassini (grandnephew of famous astronomer, Gian Cassini, discoverer of Jupiter's Red Spot and the Saturn ring division, the "Cassini Ring"), named the genus Dugaldia for Dugald Stewart in 1828:  Dugaldia hoopesii  

Suksdorf, Wilhelm, 1850-1932: Born in Germany, came to Iowa at the age of eight with his farming family that continued in that occupation in Washington where Wilhelm joined them after leaving Grinnell and the University of California at Berkeley. Suksdorf had become interested in plants in Iowa and this interest blossomed in Washington where, in 1878, he began corresponding with Asa Gray who eventually hired Suksdorf in 1886 as an assistant.  That position lasted just two years until Gray's death.  Suksdorf returned to Washington and over the many years left in his life made extensive and valuable collections. 

Suksdorf was a field botanist, not a lab botanist and his botanical philosophy is summed in his 1928 writings: "A collector sees the plants in the field and mostly many of each kind he collects, but his notes or remarks are seldom considered of importance. That was so, at least in the past. But I knew one botanist who was different; that was Dr. Gray. To him the collector was a helper, not merely a collector." [(16 June 1928, Harold St. John Papers) As quoted on-line.]  In 1932 Suksdorf gave his 30,000 specimen herbarium to Washington State College.  Mimulus suksdorfii 

Sweert, Emanuel, 1552-1612: Dutch florist, horticulturist, and producer, at the request of his employer, the Emperor Rudolf II of Austria, of one of the first plant catalogs, the  'Florilegium'. Six editions of this picture catalog of plants and bulbs for sale by Sweert were published between 1612 and 1647. Prints from his book can be found on sale on the Internet.  Swertia perennis

Tiling, Heinrich, 1818-1871: Latvian physician employed by a Russian company to collect plants in Siberia, Alaska, and California from 1868-1871.  Mimulus tilingii

Torrey, John, 1796-1873: Physician, botanist, Professor of Chemistry and Botany.  Torrey was considered the first professional botanist in the New World. At the age of sixteen Torrey became a student of botanist Amos Eaton. 

According to Asa Gray's "Report to the Council to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences" which Gray presented shortly after Torrey's death, "In 1817, while yet a medical student, [Torrey] reported to the Lyceum of Natural History (he was one of the founders) his Catalogue of the Plants Growing Spontaneously Within Thirty Miles of the City of New York". 

Torrey received his medical degree and, in Gray's words, "practice[d]... medicine with moderate success turning the while his abundant leisure to scientific pursuits, especially to botany...."  "As early as the year 1823 Dr. Torrey communicated to the Lyceum of Natural History descriptions of some new species of [the botanist, Edwin] James's collection, and in 1826 an extended account of all the plants collected, arranged under their natural orders. This is the earliest treatise of the sort in this country, arranged upon the natural system; and with it begins the history of the botany of the Rocky Mountains".

Torrey became Professor of Chemistry and Natural History at the College of Physicians and Surgeons (1827-1854); in 1824 he published Flora of the Northern and Middle Sections of the United States, A Systematic Arrangement and Description of All the Plants Hitherto Discovered in the United States North of Virginia; in 1827 he became Professor at (what would later be named) Columbia University where his pupils included Asa Gray, with whom he worked the rest of his life; in 1843 Torrey published the Flora of the State of New York, in Gray's words, "the largest if by no means the most important of Dr. Torrey's works... in two large quarto volumes, with 161 plates"; he was a Princeton Professor in the summers of 1830-1854; in the late 1850s he was United States Assayer; and he was frequently called upon throughout his life to provide his expertise in chemistry.   

Photo, Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Torrey and Gray were the two most important systematic botanists of their time and they rigorously analyzed and classified numerous botanical collections, including the 1000 specimen collection of John Charles Fremont.  In 1853 Torrey detailed Fremont's collections in "Plantae Fremontianae", part of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. 

From 1838-1843 Torrey and Gray published Flora of North America, now available on-line as a Google Book.  In 1867 the Torrey Botanical Club, which is still in active existence, was formed and led by Torrey.

