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Included here are those botanists who primarily study fossil plants, including both terrestrial and marine, from unicellular algae and diatoms to massive woody trees. Paleobotanists collect, study, classify and name fossil plants, and place them into evolutionary, phylogenetic, and paleoecologic context. As such, paleobotanists are among the most broadly trained botanists. This training often concentrates on plant systematics, plant anatomy and morphology and/or palynology, but also includes areas of pure geology such as straigraphy, paleoclimate and earth history including plate tectonics. Paleobotanists must also be well-versed in modern methods of phylogenetic analysis in order to place fossils in an evolutionary context and to study the evolution of characters and traits over geologic time. This involves, more and more, the inclusion of molecular data from extant species in simultaneous analyses of living and extinct plants, analyses, and thus, paleobotanists also need at least a basic understanding of modern molecular approaches. Yes, paleobotanists are the uber-botanists. |
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1915 - 1985 
Maxine Abbott Maxine L. Abbott was an American paleobotanist associated with Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas. She worked on Paleozoic ferns and lycopsids. |
1910 - 2002 
Henry N. Andrews Henry N. Andrews was an American paleobotanist and specializing in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, and who was on the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis. |
1870 - 1918 
Edward Arber Edward Newell Arber was a British paleobotanist, although less well-known than his paleobotanical spouse, Agnes Arber. |
1879 - 1960 
Agnes Arber Agnes Arber was a celebrated plant anatomist and paleobotanist who also had a strong interest in the study of herbals. |
1901 - 1977 
Chester Arnold Chester Arthur Arnold was an American paleobotanist who earned B.S. and Ph.D. degrees at Cornell University, where he studied with Loren Petry and specialized in Pennsylvanian and Devonian plant fossils. He was a professor and curator of the paleobotanical collection at the University of Michigan. |
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1928 - 2019 
Sidney Ash Sidney Roy Ash was an American paleobotanist who specialized in Triassic and Jurassic fossil plants |
1910 - 1998 
Daniel I. Axelrod Daniel Axelrod was a 20th Century American paleobotanist who was well known for his studies of North American Tertiary fossil plants and the history of the North American floristic provinces. |
1963 - 2020 
Brian J. Axsmith Brian Axsmith was an American paleobotanist who studied a wide variety of Paleozoic and Mesozoic fossil plants including pteridosperms, gymnosperms and angiosperms. He died from covid-19 in 2020. |
1924 - 2015 
Margaret Balbach Margaret Balbach was an American paleobotanist who studied paleozoic lycophytes early in her career, then shifted her focus to horticulture, founding a horticulture-agribusiness program at the University of Illinois where she taught for twenty years. |
1887 - 1950 
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Helen Bancroft Helen Holme Bancroft, also known as Nellie Bancroft, was a British paleobotanist who worked at Newnham College (University of Cambridge), and Oxford University. |
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1913 - 1998 
Harlan Banks Harlan Banks was a paleobotanist and Cornell University professor who transformed our understanding of early land plants through his meticulous and methodical research techniques. |
1915 - 1984 
Elso S. Barghoorn Elso Barghoorn was an American paleobotanist who specialized in the Precambrian era, and who discovered fossil evidence of life 3.4 billion years old. |
1927 - 2024 
Charles B. Beck Charles B. Beck was an American paleobotanist and plant anatomist on the faculty of University of Michigan. From Green Bay, VA, Beck earned his doctorate at Cornell University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Glasgow University. He began his faculty career at University of Michigan in 1955 and served for a time as chair of the Department of Botany, as well as director of the Museum of Paleontology. He made many contributions to the early history of land plants, and authored a book "An Introduction to Plant Structure and Development" which was published in several editions. He retired in 1991. |
1907 - 1985 
Herman F. Becker Herman F. Becker was an American paleobotanist who worked on the Tertiary flora or Montana and was also a curator of paleobotany at the New York Botanical Garden |
1859 - 1936 
Margaret Benson Margaret Benson was an English paleobotanist who collected material in Australia, Java and India, and was a pioneer in the examination of fossils using microscopy. |
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1875 - 1945 
Edward Berry Edward Wilbur Berry was an iconic American paleobotanist known for his prolific work and naming of Mesozoic and Cenozoic fossils of North and South America. |
1879 - 1944 
