Biographies of naturalists p. 3

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. 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 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. He 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 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 credit. Both published a number of articles and Pursh published the two volume Flora Americae Septentrionalis (1814).

Nuttall returned to the U.S., published his own two volume work, Genera of North American Plants (1818), made many collecting expeditions, wrote an acclaimed ornithology text book, and became Harvard Professor of Natural History in 1823. He 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 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

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, unknown, Packera werneriifolia

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 seven shown on this web site: Primula parryi, Lomatium parryi, Oreochrysum parryi, Pedicularis parryi, Pneumonanthe parryi, Trifolium parryi, Campanula parryi, Arnica parryi. (See also Porter.)

Patterson, Edward Harry Norton, 1853-1919: Illinois newspaper publisher and amateur botanist who visited Colorado often. Corresponded with Edgar Allen Poe about his financing Poe's longed for literary magazine the "Stylus", but Poe died of alcohol poisoning before the two could work out the publishing details. Patterson was a correspondent with prominent American botanists of the time. His botanical collections are housed in a number of herbariums around the United States. He printed botanical labels for many collectors. In 1892 he produced "Patterson's Numbered Check-list of North American Plants North of Mexico". Astragalus 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 in Hayden's "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". So at least by 1874 we have the predecessor of the modern day field guides, we have Colorado tourism as a driving force, and botanists are seeing the similarities in world-wide vegetation (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. Came to the U.S. from Germany in 1799. By 1805 he 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 collection, but Barton was not able to work on the returned collections -- apparently because of his health and a predisposition to procrastination. The renowned horticulturists, Bernard McMahon, respected scientist and friend of Jefferson, Barton, and Pursh, suggested Pursh to Jefferson for the job of organizing and describing the collection. It would then fall to Lewis to put everything into an organized narrative. In 1807 Lewis met Pursh, was very impressed, and paid Pursh about $70 to begin the work. Pursh completed it within a few years. Tragically, Lewis committed suicide in 1809, having organized and written almost nothing about the Expedition.

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, soon 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; he intended to publish all of this in a new flora of North America. In England he had access to botanical libraries, and had the encouragement and assistance of influential people, especially Lord Aylmer Lambert who provided Pursh with financial support. In his work on the new flora, Pursh was apparently a bit shady in his honesty about who had discovered what and who should receive credit, and this led him into controversy, especially with Nuttall. Pursh was also an alcoholic and apparently only the help of his friends kept him at his task. In 1814 he published Flora Americae Septentrionalis, or a Systematic Arrangement and Description of the Plants of North America, which included descriptions of 132 specimens from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. For nearly forty years this 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 Expeditions specimens which Pursh had taken with him were bought at auction years later and returned to the United States. The total number of 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. 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 .

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.

Photo, New York Botanical Garden

Rydberg collected only once in Colorado in 1891.

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. Was on the Hudson's Bay Company's voyage to the Columbia River, 1824–1825 with, among others, David Douglas (of Douglas Fir fame). On this trip Scouler and Douglas were the first to collect specimens in the Galapagos. Scouler and Douglas also traveled and collected together in the Northwest where Scouler was intrigued by, and gathered information about, the native people. Scouler was later Professor of geology, zoology, and botany with the Royal Dublin Society from 1833 to 1854. Scouler wrote a number of articles and books about his botanical and cultural observations from his travels. 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 including three that he led in the West, where he gained fame. He collected, among much else, information on Native American culture and in 1858 began a survey for a shorter travel route across what is now Utah and Nevada to California. It was on this expedition that Pediocactus simpsonii was collected.

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". Held 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.

Edward 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 of "The Owl and the Pussycat" fame. 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.

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. 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

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. Considered the first professional botanist in the New World. Professor of Chemistry and Natural History. 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. Torrey was a Princeton Professor in the summers of 1830-1854. 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.

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. From 1838-1843 they published Flora of North America. In 1867 the Torrey Botanical Club, still in active existence, was formed and led by Torrey.

Torrey was appointed by Congress to be a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences. Torrey's 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, devoted botanist collecting Chester County plants. 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), 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 into the surrounding countryside. He authored several books, including Florula Cestrica, a complete flora of Chester County.

In his "Memorial of David Townsend", read on the day of David Townsend's funeral, Darlington says 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 genus Townsendia (mostly tiny, ground-hugging, large-flowered members of the Asteraceae Family) was named for David Townsend by the most eminent British Botanist, William Jackson Hooker in his 1833 volume of Flora Boreali-Americana. (The type specimen was collected by Richardson in 1823 in Saskatchewan on the Franklin Expedition.) Hooker probably first heard of David Townsend's botanical work from John Torrey and William Darlington.

Hooker wrote Townsend at Darlington's suggestion and Hooker and Townsend corresponded at least three times in the early 1830s. Hooker asked Townsend if he would like to exchange American plant specimens for British natural history books. Townsend then sent Hooker 700 plants he had collected and asked Hooker to assist in identifying some of the plants.

Hooker utilized some of Townsend's plants in Flora Boreali-Americana. Hooker wrote to Darlington in March of 1833, "I thank you a thousand times for introducing me to the correspondence of David Townsend. His copious and beautiful specimens have delighted me". Hooker later wrote Darlington saying that "the handsomest specimens he ever received, were prepared and sent by David Townsend of West Chester, and Professor Short, of Kentucky". (As quoted and stated in Darlington's "Memorial of David Townsend".)

Hooker states in his 1833 volume of 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."

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, Dr. of Science. Traveled across the continent with Thomas Nuttall, eminent botanist, 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 Kirk Townsend is not the Townsend that the Townsendia genus of the Asteraceae Family is named for; that is David Townsend (see above). But he is the Townsend of Townsend's Solitaire and many other mammals and the Townsend who supplied James Audubon with many birds for Birds of America. Audubon and Townsend knew each other and Audubon considered Townsend a superb ornithologist.

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

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 into England were the Apricot, Phlox, Lilac, Gladiola, Virginia Creeper, Poppy, and the Tulip and Larch Trees.

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 and in a dedication to one of his books he wrote, "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 walkeri

Watson, Sereno, 1826-1892: Physician, botanist. Member of Clarence King Survey in 1869 and several other collecting expeditions in the northern Rockies and Pacific West. He became Asa Gray's Assistant at the Harvard Herbarium in 1871 and succeeded Gray in 1888. He described and named about two thousand plants.

Weber, William A., 1918-: Professor Emeritus of Botany at the University of Colorado. He 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 texts for Colorado flora: Colorado Flora, Western Slope and Colorado Flora, Eastern Slope. His newest book (July, 2007) is Bryophytes of Colorado; it can be purchased through the Colorado Native Plant Society Bookstore. Click to enter the CoNPS Bookstore.

Weber has championed the careful reevaluation of family, genus, and species members and has split all of these numerous times to provide distinct classifications that contain only members with shared characteristics. Weber's books are the foundation of this web site. (See also Rydberg, who Weber considers one of the greats of Rocky Mountain botany).

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 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

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 him 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 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

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 plants for his botanist friend Thomas Nuttall. 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.

In 1834 Nuttall named Wyethia x magna a large, lovely, and common mountain Sunflower for Wyeth who collected it in 1833.

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.