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This gaggle celebrates botanists who had (or have had) extremely long lives. Currently, the cutoff to join this select group is 90 years of age. For botanists who exceeded 100 years of age, see "Centenarian Botanists" |
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1883 - 1980 
Hannah Aase Hannah Aase was an American cytologist/cytotaxonomist and was the first Emeritus Professor at the State College of Washington. |
1905 - 2000 
Ernst Abbe Ernst Cleveland Abbe was an American plant anatomist trained at Cornell University known for his work on Betulaceae and Myrsinaceae. He collected widely in Canada and Southeast Asia. |
1919 - 2010 
Isabella Abbott Isabella Aiona Abbott was an internationally renowned phycologist and the world's leading expert on Pacific seaweeds. |
1914 - 2004 
Hilda Aboy Hilda Elena Aboy was an American botanist who studied under Arthur J. Eames at Cornell University. |
1889 - 1981 
Charles Alexander Charles Paul Alexander was an American aquatic entomologist and educator who earned his Ph.D. at Cornell University, known for his expertise in the family Tipulidae (craneflies). |
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1906 - 2006 
Ethel K. Allen Ethel K. Allen was an American plant physiologist and bacteriologist who worked on symbiosis and nitrogen fixation |
1885 - 1984 
Flora Anderson-Haas Flora Anderson-Haas was an American botanist, plant anatomist, and educator on the faculty of Wellesley College, Indiana University, Arkansas State Teachers College, and Union University. |
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. |
1914 - 2007 
Eily Archibald Eily Archibald was a South African botanist who named several plant species of the veld grassland, and was the author and illustrator of The Eastern Cape Veld Flowers, a valuable resource for that flora. |
1865 - 1961 
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Eleonora Armitage Eleonora Armitage was a British bryologist and also had interests in the genus Iris and collected widely in Europe and the Caribbean region |
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1850 - 1942 
Joseph Arthur Joseph Charles Arthur was an American mycologist and plant pathologist with expertise in the rust fungi. Arthur received the first D.Sc. ever granted by Cornell University. |
1928 - 2019 
Sidney Ash Sidney Roy Ash was an American paleobotanist who specialized in Triassic and Jurassic fossil plants |
1651 - 1742 
Claude Aubriet Claude Aubriet was a botanical illustrator known for his appointment as the royal botanical painter at the Jardin du Roi (now Jardin des Plantes) from 1707 until 1735. |
1911 - 2011 
Leslie Audus Leslie John Audus was an English plant physiologist and biochemist who published standard works on plant hormones and the actions of herbicides. He was interned in a Japanese POW camp during the second world war, and saved many prisoners' (and captors') lives by devising ways to improve nutrition using yeast fermentation of maize and soybeans. |
1903 - 1994
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George Sherman Jr. Avery George Sherman Avery, Jr. was an American plant physiologist with an interest in plant hormones, and a horticulturist (an expert in bonsai culture), who was director of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. |
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1901 - 1996 
Rimo Bacigalupi Rimo Bacigalupi was an American botanist and the first curator of the Jepson Herbarium and Library, University of California, Berkeley. |
1889 - 1983 
Ethel Bailey Ethel Zoe Bailey, daughter of L.H. Bailey, was the first curator at the L.H. Bailey Hortorium, Cornell University, from 1935 until her retirement in 1957. |
1858 - 1954 
Liberty Bailey Liberty Hyde Bailey was a highly prolific horticulturalist, taxonomist, and educator who established the first horticultural department in the U.S. at Michigan Agricultural College in 1883. He established and became the first dean of the State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, in 1904. |
1868 - 1961 
Milo Baker Milo S. Baker was an American plant collector who specialized in the genus Viola and on the flora of northwestern California. |
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. |
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1892 - 1984 
Edward Balls Edward Kent Balls was an English horticulturist and plant collector who explored for the Agricultural Bureau, specializing in alpine and rock garden plants, and later, potatoes. Later in his career he was employed by Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. |
1884 - 1977 