Toward the end of his life, Torrey made several long trips and, in Asa Gray's words, "enjoyed the rare pleasure of viewing in their native soil, and plucking with his own hands, many a flower which he had himself named and described from dried specimens in the herbarium, and in which he felt a kind of paternal interest. Perhaps this interest culminated last summer [1872], when he stood on the flank of the lofty and beautiful snow-clad ... [Torrey's Peak in Colorado] to which a grateful former pupil and ardent explorer [Charles Parry], ten years before, gave his name, and gathered charming alpine plants which he had himself named forty years before, when the botany of the Colorado Rocky Mountains was first opened".

Torrey was appointed by Congress to be a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences.  He had there the company of fellow botanists Gray, Engelmann, and Newberry. Torrey's personal plant collection went to the New York Botanical Garden.  Ephedra torreyana, Tetraneuris torreyana

Townsend, David, 1787-1858: Prominent West Chester, Pennsylvania citizen, County Commissioner, Head Bank Cashier, and devoted botanist of Chester County. Was an 1826 founding member of the Chester County Cabinet of Natural Science which grew into today's West Chester University.

David Townsend was a life-long friend and business and civic associate of Dr. William Darlington (1782-1863) who was the first M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, founder of the town bank, civic leader, three term Congressman, devoted botanist, and first American botanical biographer.  John Torrey, who considered Darlington his friend and respected fellow botanist, named Darlingtonia californica (and California named a state park) for him, other plants are named for him, and The Darlington Herbarium on the campus of West Chester University is named for him.  (The West Chester University Herbarium has specimens collected by Engelmann, Fendler, Fremont, and William Jackson Hooker.) 

Darlington was the botanical Pied Piper of West Chester, leading many locals on numerous botanical outings in the surrounding countryside.  He authored several books, including Florula Cestrica, a complete flora of Chester County. 

It was Darlington (and the eminent botanist John Torrey) who introduced Townsend to the most famous botanist of the time, William Jackson Hooker, who then initiated a correspondence with Townsend.  Hooker proposed exchanging Townsend's American plant specimens for British natural history books. Townsend eagerly accepted the offer and sent Hooker 700 plants he had collected in the West Chester area.

Hooker was very impressed with Townsend's collection and he utilized it in his Flora Boreali-Americana.  Hooker wrote to Darlington in March of 1833:

"I thank you a thousand times for introducing me to... David Townsend.  His copious and beautiful specimens have delighted me". 

At a later time Hooker wrote Darlington:

"The handsomest specimens I ever received were prepared and sent by David Townsend of West Chester, and Professor Short, of Kentucky". 

Both quotations are from Darlington's "Memorial of David Townsend". Hooker states in Flora Boreali-Americana:

"I have named the genus [Townsendia] in compliment to David Townsend, Esq. of West Chester, Pennsylvania who having imbibed the most ardent love of Botany from his friend and instructor Dr. Darlington of the same city, has devoted his leisure hours to the science with eminent success. The plant now under consideration is peculiarly worthy of bearing his name because he has studied and ably discriminated the numerous Pennsylvania species of the allied Genus Aster."

In Darlington's "Memorial of David Townsend", read on the day of David Townsend's funeral, Darlington said of Townsend,

"The discriminating eye, and habits of close observation, so important in a Bank officer, were equally available to the Botanist, and quite germane to the investigations of genera and species. The Plants of Chester county, and the surrounding districts, became familiar acquaintances, and were duly arranged in his Herbarium.  His aptitude and pains-taking skill in preparing specimens, were very remarkable".

The type specimen of Townsendia was not collected by Townsend; it was collected by Richardson in 1823 in Saskatchewan on the Franklin Expedition. Click here to see  Townsendia annua, Townsendia glabella, Townsendia incana, Townsendia leptotes and click here to see Townsendia rothrockii.

The Hooker correspondence information and quotation were provided to me by the Library and Archives staff at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, and by Diane Rofini, Chester County Historical Society Librarian. 