Paul Bertrand Paul Bertrand was a French paleobotanist and plant anatomist, son of the paleobotanist Charles Eugene Bertrand. The younger Bertrand became director of the Lille "coal museum" and, like his father, studied Carboniferous plants. |
1851 - 1917 
Charles Bertrand Charles Eugene Bertrand was a French paleobotanist and plant anatomist, and father of botanist Paul Charles Edouard Bertrand. The elder Bertrand served on the faculty of Universite de Lille, and is known for his theories regarding the formation of coal. |
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Isabel M. P. Browne Isabel Browne was a British plant anatomist and plaeobotanist who worked extensively on the cones and reproductive structures of extant and extinct Equisetales/Calamites |
1940 - 2021 
Vaughn Motley, Jr. Bryant Vaughn M. Bryant, Jr. was an American palynologist, archaeologist, and anthropologist on the faculty of Texas A&M University. |
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1927 - 2001 
John Campbell John Douglas Campbell was a New Zealand geologist and paleobotanist who worked on both plant and animal fossils, and maintained a strong interest in living plants. |
1830 - 1922 
William Carruthers William Carruthers was a British botanist, paleobotanist and geologist who was Keeper of Botany at the British Museum (BM) from 1871-1895. Carruthers is perhaps most remembered for his feud with Charles Darwin over whether natural selection could explain plant fossils. |
1818 - 1887 
Robert Caspary Robert Caspary was a German plant anatomist and expert on the family Nymphaeaceae (water lilies). He discovered a thickened cell wall band in the endodermis of plant roots which he termed "Schuchtzscheide" and which is today known as the "Casparian strip." |
1928 - 2016 
William Chaloner William Gilbert Chaloner was an English paleobotanist on the faculty of University of London. |
1897 - 1983 
Marjorie Chandler Marjorie Chandler was an English paleobotanist of the 20th Century. She was originally a research assistant of Eleanor Mary Reid. |
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1890 - 1971 
Ralph Chaney Ralph Chaney was an American paleobotanist best known for his work in western North American Cenozoic plants. |
1871 - 1963 
Mintin Chrysler Mintin Asbury Chrysler was an American plant anatomist, pteridologist, and paleobotanist. His work encompassed a large variety of plants and fossil plants. |
1954 - 1987 
Michael Cichan Michael Anthony Cichan was an American paleobotanist who studied Carboniferous fossil plants. Cichan was tragically killed along with his wife and son in a plane crash just before taking his first job as a professor. |
1927 - 2019 
Harold Clifford Trevor Clifford was an Australian botanist and paleobotanist on the faculty of University of Queensland. |
1855 - 1922 
Hugo Conwentz Hugo Wilhelm Conwentz was a German (Prussian) paleobotanist and early conservationist who was a strong advocate for international protection of nature. His paleobotanical work on Baltic amber is well known. |
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1893 - 1973 
Isabel Cookson Isabel Cookson was an Australian paleobotanist and palynologist who studied coal deposits and fossilized plant remains of the Victoria region. |
1809 - 1849 
August Corda August Joseph Corda was a Czech mycologist, plant anatomist and paleobotanist. He was tragically killed in the shipwreck of the Victoria in 1849 while returning from a fossil collecting trip in Texas, USA. Most of his collections from that trip were lost with him. |
1808 - 1879 
Carl Cotta Carl Bernhard von Cotta was a German geologist and paleobotanist, and one of the first to employ microscopy in paleobotany. His 1866 publication Gesteinslehre became a classic treatise on lithology and was simultaneously published in English translation. |
1891 - 1942 
James Cribbs James Elias Cribbs was an American plant anatomist, paleobotanist, ecologist and accomplished painter. |
1890 - 1981
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Robert Crookall Robert Crookall was a British paleobotanist who studied the British Coal Measure floras |
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1717 - 1791 
Emanuel da Costa Emanuel Mendes da Costa was an English naturalist, botanist, and early paleobotanist considered to be the first to publish on Carboniferous plant fossils (which he misinterpreted as impressions of living plants). Employed by the Royal Society as clerk and repository keeper, he was imprisoned twice: once in the Netherlands as a debtor, and later in England for embezzlement from the Royal Society. |
1909 - 1989
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William Darrah William C. Darrah was an American paleobotanist who studied paleozoic fossils from the eastern United States. He was also a published expert on the history of photograhy |
1820 - 1899 
John Dawson John Dawson was a Canadian educator and paleobotanist, one of the founders of the field, who was the first to describe Devonian fossil plants. |
1879 - 1918
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Ethel de Fraine Ethel de Fraine was a British plant anatomist, morphologist and paleobotanist who specialized on the structure of seedlings |