Kate Barratt Kate Barratt was a research assistant and lecturer in botany at Imperial College London before she became Principal at Swanley Horticultural College, her alma mater. |
1879 - 1972 
Mary Barrett Mary Franklin Barrett was an American high school teacher, and an instructor in Botany at Wellesley College who attended summer school at Cornell University in 1902. She had an interest in mycology and in the genus Ficus, and lived an exceptionally long life in Montclair, N.J. |
1856 - 1954 
Charles Batchelder Charles Foster Batchelder was an American naturalist, horticulturist, and ornithologist who collected widely and co-founded the American Ornithologists' Union. |
1912 - 2003 
Katherine I. Beamish Katherine Beamish was a Canadian botanist and educator who took a leave of absence from schoolteaching to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. She then went to college, ultimately earning a Ph.D in genetics and botany, and embarked on a long career as a professor at the University of British Columbia. |
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1881 - 1977 
Ralph Bean Ralph Carleton Bean was an American schoolteacher and botanist who co-collected with many well-known botanists, mainly associated with Harvard University, but also Cornell University, where he participated in a botany summer program in 1932. |
1921 - 2013 
Clyde Bell C. Ritchie Bell was an American botanist on the faculty of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He co-authored Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas (1968). |
1787 - 1879 
Jacob Bigelow Jacob Bigelow was an American physician, technologist, plant collector and plant taxonmist who studied medical botany and ethnobotany as well. |
1831 - 1932 
Caroline Bingham Caroline Bingham was one of the first American women to publish scientific papers in botany. |
1908 - 2005 
Mary Bowerman Mary Leolin Bowerman was a Canadian-American botanist and conservationist best known for her preservation efforts at Mt. Diablo, California. |
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1884 - 1980 
Josias Braun-Blanquet Josias Braun-Blanquet was an important Swiss plant geographer (phytogeographer) and plant ecologist most famous for his system for classifying plant associations/vegetation types, and for his development of sampling methods for ecological studies. |
1901 - 2001 
Helia Bravo Helia Bravo Hollis was a Mexican botanist renowned for her work on the taxonomy of cacti |
1859 - 1954 
Nathaniel Britton Nathaniel Lord Britton was a professor of Geology and Botany at Columbia University and an active member of the Torrey Botanical Club when he became the first director of the New York Botanical Garden, and is perhaps best known for his authorship of the 1897 Britton and Brown Illustrated Flora of the Northeastern US and Canada. |
1908 - 2001 
Babette Brown Babette I. Brown Coleman was an American botanist and plant collector on the faculty of University of Rochester, New York. She specialized in bryology and lichenology nad contributed significantly to the Cornell University herbaria while under the tutelage of Walter C. Muenscher. |
1912 - 2007 
Katherine M. Buell Katherine Buell held B.S. and M.S. degrees in Zoology and earned a Ph.D. on Botany in 1936, before taking a position at Doane College in Nebraska, where she remained until her retirement 43 years later, becoming the longest serving faculty member there. |
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1914 - 2010 
Robert Burris Robert Harza Burris was an American chemist on the faculty of University of Wisconsin, Madison, who elaborated the mechanisms of biological nitrogen fixation in soil. |
1902 - 1995 
Stanley Cain Stanley A. Cain was an American botanist on the faculty of University of Michigan, considered a pioneer in the field of plant ecology. |
1859 - 1953 
Douglas Campbell Douglas H. Campbell was an influential American plant morphologist, plant geographer, and educator who wrote several widely-used textbooks, including the 1890 Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany. |
1930 - 2021 
Sherwin Carlquist Sherwin Carlquist was an American plant anatomist and wood anatomist, a photographer, and as a contributor to the study of island biology and biogeography. He is known outside of the scientific community for having been an early organizer and advocate for gay rights in the United States. |
1892 - 1985 
Margery Carlson Margery Claire Carlson was a field biologist, conservationist, and the first female professor at Northwestern University, where she taught for more than 30 years. |
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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. |
1895 - 1987