Townsend, John Kirk, 1809-1851: Massachusetts ornithologist, botanist, medical doctor?, pharmacist?  By the early 1830s Townsend was a well known and highly respected ornithologist and in the early 1830s he made his first new bird species discovery, Townsend's Bunting.  He also made a complete survey of the birds of West Chester County, Pennsylvania, just west of his home in Philadelphia. 

Townsend was invited by Thomas Nuttall, eminent botanist, to travel across the continent on merchant Nathaniel Wyeth's 1834-1837 trip to the Columbia River.  Townsend's description of the Wyeth Expedition, A Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, is a well-told tale of how such an expedition was carried out; the virgin land, animals, and plants encountered; the Indian tribes met; the heady enthusiasm of a scientist in a glorious new world; and the travails of such a trip. You can read Townsend's book on-line.

John James Audubon and Townsend knew each other and Audubon considered Townsend a superb ornithologist.  Townsend sold (or shared?) his Wyeth Expedition collection of scores of newly discovered western birds with Audubon who painted them all and included them in his master work, The Bird's of America.  Apparently credit was not given to Townsend's satisfaction, and he and Audubon argued about the rights to the bird collection.

John Kirk Townsend is not the Townsend that the Townsendia genus of Asteraceae is named for; that is David Townsend (see above). John Kirk is the Townsend of Townsend's Solitaire and many other mammals. 

Tracy, Samuel Mills, 1847-1920: Professor of Botany at the University of Missouri, published Flora of Missouri, retired in 1897 and moved near Biloxi where he specialized in grasses.  Collected throughout the South into Texas and in 1898 made a collecting trip to the La Platas in the company of Charles Baker.  His collection became the nucleus of the S. M. Tracy Herbarium at Texas A&M University.  Cirsium tracyi  Erigeron tracyi

Tradescant, John, 1570s-1638: Famed British traveler, plant collector, and gardener.  Father of John Tradescant the Younger (1608-1662).  The two are revered as the founders of English gardening.  In their time they introduced scores of plants to England and designed gardens for earls, dukes, and in 1630 John the Elder became "Keeper of His Majesty's Garden" for Charles I.  In 1625 John the Elder founded the Museum Tradescantianum, the first public museum in England; its garden was the most extensive in Europe. Its centerpiece, The Ark, housed a wide variety of natural objects from around the world and was visited by travelers, intellectuals, and local school children. John the Elder helped financially support an expedition to Virginia in 1617 and it was this expedition that brought back the plant that Linnaeus later named Tradescantia virginiana. This is an eastern relative of the plant shown on this web site, Tradescantia occidentalis.  Among other plants John introduced to England were the Apricot, Phlox, Lilac, Gladiola, Virginia Creeper, Poppy, and the Tulip and Larch Trees.

Trautvetter, Ernst Rudolf, (1809-1889): Russian botanist (at Tartu University) who specialized in the flora of the Caucasus and central Asia and was author of De Echinope genere capita (1833) and the Decas plantarum novarum (1882).  Click to read Trautvetter's works.  Trautvetteria caroliniensis

Walker, Ernest P, 1891-1969: Before moving to Washington, D.C. in 1927 to work at the National Zoo, Walker had lived in Missouri (where he was born), Colorado, Wyoming (where he attended the University of Wyoming), and Alaska (where he was a game warden for twelve years).  He was a devoted naturalist specializing in mammals; in one of his books his dedication reads: "To the mammals, great and small, who contribute so much to the welfare and happiness of man, another mammal, but receive so little in return except blame, abuse and extermination."  Walker became Assistant Director of the National Zoo in 1930 and remained in this position until his retirement in 1956. Walker's 1964 Mammals of the World  has remained a classic; its sixth edition came out in 1999.  Camissonia scapoidea   Camissonia walkeri

Watson, Sereno, 1826-1892: Yale graduate, taught school, studied medicine (but "left with a much diminished respect for medical practitioners and professors in general, apart from medicine itself, which is a noble profession"), restarted his medical studies with his older brother in Illinois where, in 1854 he began his medical practice. 