1929 - 2017 
Theodore Delevoryas Theodore Delevoryas was an American paleobotanist who worked on a variety of Paleozoic and Mesozoic fossil groups. Delevoryas was a professor at Yale University and later at the University of Texas, Austin. |
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1784 - 1867 
Chester Dewey Chester Dewey was an American educator, botanist, and clergyman who became expert in the study of Cyperaceae (sedges). |
1904 - 1972 
Emily Dix Emily Dix was a Welsh paleobotanist who studied the coal measures of Wales and was a lecturer in geology at Bedford College, London, for most of her professional life. |
1905 - 1984
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Erling Dorf Erling Dorf was an American paleobotanist who worked on a wide array of fossil plants, from the first terrestrial vegetation through Devonian, Cretaceous and Cenozoic floras. |
1934 - 2010 
Donald A. Eggert Donald A. Eggert was an American paleobotanist and plant anatomist who studied Paleozoic ferns and pteridosperms. |
1795 - 1876 
Karl Eichwald Karl Eichwald was a Latvian-Russian physician, zoologist and paleontologist. Not to be confused with the Estonian botanist Karl Eichwald (1889-1976). |
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1826 - 1897 
Constantin Ettingshausen Constantin von Ettingshausen was an Austrian physician, botanist, and paleobotanist, the son of physicist Andreas von Ettingshausen. |
1928 - 1990
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Richard H. Eyde Richard Eyde was an American plant systematist and paleobotanist who worked on a variety of modern and fossil taxa as well as the history of angiosperms and evolution of flowers |
1850 - 1943 
Herman Fairchild Herman LeRoy Fairchild was an American geologist and paleobotanist, who mapped the postglacial lakes of western New York State. He also founded the Geology Department at the University of Rochester. |
1741 - 1819 
Barthelemy Faujas de Saint-Fond Barthelemy Faujas de Saint-Fond was a French geologist and paleontologist who was the first professor of geology at Jardin des Plantes de Paris. The mineral faujasite is named for him. |
1894 - 1965 
Carl Florin Carl Rudolf Florin was a Swedish paleobotanist who specialized in gymnosperms, both fossil and living. He was most famous for his studies of conifer cone morphology, anatomy, development, and evolution. |
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1835 - 1913 
William Fontaine William Morris Fontaine was a paleobotanist who worked on Mesozoic floras of eastern North America, particularly the Potomac group |
1883 - 1958 
Joaquin Frenguelli Joaquin Frenguelli was an Italian-Argentine paleobotanist who studied Cenozoic, Paleozoic and early Mesozoic fossil diatoms, vertebrates and invertebrates in Argentina. |
1866 - 1952 
Kenjiro Fujii Kenjiro Fujii was a Japanese botanist and cell biologist probably best known for founding the journal Cytologia in 1929. |
1814 - 1900 
Hanns Geinitz Hanns Bruno Geinitz was a German paleobotanist and more generally a geologist and mineralogist. He served as director of the Koenigliche Mineralogische Museum, Dresden, from 1857-1894. |
1931 - 2021 
William H. Gillespie William H. Gillespie was an American dendrologist, forester and paleobotanist who accomplished his paleontological and neontological studies in West Virginia, USA. |
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1800 - 1884 
Heinrich Goeppert Heinrich Robert Goeppert was a German paleobotanist and educator who settled the question of the origin of coal by demonstrating the existence of plant cells within it. |
1888 - 1971 
Winifred Goldring Winifred Golding was the first woman to serve as State Paleontologist of any U.S. state. She had expertise in Devonian crinoids, and established that fossils recovered from Gilboa, New York were those of Devonian seed ferns. |
1879 - 1954 
Walther Gothan Walther Gothan was a German geologist and paleobotanist on the faculty of the Technische Universitaet, Berlin, and later at the Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR. |
1858 - 1933
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James Groves James Groves, brother of and collaborator with Henry Groves, was an English botanist and phycologist who was the leading authority on the algal family Characeae in Great Britain. |
1884 - 1964 
Thore Halle Thore Gustav Halle was a Swedish paleobotanist, bryologist and plant collector who worked on Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits, including in South America and China. He also collected a large number of living bryophytes particularly from the region of Stockholm |
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1907 - 1989 
Henry Hansen Henry Paul Hansen was an American palynologist and paleobotanist who worked on the history of vegetation in the northwestern United States. |
1903 - 1983 
Thomas Harris Thomas Harris was a British paleobotanist who worked on various Mesozoic pteridosperms and conifers. He was especially known for his studies of Caytoniales and establishment of pollen reproductive structures (Caytonanthus) and discovered pollen in the micropyles of Caytonia seeds. |