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Nellie Carter Nellie Carter was a phycologist in the first half of the 20th Century, specializing on algal chloroplasts. She worked at University of Birmingham, Yale University and the Missouri Botanical Garden. |
1904 - 1995 
Marion Cave Marion Cave was an American botanist and cytogeneticist who carried out cytologic and genetic research over a wide variety of taxa, including fungi, algae and flowering plants and edited the important reference Index to Plant Chromosome Numbers. |
1876 - 1971
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Grace Charles Grace Miriam Charles was an American pteridologist and botanical collector in the early and mid-20th Century |
1869 - 1963 
Mary Chase Agnes Chase was an American agrostologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and authored many publications, including First Book of Grasses, a much-loved guide to a difficult group of plants. |
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1918 - 2021 
Sherret Chase Sherret Spaulding Chase was an American cytogeneticist who earned his Ph.D. at Cornell University and worked on maize and other cereal grains. |
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. |
1914 - 2005 
Robert Clark Robert B. Clark was an American landscape architect and taxonomist of cultivated plants. He served as curator of the L.H. Bailey Hortorium Herbarium, Cornell University (BH) from 1962-1964, and as a landscape architect his most lasting contribution (1963) may be the design of the arboretum in Holmdel Park, Monmouth County, New Jersey. |
1874 - 1971 
Edith Clements Edith S. Clements was an American botanist, plant ecologist and illustrator and the first woman to graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. She was the spouse of plant ecologist Frederic Clements. |
1838 - 1929 
Daniel Cleveland Daniel Cleveland was an American lawyer and amateur botanist who collected mainly in southern California and Baja California. He was a correspondent with Asa Gray and many plant species he collected now bear his name, including the genus Clevelandia. |
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1829 - 1919
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Albert Commons Albert Commons was an American farmer and amateur botanist who collected extensively in Delaware and adjacent states during the 19th Century. Many of his specimens, including thousands of fungi and lichens, were deposited with the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia (PH). |
1874 - 1971 
Henry Conard Henry Shoemaker Conard was an American bryologist and conservatonist with a long career for 2/3 of the 20th Century |
1873 - 1964 
Edwin Copeland Edwin B. Copeland was an American plant physiologist, pteridologist, and agriculturist who founded the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture. |
1909 - 2004 
Harriet Creighton Harriet Creighton was an American cytologist and geneticist who, with Barbara McClintock at Cornell University, determined that chromosomes carried and exchanged genetic material, producing heritable traits. |
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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1905 - 1998
 George Cross George Cross |
1911 - 2011 
Eva Daily Eva Fay Kenoyer Daily was an American phycologist who studied freshwater algae in the midwestern United States and also specialized on the genus Chara and other Characeae. |
1909 - 2000 
Mary Dedecker Mary DeDecker was an American conservationist and botanist dedicated to identifying and preserving the flora of the northern Mojave and Eastern Sierra |
1905 - 1997 
Lauramay Dempster Lauramay Tinsley Dempster was an American botanist who worked closely with Willis Jepson on the flora of California. She later became a Herbarium Botanist (and later Research Geneticist and Research Associate) at University of California, Berkeley. She was an expert on the genus Galium (Rubiaceae). |
1923 - 2015 
William C. Dilger William "Bill" C. Dilger was an American ornithologist and plant collector, on the faculty of Cornell University as a Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior as well as Director of Research at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Cornell University. |
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1883 - 1986 
Gertrude Douglas Gertrude Douglas was an American educator and botanist who studied with George Atkinson at Cornell University. |
1918 - 2018 
Nicholas Drahos Nick Drahos was an American wildlife and conservation biologist and educator, but perhaps remembered by most as a star Cornell University football player who was named to the All-America team in 1939-1940, and elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1981. |
1918 - 2011 