Watson lasted just two years as a doctor.  He then held various jobs (insurance salesman, writer, etc.), and re-entered Yale to study chemistry and mineralogy in 1866. 

Watson was always an introverted and quiet person, unsure of his calling in life until he met botany.  In 1867 he went to California and, in his words, was "unsettled and do not know where I will be nor at what business."  Soon after arriving in San Francisco, Watson heard about the Fortieth Parallel Survey led by Clarence King and he set off alone walking to find King's Expedition in the Sierras. 

In his 1903 presentation to the National Academy of Science, William Brewer, Watson's eminent botanical co-worker and friend, said that Watson was "so earnestly anxious to join the expedition that, if there was no scientific work for him, he offered to accept any position the camp offered. He was engaged to assist in topography, observe barometer, and "make himself generally useful" in such ways as he could. He entered on this new career as a volunteer with "wages nominal," his official rank and duties sufficiently vague to include a vast range of possibilities". 

W. W. Bailey was the King Expedition botanist, but he became ill and Watson began to assist him with the botanical work of the Expedition.  Watson's "untiring diligence, his keen observation of plants, his uncomplaining endurance of the many discomforts and hardships of desert campaigning, soon gave evidence of his zeal in scientific work, and his patient, kind, and gentle personality soon endeared him to the whole camp".  Clarence King said of Watson,

He impressed me as a man of work, grimly and conscientiously in earnest.... He smiled only as a forced concession to humor.... Everything pertaining to his duty was sacred....  He soon learned to ride, and after the first anxieties regarding his duties had worn off, he began to enjoy the campaign life and the weird scenery of the region with the greatest enthusiasm.  Mr. Bailey [the Expedition botanist] became more and more subject to camp illness and at last gave up and went home to the East....  I then installed Watson in charge of the botany. He was then as nearly perfectly happy as I have ever seen a human being.

Watson collected with the King Expedition through California and to the Great Salt Lake over the next two years.  At the end of the field season in 1869 he went to New Haven, Connecticut, where he began working on the King Expedition botanical report with Daniel Eaton: 

My work is at Professor Eaton's house, where all my plants are. I spend from two to twelve hours a day upon them and it is going to be an everlasting job to work them up. It is the best and the largest collection that has ever been brought in by any government party and promises to yield a fair proportion of new species.

The 1871 published report, finished at the Harvard Herbarium, was, said Brewer, "the first descriptive list of species of the whole known flora of any region of western North America."  It contained 1325 species.

Watson's 1871 King Expedition botany report gained him wide recognition and respect, especially from Asa Gray who in 1872 hired Watson as his personal assistant at the Harvard Herbarium.  In June of 1874, Harvard University hired Watson as Curator of the Harvard Herbarium, the position he retained until his death in 1892.  Watson made major contributions to botany in this position: He described and named thousands of plants; he began work on a  North American Botany Bibliographical Index (but finished just one volume in 1878); with Henry Brewer and Asa Gray, Watson wrote the first volume of the Botany of California in 1876 (click to read); the second volume, by Watson alone, was published in 1880; with John Colter in 1889, Watson published a revision of Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States (commonly known as Gray's Manual, first published by Gray in 1848.) (Click to read.)

Weber, William A., 1918-: Professor Emeritus of Botany at the University of Colorado. Weber has collected and studied in Colorado, other areas of the western United States, Australia, northern and central Europe, the Mediterranean, Arctic America, the Galapagos Islands, Chile, and New Guinea.  Weber is the author of the present day standard botanical keys for Colorado: Colorado Flora, Western Slope and Colorado Flora, Eastern Slope.  His newest book (July, 2007) is Bryophytes of Colorado.

Knowing smile by Bill Weber, photo by Jan Turner, beaded lanyard by Betty Schneider

Weber has championed the careful reevaluation of family, genus, and species and has split all of these numerous times to provide distinct classifications. 

Weber's books are the foundation of this web site.  (See also Rydberg, who Weber considers one of the great Rocky Mountain botanists). 