1869 - 1929 
John Harshberger John William Harshberger was an American ecologist, plant geographer, plant pathologist and conservationist on the faculty of University of Pennsylvania, who coined the term "ethnobotany." |
1924 - 2006 
Calvin J. Heusser Calvin J. Heusser was an American plaeobotanist/palynologist who pioneered work in paleoecology. He studied fossil pollen from North and South America as well as documenting variation in modern groups such as Polypodiaceae |
1940 - 2013 
Leo J. Hickey Leo Hickey was an American geologist, paleobotanist, and educator who developed a method of classifying leaf vein patterns in living taxa to identify fossil plants. |
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1783 - 1863 
Samuel Hildreth Samuel Prescott Hildreth was an American geologist, naturalist and historian of the early and middle 19th Century. He described fossil plants from the coal beds located in Pennsylvania and Ohio. |
1889 - 1955 
Elise Hofmann Elise Hofmann was an Austrian geologist and paleobotanist who in 1934 published Palaeohistologie der Pflanze. |
1890 - 1917 
Ruth Holden Ruth Holden was an American paleobotanist and Red Cross nurse who died at the age of 26 during WWI. |
1857 - 1933 
Charles Hollick Charles Arthur Hollick was one of the earliest and most well-known American paleobotanists, but began his career as a plant taxonomist, publishing species lists/floras of Richmond County, New York. He was curator of fossil plants first at Columbia University, then at the New York Botanical Garden. His paleobotanical publications first appeared in 1892 and extended into the 1930s. |
1929 - 2019 
Francis M. Hueber Fran Hueber was an American paleobotanist known for his work on Psilophyton and various early fossil bryophytes and gymnosperms |
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1939 - 2012 
L. Maurice Huggins L. Maurice Huggins was an American paleobotanist who pursued a career in public school teaching after his short paleobotanical career. |
1797 - 1860 
William Hutton William Hutton was an English geologist and paleobiologist who collected and published on plants from British coal measures. His extensive collections today lie with the Museum of the Natural History Society, Newcastle, and with the Museum of the Durham College of Physical Science, Newcastle. |
1893 - 1978
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Irene Jacobsohn Irene Jacobsohn was a Polish-Austrian botanist and serologist, associated with the Staatliches Serotherapeutisches Institut, Wien. |
1866 - 1952 
Edward Jeffrey Edward Charles Jeffrey was a Canadian-American paleobotanist, plant anatomist and phylogeneticist. Jeffrey studied and published on a very wide array of fossil plants. |
1877 - 1964 
Otto Jennings Otto E. Jennings was an American pteridologist, bryologist, and paleobotanist who was employed by the Carnegie Museum and was on the faculty of University of Pittsburgh. His interests included floras of Pennsylvania and of Cuba, with publications including A Contribution to the Botany of the Isle of Pines (1917) and Wild Flowers of Western Pennsylvania and the Upper Ohio Basin (1953). |
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1886 - 1958
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Edith Kershaw Edith May Kershaw was a British-Australian botanist and plant collector, and lecturer at University of Adelaide. |
1852 - 1924 
Robert Kidston Robert Kidston was a Scottish paleobotanist and photographer. He was considered one of the most influential botanists of the early 20th Century. |
1860 - 1926 
Frank Knowlton Frank Hall Knowlton was an American plant taxonomist, horticulturist, and paleobotanist during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. |
1863 - 1922
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Fridolin Krasser Fridolin Krasser was an Austrian paleobotanist specializing in Mesozoic floras. He was a faculty member of the Deutsche Technische Hochschule, Prague. |
1890 - 1966 
Richard Krausel Richard Oswald Karl Krausel was a German paleobotanist with interest in the Devonian period, on the faculty of Universitaet Frankfurt am Main, as well as head of the department of paleobotany at the Naturmuseum Senckenberg. |
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1903 - 1987
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Harriette Krick Henriette Krick was a paleobotanist in the early 20th Century. |
1885 - 1953 
Afrikan Krishtofovich Afrikan Nikolaevich Krishtofovich was a Soviet paleobtanist who specialized in the flora of the Mesozoic. |
1937 - 2020 
Zlatko Kvacek Zlatko Kvacek was a Czech paleobotanist on the faculty of Charles University, Prague, who focused on Cenozoic floras and who developed new methods of preparation of fossil and living plant cuticles. |
1874 - 1960 
William Lang William Henry Lang was an English botanist and paleobotanist on the faculty of University of Manchester, who is credited with the discovery of the sporangium on the prothallus of ferns. |
1901 - 1994 
Suzanne Leclercq Suzanne Leclercq was a Belgian paleobotanist who specialized in Devonian plants. |