William Dress William Dress was an American horticultural taxonomist who spent his career as a faculty member at the L.H. Bailey Hortorium, Cornell University, and authored a large number of the entries in Hortus Third. |
1872 - 1966
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Elizabeth M. Dunham Elizabeth M. Dunham was an American bryologist who in 1916 published the book How to Know the Mosses without the Aid of a Lens. |
1859 - 1953 
Alice Eastwood Alice Eastwood was an influential American botanist and curator at the California Academy of Sciences in the early 20th century. |
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1883 - 1974 
Charlotte Elliott Charlotte Elliot was a plant physiologist, the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Wisconsin in 1918, and the author of Manual of Bacterial Plant Pathogens, a reference still in use today. |
1899 - 2002
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Eileen Erlanson Eileen Whitehead Erlanson was an American plant cytogeneticist who specialized on cytotaxonomy of the genus Rosa (Rosaceae) |
1898 - 1997 
Katherine Esau Katherine Esau was a Ukrainian-German-American botanist, plant anatomist, and educator whose textbooks on plant anatomy are considered classics. |
1868 - 1959 
Alexander W. Evans Alexander William Evans was an American bryologist whose worked spanned the late 19th and first half of the 20th Century. |
1865 - 1956
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Edith Farr Edith May Farr was an American botanist and plant collector of the Canadian Rocky Mountains in the early 1900s. |
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1875 - 1971 
Stevenson Fletcher Stevenson Whitcomb Fletcher, who earned his master's and doctorate degrees from Cornell University, was an author and educator of agriculture and horticulture who held several administrative positions at multiple institutions. |
1829 - 1923 
James Fowler Reverend James Fowler was a Canadian Presbyterian minister, plant collector, and educator at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, where the Fowler Herbarium is named for him. |
1921 - 2013 
Erica Frank Erica M. Frank was a Welsh-American botanist and professor of biology at Centenary College. |
1834 - 1931 
Catherine Furbish Catherine "Kate" Furbish was a botanical illustrator from Brunswick, Maine who dedicated her life to collecting, classifying, and painting Maine's flora. |
1874 - 1967 
Charles Furlong Charles Wellington Furlong was an American explorer, artist, photographer, and professor at Cornell University who traveled widely and collected botanical specimens, especially in Patagonia. |
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1881 - 1972 
Burton Gates Burton N. Gates was a lecturer and researcher in apiculture (beekeeping) at the Massachusetts Agricultural College and was appointed the state's first apiary inspector in 1911. Later in his career, he distributed plant specimens to herbaria (BH has at least nine of his collections) and published on ant dispersal of seeds as well as few other botanical notes. |
1882 - 1975 
Henry Gleason Henry Allen Gleason was an American ecologist, botanist, and taxonomist whose ideas about vegetational succession put him at odds with the orthodoxy of that time. |
1897 - 1990 
Waldo S. Glock Waldo S. Glock was an American geologist and educator, regarded as a pioneer in the fields of dendroclimatology and dendrochronology. |
1914 - 2018 
David Goodall David William Goodall was a British-born Australian plant taxonomist and plant physiologist who gained international attention when he elected assisted suicide at the age of 104 and flew to Switzerland because of legal barriers to his choice in Australia. |
1910 - 2007 
Richard Goodwin Richard Hale Goodwin was an American plant physiologist and field botanist. |
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1912 - 2012 
Mary Grierson Mary Anderson Grierson was a Welsh-born Scottish botanical illustrator, on the staff at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. |
1906 - 2008
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Mildred Griffith Mildred M. Griffith was an American botanist and educator, and one of the first women to join the faculty after the University of Florida became coeducational. |
1858 - 1950 
Harry Hapeman Harry Hapeman was an American physician and plant collector who was mentored by Charles Bessey, and distributed specimens from his herbarium in Minden, Nebraska. |
1915 - 2007 
John Hawkes John Gregory Hawkes was an English botanist with expertise in the family Solanaceae, who was on the faculty of University of Birmingham. The genus Hawkesiophyton was named for him. |
1858 - 1951 
Caroline Haynes Caroline Haynes was an American hepaticologist who was active in the Sullivant Moss Society and provided financial and intellectual support to others in her field of study. |