Click for part one of the interview I did with Bill Weber.  Go to page 8 in this and each of the following issues.
Click for part two.
Click for part three.
Click for part four,

Additions to the Galapagos and Cocos Islands Lichen and Bryophyte Floras The American Cockerell
King of Colorado Botany, Charles Christopher Parry
Bryophytes of Colorado: Mosses, Liverworts, and Hornworts
Middle Asian Element in the Southern Rocky

Werner, Abraham Gottlieb, (1749-1817): German geologist, wrote the first modern textbook of descriptive mineralogy based on composition. Became Inspector and Teacher of Mining and Metallurgy at the Freiberg School of Mines, Germany.  He taught at Freiberg forty years and his students included Humboldt.  Werner was elected to the Academy of Sciences in 1812.  Packera werneriifolia

Whipple, Amiel Weeks, 1816-1863: Graduate of West Point who participated in several military surveys in the East and West. In 1853 Whipple was placed in charge of surveying a possible southern route for the Transcontinental Railroad from Arkansas through the Panhandle of Oklahoma and on to Los Angeles along the 35th parallel. 

Later explorers utilized Whipple's report to further explore this region, and years later a rail line and Highway 66 followed the route. (The Whipple Survey, as part of Reports of explorations and surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, can be read on-line.)

The eruption of the Civil War ended consideration of a southern route for the transcontinental railroad.  Whipple moved into the War as a chief topographical engineer, participated in the first battle of Bull Run, and became friends with President Lincoln.  Whipple was gravely wounded in action in 1863 while supervising the construction of barricades during the battle of Chancellorsville.  He died four days later in Washington D.C. shortly after Lincoln had promoted him to Major General.  Penstemon whippleanus

Wingate, Benjamin, 182?-1864: Namesake of Fort Wingate, New Mexico.  Wingate Enlisted in the army in 1846, served in the Mexican/American War, rose from Private to Captain (and then Major immediately before his death).  In 1860 Wingate supervised the building of Fort Fauntleroy in New Mexico (just east of Gallup).  The Fort was renamed Fort Wingate in 1864 to honor Wingate, who died from injuries sustained in the 1862 Civil War Battle of Valverde, Confederate Arizona (along the Rio Grande, now in New Mexico).  Astragalus wingatanus 

Wislizenus, Friedrich Adolph, 1810-1889: German born physician and naturalist who settled in St. Louis in 1835 and became a friend and medical associate of the eminent physician and botanist, George Engelmann.  Engelmann tutored Wislizenus in botanical techniques, but according to Ewan, Engelmann felt Wislizenus was an "unbotanical collector" who had the luck to find some special plants that trained botanists missed. 

Wislizenus joined an 1839 expedition through Wyoming into Idaho on the Oregon Trail and then into Colorado and back to St. Louis where he wrote of the trip in A Journey to The Rocky Mountains in the Year 1839 which can be read on-line.  The Journal shows Wislizenus to have been perceptive and wise in his observations of the country, the plants and animals, and the Indian tribes.

In 1846 Wislizenus joined a group to Santa Fe, and, not knowing that in April of 1846 war had broken out between the United States and Mexico, he went to Mexico, and was captured as a Mexican-American War prisoner.  His Mexican captors obviously did not see him as a threat and they allowed him to botanize near his prison where he collected some special species which Engelmann described in Wislizenus' Tour through Northern Mexico, 1848.  Earlier in this trip, Wislizenus was the first to collect (in the Sangre de Cristo Range in New Mexico) the ubiquitous and lovely Pinus edulis, the Pinyon Pine -- which he returned to Engelmann for cataloging and describing, the description first appearing in Wislizenus' Tour.   Near Santa Fe on his 1846 trip, Wislizenus also collected samples from a Cottonwood tree, now regarded as the dominant Cottonwood of the Four Corners area, the Rio Grande Cottonwood, Populus deltoides variety wislizeni.  See Populus deltoides subspecies wislizenii for more details on the Rio Grande and Fremont's Cottonwood.