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1924 - 1996
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Gilbert Leisman Gilbert Arthur Leisman was an American paleobotanist who studied Carboniferous lycopsids and coal balls |
1806 - 1889 
Leo Lesquereux Charles Leo Lesquereux was a pioneering Swiss-American paleobotanist and bryologist. |
1660 - 1709 
Edward Lhwyd Edward Lhwyd was a Welsh plant taxonomist, naturalist paleontologist, linguist, anthropologist and geographer who is credited with the first written record of a trilobite fossil. He died at age 49 of complications from asthma contracted on his travels |
1855 - 1916 
Octave Lignier Octave Lignier was a French plant morphologist and paleobotanist noted for his studies of Cycadofilicales, Bennettitales, and Coniferales. |
1799 - 1865 
John Lindley John Lindley was an English botanist, horticulturist and illustrator who, without a college education, succeeded under the tutelage of William Jackson Hooker. Lindley eventually joined the faculty of University College, London, and was involved with the Horticultural Society of London (later called the Royal Horticultural Society). He was an expert on orchids especially, and developed the Lindley System of plant classification (a "natural" system based on that of Jussieu). |
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1639 - 1712 
Martin Lister Martin Lister was an English physician and naturalist, physician to Queen Anne. He is recognized as the first arachnologist and the first conchologist, as well as for having invented the histogram. |
1920 - 2008
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Anna Lundblad Anna Britta Lundblad was a Swedish paleobotanist and bryologist. She was a professor of plant paleontology at Stockholm University as well as curator of the Paleobotanical Department, Swedish Museum of Natural History. |
1896 - 1987 
Harry MacGinitie Harry Dunlap MacGinitie was an American paleobotanist who worked on Tertiary fossil plants of western North America. |
1921 - 2008
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Sergius H. Mamay Sergius H. Mamay was an an American paleobotanist who worked most of his career with the US Geological Survey and the Smithsonian Institution. His expertise was in Paleozoic fossils, particularly of Permian floras of the Southwestern US |
1790 - 1852 
Gideon Mantell Gideon Algernon Mantell was an English paleontologist who is known for early scientific study of dinosaur fossils beginning around 1820. At the time of his death in 1852, Mantell had discovered four of the five genera of dinosaurs known. Although best known for his dinosaurs, Mantell also published on fossil plants. |
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1877 - 1969 
William Martin William Keble Martin was an English Anglican priest and botanical illustrator who is best known for his meticulous book The Concise British Flora in Colour, which took 60 years of fieldwork and painting for him to produce. |
1928 - 2010 
Paul Martin Paul S. Martin was an American paleobiologist and educator at University of Arizona, whose "blitzkrieg model" of human-caused extinctions during the Pleistocene is still controversial. |
1794 - 1868 
Karl Martius Karl von Martius was a German botanist who spent much time exploring Brazil and was known as a palm expert. His Historia Naturalis Palmarum (1823-1850) described all known palm genera of that time, and Flora Brasiliensis was initiated in 1840. His personal herbarium of over 300,000 specimens is at the National Botanic Garden of Belgium. |
1942 - 2011
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Norton Miller Norton G. Miller was an American paleobotanist and bryologist, employed as botanist at the Gray Herbarium and the Arnold Arboretum (Harvard University), and later Curator of Bryology and Quaternary Paleobotany at the New York State Museum. |
1810 - 1886
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John Morris John Morris was an English pharmaceutical chemist and paleontologist on the faculty of University College, London. His magnum opus was A Catalogue of British Fossils (1843). |
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1799 - 1851 
Samuel Morton Samuel George Morton was an American paleontologist, naturalist and physician whose theories on origins and characteristics of human races led him to adopt a racial hierarchy, quickly adopted as justification for racist policies such as segregation and slavery. His data have since been discredited as a prime example of bias in data collection. |
1850 - 1921 
Alfred Nathorst Alfred Gabriel Nathorst was a Swedish paleobotanist who greatly influenced his field and studied a wide variety of fossil plants, and was particularly known for his work on Arctic fossil localities. |
1901 - 1976 
Frantisek Nemejc Frantisek Nemejc was a Czech paleobotanist who was director of the geological and paleontological department of the N%C3%A1rodn%C3%AD Muzeum, Prague, and on the faculty of Charles University, Prague. |
1894 - 1962