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1915 - 2006 
James C. Hinton James (Jaime) Hinton was a Mexican plant collector who as a youth accompanied his father, George Hinton, on collecting trips in southern and southwestern Mexico. These trips used mules to carry equipment and plant presses. James continued collecting from his apple ranch in the state of Coahuila, Mexico in the late 20th Century, collaborating with faculty (Billie Turner) and graduate students from the University of Texas at Austin. Several new taxa were named from these collaborations, based on collections made by Hinton. |
1908 - 2001 
George M. Hocking George M. Hocking was an English-American retail and industrial pharmacist and authority on medicinal plants. He authored A Dictionary of Natural Products and other pharmacological publications, and was on the faculty of several universities, retiring from Auburn University's School of Pharmacy in 1975. |
1913 - 2009 
Barbara Hodge Barbara "Bobbie" Taylor Hodge was an American botanist, artist, and plant collector, as well as an amateur invertebrate paleontologist and fossil collector. |
1912 - 2013 
Walter Hodge Walter Henricks Hodge was an American ethnobotanist, economic botanist and phytochemist who studied Cinchona (Rubiaceae) and various other plants in the Andes of South America as well as in Africa |
1897 - 1988
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George J. Hollenberg George J. Hollenberg was an American marine phycologist who specialized in red algae, and co-authored Marine Algae of California (1976) with Isabella Abbott. |
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1817 - 1911 
Joseph Hooker Joseph Dalton Hooker was an English physician, plant taxonomist, and friend of Charles Darwin who collected extensively worldwide and introduced many plants to cultivation. |
1867 - 1968 
Marshall Howe Marshall Avery Howe was an American hepaticologist, phycologist and plant collector who was associated with the New York Botanical Garden for 35 years. |
1929 - 2019 
Francis M. Hueber Fran Hueber was an American paleobotanist known for his work on Psilophyton and various early fossil bryophytes and gymnosperms |
1911 - 2009
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Mary Humphreys Mary E. Humphreys was an American botanist and educator, a Professor of Biology at Mary Baldwin University. |
1887 - 1980 
Elverta Hutchinson Elverta Groves Hutchinson was a graduate student of Karl M. Wiegand at Cornell University, earning a M.A. in 1937 for her thesis work: A Botanical Survey of Mount Airy Forest Park at Cincinnati, Ohio. |
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1727 - 1817 
Nikolaus Jacquin Nikolaus Jacquin was a Dutch-born Austrian physician, botanist, and mineralogist who collected and described many American plants, mainly from the West Indies and Central America. |
1926 - 2018 
Lawrence Kaplan Lawrence Kaplan was a well-known American ethnobotanist and an authority on the domestication of cultivated beans. |
1867 - 1967 
Nielsine Kildahl N. Johanna Kildahl was an American botanist and educator who earned her doctorate from University of Chicago and became a biology teacher in the Chicago school system. |
1922 - 2018 
Myron Kimnach Myron Kimnach was an American botanist and horticulturist and Director of the Huntington Botanical Gardens in California. He had a special interest in cacti and succulents and was a leading expert on the taxonomy of the succulent genus Echeveria (Crassulaceae). |
1925 - 2016 
Richard P. Korf Richard Korf was a world-renowned American mycologist and taxonomist on the faculty of Cornell University. His area of greatest expertise was in the Discomycetes, and he was co-founder of the journal Mycotaxon. |
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1904 - 1995 
Paul Kramer Paul J. Kramer was an American plant physiologist on the faculty of Duke University. |
1877 - 1974
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Elsie Kupfer Elsie M. Kupfer was a German-American mycologist, botanist, and educator who worked on plant physiology and fungal taxonomy. |
1890 - 1980 
Olga Lakela Olga Korhonen Lakela was a Finnish-American botanist and educator who worked with Heuchera and Tiarella, and who founded the herbarium at University of Minnesota, Duluth. |
1925 - 2021 
Jean Langenheim Jean Langenheim was a renowned plant ecologist and mentor to young women in academia whose expertise in plant resins developed over years of research in chemical ecology, ethnobotany and geologic history in ecosystems around the world. |
1896 - 1993 
Elva Lawton Elva Lawton was an American botanist and bryologist who specialized in western American mosses. |