Wislizenus spent most of his adult life as a physician in St. Louis where he helped to found the Missouri Historical Society and the St. Louis Academy of Science.    Dimorphocarpa wislizenii, Populus deltoides subspecies wislizenii

Wolf, John, 1820-1897: Plant collector in the East and West. Participated in the Wheeler Survey (1869-1879), one of many surveys of the Topographical Engineers of the U. S. Army -- this one having fourteen trips and producing forty volumes of information. (See Hayden.)   Porter and Coulter utilized Wolf's collections (and other collections) in the first Colorado flora book, Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado.  Wolf published a list of Illinois mosses, liverworts, and lichens in 1878.  Ribes wolfii

Woods, Joseph, 1776-1864: English architect who botanized extensively. Retired from architecture when 59 and devoted himself to botany.  He received wide recognition for his “Synopsis of the British Species of Rosa”.  Made numerous European botanical excursions and published botanical papers.  In 1850 wrote the popular The Tourist’s Flora: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of the British Islands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the Italian Islands  based on his years of botanizing in Europe.  Rosa woodsii

Wooton, Elmer Ottis, 1865-1945: Professor of Botany at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  He wrote Descriptions of New Plants Preliminary to a Report Upon the Flora of New Mexico (1913) and Flora of New Mexico (1915).  Kelly Allred of New Mexico State called Wooton "the preeminent botanist of New Mexico". Senecio wootonii

Wormskjold, Morton, 1783-1845: Danish botanist who led a naval expedition to Greenland in 1813 and made the first major collection of Greenland flora there. Subsequently sailed with Adelbert von Chamisso and J.F. Eschscholtz on Captain Otto Kotzebue's exploring voyage on the Rurik.  Veronica wormskjoldii variety wormskjoldii

Wright, Charles, 1811-1885: Yale graduate, teacher, surveyor, trusted plant collector for Asa Gray and John Torrey.  Prolific collector with the Mexican Boundary Survey of 1849 and 1851-1852.  Also was on a north Pacific expedition, 1853-1855.  According to Ewan, Wright and Gray at times labeled Wright's collections incorrectly causing significant confusion.   Glandularia wrightii, Datura wrightii, Cordylanthus wrightii

Wyeth, Nathaniel Jarvis, 1802-1856: Massachusetts merchant who in 1832 traveled by land to Oregon in an unsuccessful attempt to set up a fur trading business.  On the return portion of this trip Wyeth collected numerous plants for his botanist friend Thomas Nuttall, who described 55 new species from Wyeth's collections which included Castilleja angustifolia, the first plant collected for science in the Intermountain West, the area that Arthur Cronquist, Arthur Holmgren, Noel Holmgren, Pat Holmgren, and James Reveal 150 years later cover in their famous, Intermountain Flora. 

When Wyeth returned home he immediately made plans for a second trip West and easily induced Nuttall to accompany him.  Nuttall in turn recruited his young ornithologist friend John Townsend.  The three set off from Independence, Missouri on April 28, 1834 in a "caravan, consisting of seventy men, and two hundred and fifty horses" (Townsend's words in his 1839 book, A Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River).  Wyeth was an able and affable leader, popular with his expedition crew, immediately setting out on his own to settle problems with Indians, fur traders, and lost trails. 

Among the species that Nuttall described from Wyeth's first western trip collections of 1833-1834 were Iris missouriensis, Fritillaria atropurpurea, and Wyethia amplexicaulis, a large, lovely, and common Asteraceae that often covers dozens of acres of montane meadows.

Zinn, Johann, 1727-1759: German botanist, member of the Berlin Academy, and Professor of Medicine and Director of the Botanic Garden at the University of Gottingen.  Zinn's name is best known for the genus Zinnia that Linnaeus named for him, but he is also very well known in medicine for his book, Descriptio Anatomica Oculi Humani, a work that led to having Zinn's name attached to a number of structures in the eye.  Zinnia grandiflora is found in eastern Colorado and most counties of Arizona and New Mexico, but it is not found on the West Slope of Colorado or in Utah.  I hope to photograph it soon.