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Maria Neuburg Maria Neuberg was a Russian paleobotanist during the first half of the 20th Century. She produced highly respected works on Paleozoic floras and produced what H.N. Andrews considered to be the most comprehensive treatment of fossil mosses at that time. |
1822 - 1892 
John Newberry John Strong Newberry was an American paleontologist, paleobotanist, geologist and physician. He studied both fossil fishes and fossil plants. His fossil plant studies were mainly on Mesozoic sites of eastern North America, including the Potomac group. |
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1873 - 1939 
Adolf Noe Adolf Carl Noe was an Austrian-American paleobotanist and plant anatomist who had a Ph.D. in Germanic Languages and Literature, and was the first paleobotanist to identify a coal ball in 1922. |
1832 - 1901 
Adolphe Nordenskiold Adolphe Erik Nordenskiold was a Finnish-Swedish geologist who pioneered arctic exploration as well as fossil collecting in various other areas, including Japan. He is considered by Henry Andrews to be the "real pioneer in fossil botany" in arctic lands. |
1864 - 1951 
Francis Oliver Francis Wall Oliver was a British paleobotanist who worked on paleozoic seedferns as well as a variety of modern plants. |
1919 - 2001 
Divya Pant Divya Darshan Pant was an Indian paleobotanist and plant anatomist with especial expertise in the Cycadales. He served on the faculty of University of Allahabad. |
1812 - 1894 
William Pengelley William Pengelly was an English geologist, paleontologist, and archaeologist, who explored the fossils of Devon and Cornwall and investigated the prehistoric occupation of Devonshire caves. With other like-minded geologists, he was a denier of traditional Biblical chronology of the earth. |
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1854 - 1910 
David Penhallow David Pearce Penhallow was a Canadian-American plant taxonomist and paleobotanist, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to fossil plants, Penhallow worked on modern gymnosperms, as well as some algae and angiosperms. |
1931 - 2018 
Tommy Phillips Tommy Lee Phillips was an American paleobotanist, paleoecologist and plant morphologist who worked on paleozoic fossil plants. |
1640 - 1696 
Robert Plot Robert Plot was an English naturalist and antiquarian with an interest in fossil animals and plants. Plot produced the first known illustration of a dinosaur fossil, which he misidentified as a bone from a human giant. |
1857 - 1913 
Henry Potonie Henry Potonie was a German paleobotanist and plant taxonomist who studied the formation of coal and wrote an illustrated flora of northern and central Germany. |
1860 - 1916 
Charles Prosser Charles S. Prosser was an American geologist and paleobotanist who earned his Ph.D. at Cornell University. He was a founding Fellow of the Geological Society of America. |
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1894 - 1988 
Fredda Reed Fredda D. Reed was an American paleobotanist and educator who did early investigations on North American Carboniferous coal-ball plants. |
1860 - 1953
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Eleanor Reid Eleanor Mary Reid was a paleobotanist who devised new methods for the identification of floral fossils and authored many publications on the English fossil flora. |
1853 - 1916 
Clement Reid Clement Reid was a British paleobotanist and paleoarchaeologist who studied the flora and fossil flora of Britain. His spouse was fellow paleobotanist Eleanor Mary Reid. |
1924 - 1995 
Winfried Remy Winfried Remy was a German paleobotanist on the faculty of Universitaet Muenster who worked extensively with Devonian fungi. |
1836 - 1904 
Bernard Renault Bernard Renault was a French paleobotanist, who worked on silicified Paleozoic floras of Europe. His most important contributions were on the coenopterid ferns and Cordaitaceae. |
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1871 - 1958
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Eda Round Eda M. Round was an American botanist, paleobotanist, and educator who earned her Ph.D. at Brown University. |
1891 - 1949 
Birbal Sahni Birbal Sahni was an Indian paleobotanist and plant anatomist who also worked in Britain and Germany. He was influential in the study of Indian fossil plants and Mesozoic seedferns. |
1883 - 1952
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Ethel Sanborn Ethel Ida Sanborn was an American paleobotanist and bryologist who studied extant and extinct floras in the northwestern US |
1823 - 1896 
Louis Saporta Louis C.J. Gaston de Saporta was a French paleobotanist who published several paleofloras of European deposits, which he illustrated himself. |
1815 - 1891 
Joseph Schenk August Schenk was an Austrian-German paleobotanist and plant taxonomist who worked on Triassic floras and petrified wood, and was Director of the Botanical Garden at the University of Wurzburg. |
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1672 - 1733 
Johann Scheuchzer Johann Jakob Scheuchzer was a Swiss physician, mathematician, and paleontologist who published Specimen Lithographiae Helveticae (1702) and Herbarium Diluvianum (1709), with explanations of fossils invoking Noah's flood. |
1808 - 1880 
Wilhelm Schimper Wilhelm Philipp Schimper was a French botanist, bryologist, and educator who became director of the Natural History Museum, London, and published Bryologia Europaea. |
1764 - 1832 
Ernest Schlotheim Ernst Friedrich von Schlotheim was a German politician and paleontologist who was the first in Germany to apply Linnaean binomials to fossil organisms. |
1911 - 1978 
James Schopf James Schopf was an American paleobotanist, palynologist and geologist known for his work on Carboniferous and Permian paleobotany and on the paleobotany of Antarctica. |
1854 - 1934 
Dukinfield Scott Dukinfield Henry Scott was an English botanist whose work in the nascent field of paleobotany made him well-known. |
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1862 - 1929 
Henderina Scott Hederina Scott was an English botanist who, in the early 20th century, produced time-lapse films of plant movement. |
1891 - 1984 
Flora Scott Flora M. Scott was a Scottish-American plant anatomist and plant physiologist, who was Chairperson of the Dept. of Botany, University of California, Los Angeles. |
1863 - 1941 
Albert Seward Albert Charles Seward was a prominent British paleobotanist who studied both paleozoic and later fossil floras. |
1924 - 1996
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Charles Smiley Charles Jack Smiley was an American paleobotanist who worked on plant fossils of the Pacific Northwest of North America. He discovered the important Clarkia fossil site, and one of his most important fossil discoveries was Pseudofagus. |
1842 - 1915 
Hermann Solms-Laubach Hermann zu Solms-Laubach was a German botanist and paleobotanist on the faculty of Kaiser-Wilhelm-Universitaet, Strasbourg (today Universite de Strasbourg), and for a time at Georg August Universitaet Goettingen. |
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1638 - 1686 
Nicholas Steno Nicholas Steno was a 17th Century Danish Catholic Bishop, who also studied medicine (anatomy) and geology. He is considered the father of scientific paleontology, and although most of his focus was on animals, he discussed plant fossils and postulated on their origins, some of which he accepted as previously living plants. |
1850 - 1943 
Charles H. Sternberg Charles Sternberg was an American paleontologist and professional fossil collector who mostly collected animal fossils. |
1893 - 1970 
Grace Stewart Grace Anne Stewart was a Canadian geologist and paleobotanist, and the first female graduate in geology in Canada, at University of Alberta. |
1880 - 1958 
Marie Stopes Marie Stopes was a celebrated and controversial paleobotanist, poet and writer of popular books and at least one novel. Her contributions to paleobotany in the early 20th Century are important, and she is credited with the discovery of the pteridosperms. Her self-help books focused on sex, marriage and family life. Stopes was also was a noted eugenicist and early advocate for birth control. She was the subject of some public scandals, most notably her romantic affair with the Japanese botanist Kenjiro Fujii |
1886 - 1970 
Wladyslaw Szafer Wladyslaw Szafer was a Polish paleobotanist, geologist, conservationist, and educator on the faculty of Jagiellonian University, Krakow. |
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1938 - 2016 
Thomas Taylor Thomas Norwood Taylor was an American paleobotanist and paleomycologist who specialized in the Carboniferous Period and collected extensively in Antarctica. Taylor was one of the most influential paleobotanists of the 20th Century, authoring a widely used textbook and mentoring numerous students. |
1885 - 1962 
Hugh Thomas Hugh "Ham" Thomas was a British paleobotanist most widely known for his description of the Jurassic fossil pteridosperm Caytonia. |
1883 - 1953 
Frederick O. Thompson Frederick O. Thompson was an American amateur paleontologist who was well known to contemporary paleobotanists and invertebrate paleontologists. He collected more than 10,000 fossil plant specimens, including some of the first coal balls. A trilobite that he collected is named after him, Arctinurus thompsoni. |
1932 - 2015 
William Tidwell William D. Tidwell was an American paleobotanist. He studied mostly Mesozoic and Cenozoic fossil floras from western North America. |
1927 - 2018 
John A. Townrow John Townrow was a British paleobotanist who is know for his work on Upper Carboniferous and Mesozoic seedferns and conifers. |
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1925 - 2015 
Alfred Traverse Alfred Traverse was a paleobotanist/palynologist who conducted his research in governmental, academic, and industrial settings. He was also an Episcopal clergyman. |
1800 - 1870 
Franz Unger Franz Unger was an Austrian plant physiologist and paleobotanist. His hypothesis that intracellular matter determined plant heredity greatly influenced the scientific trajectory of his student Gregor Mendel. |
1858 - 1949 
Josef Velenovsky Josef Velenovsky was a Czech pteridologist, bryologist and mycologist. |
1816 - 1876 
Alexander von Schrenk Alexander Gustav von Schrenk was a broadly trained Russian naturalist who studied both plants and insects, as well as fossil plants. |
1725 - 1778 
Johann Walch Johann Walch was an 18th Century German naturalist who published an important early work on fossils, including fossil plants. He was one of the first to offer a nomenclature for fossil plants, although most of those names are no longer used. |
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1850 - 1927 
Charles Walcott Charles Doolittle Walcott was an American commercial fossil collector who joined the U.S. Geological Survey and eventually was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He was the discoverer of the Burgess Shale (508 million years old). Mostly forgotten, interest in Walcott was renewed by Stephen Jay Gould in his book Wonderful Life. |
1895 - 1971 
John Walton John Walton was an English paleobotanist who spemt most of his career at Glasgow University, from 1930-1962. |
1841 - 1913 
Lester Ward Lester Frank Ward was an American paleobotanist, geologist, and sociologist who became Geologist of the U.S. Geological Survey, but is better known for his philosophies as a sociologist when that field was young. |
1886 - 1973 
David Watson David Meredith Seares Watson was a British vertebrate paleontologist who also published on some plant fossils, most notably Lycopsida from the Coal Measures of the UK. |
1929 - 2004 
Wesley Wehr Wesley Conrad Wehr was an American paleobotanist and artist who worked on Cenozoic plants of western North America. Although Wehr was not formally trained in botany, he became a well known plaeobotanist and became an affiliate curator at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. |
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1865 - 1953 
Frederick Weiss Frederick E. Weiss was an English plant physiologist who served on the faculty of Victoria University of Manchester. |
1888 - 1974
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Hermann Weyland Hermann Weyland was a German paleobotanist who studied Devonian and Tertiary floras. |
1862 - 1935 
Charles White Charles David White was an American geologist and paleobotanist who developed the carbon-ratio hypothesis used for oil and gas exploration.. He was Associate Curator of Paleobotany at the Smithsonian Institution and President of the Geological Society of America. His fossil work was mostly on Paleozoic fossil plants. |
1848 - 1927 
Israel White Israel C. White was a geologist and petrologist on the faculty of the Geology Department, West Virginia University, and was the first State Geologist of West Virginia. His observations in the Southern Hemisphere of similar formations between Africa and South America contributed to Alfred Wegener's theorization of continental drift theory. |
1865 - 1953 
George Wieland George Reber Weiland was an American paleobotanist most noted for his work on the cycadeoids (Bennettitales) mostly found in coal balls. |
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1816 - 1895 
William Williamson William Crawford Williamson was a British paleobotanist and naturalist. He worked on a variety of plant and animal fossils. |
1906 - 1998 
Leonard Wilson Leonard R. Wilson was an American pioneer in palynology and paleobotany, recognized as the first to utilize palynological studies in oil exploration. His collections (the Leonard R. Wilson Collection of Micropaleontology and Paleobotany) are at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, where he was curator when it was known as the Stovall Museum of Natural History. |
1779 - 1844 
Henry Witham Henry Witham was a British amateur paleontologist and mineralogist, noted for his early work with the microscope and his comparison of fossil and modern plants. His 1831 and 1833 books were the first published studies of the internal structure of fossil plants based on thin sections and microscopy |
1936 - 2005 
Jack Wolfe Jack A. Wolfe was an American paleobotanist and paleoclimatologist employed by United States Geological Survey who had expertise in Tertiary climates of western North America. |
1665 - 1728 
John Woodward John Woodward was an English naturalist, botanist, paleontologist/fossil collector and antiquarian. Woodward performed experiments on spearmint (Mentha, Lamiaceae) growing hydroponically. He interpreted the fossils that he found as products of the great biblical flood. Woodward is also noteworthy for a duel by sword in which he participated. |
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1910 - 1992 
Ren Xu Xu Ren (Hsu Jen) was a Chinese paleobotanist and palynologist who was a student of Birbal Sahni, and nephew of plant anatomist Zhang Jingyue. Xu served as director of the Palaeobotany Laboratory of the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was especially interested in the Devonian flora of Yunnan. |
1877 - 1946 
Mikhail Zalessky Mikhail D. Zalessky was a Russian paleobotanist and expert in coal and oil shale formations. |
1847 - 1915 
Charles Zeiller Charles Rene Zeiller was a French paleobotanist on the faculty of the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines, and for whom the (extinct) genera Zeilleria, Zeillerisporites, and Zeilleropteris were named. |