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1901 - 1994 
Suzanne Leclercq Suzanne Leclercq was a Belgian paleobotanist who specialized in Devonian plants. |
1919 - 2009 
Aldo Leopold Carl Leopold was a plant physiologist and conservationist who studied the plant hormone auxin and whose research on soybeans and protein desiccation led to the development of inhalable insulin. |
1914 - 2008 
Sven Loman Sven Loman was an American horticulturist who graduated from Cornell University with a degree in horticulture in 1939, and was a gardener at the George Junior Republic in Dryden, New York, for 41 years. |
1883 - 1978 
Rachel Lowe Rachel Lowe was an American botanist and plant collector with an especial interest in ferns and bryophytes. |
1907 - 1994 
Cyrus Lundell Cyrus L. Lundell was an American botanist and plant collector who concentrated on Central American plants and described over 2000 new species. |
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1908 - 1998
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Amelia Lundell Amelia Anderson Lundell was botanical illustrator and plant collector, who often co-collected with her spouse Cyrus Longworth Lundell in Central America and the United States. |
1900 - 1992 
Harold Lutz Harold J. Lutz was an American forest ecologist and professor of silviculture at the School of Forestry, Yale University. |
1896 - 1987 
Harry MacGinitie Harry Dunlap MacGinitie was an American paleobotanist who worked on Tertiary fossil plants of western North America. |
1899 - 2004 
Wayne Manning Wayne Manning was an American horticulturist and plant anatomist with research interests in the Juglandaceae who received his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He was briefly an instructor in botany there before proceeding to a career teaching botany at Smith College and later, at Bucknell University. Wayne lived to be 104 years of age (our oldest botanist lived 105 years). |
1896 - 1994 
Herbert Mason Herbert Louis Mason was an American paleobotanist and plant geographer, the spouse of phycologist Lucile Roush, who served as professor of botany director of the herbarium, University of California, Berkeley. An important contribution of Mason's was showing the importance of soil nutrients as it affected plant distribution, especially with regard to serpentine formations in California. |
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1910 - 2007 
Georgia Mason Georgia Mason was an American botanist and plant collector who donated more than 4500 specimens to Oregon herbaria, and who authored Guide to the Plants of the Wallowa Mountains of Northeastern Oregon. |
1856 - 1947 
Oreste Mattirolo Oreste Mattirolo was an Italian botanist, mycologist, and educator specializing in hypogeal fungi. |
1912 - 2004 
Elizabeth McClintock Elizabeth McClintock was an American botanist and conservationist with expertise in native and invasive flora of California. |
1909 - 2009 
Rogers McVaugh Rogers McVaugh was an American botanist, internationally renowned for his expertise in taxonomy and Mexican flora. |
1905 - 2004 
Ilda McVeigh Ilda McVeigh was an American microbiologist and professor in the Department of Biology at Vanderbilt University. |
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1912 - 2009 
Alberta M. W. Mennega Alberta Maria Wilhelmina Mennega was a Dutch botanist, plant systematist, and collector of woods. The extinct genus Mennegoxylon is named for her. |
1928 - 2020 
Harvey Miller Harvey Alfred Miller was an American bryologist who specialized in the taxonomy and floristics of Hawaiian and other Pacific Island bryophytes. |
1916 - 2010 
Reid Moran Reid Moran was an American botanist who became the curator of botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum, and a world authority on the succulent family Crassulaceae. Moran also collected extensively on Guadalupe Island and Cedros Island off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. |
1848 - 1943 
Anna Mulford Anna Isabel Mulford was an American botanist and educator, and was the first student to earn a Ph.D. at Shaw School of Botany, Washington University, St. Louis. |
1905 - 2001 
Eugene Ogden Eugene Ogden was an American plant taxonomist who worked on Potamogeton, the flora of Maine, and dispersal mechanisms of spores and pollen. |
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1871 - 1964 
Winthrop Osterhout Winthrop Osterhout was an American plant physiologist and educator, on the faculty of Harvard University and associated with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who is regarded as the first to imagine using carrier molecules to actively transport dissolved molecules across cell membranes. |
1838 - 1928 
Samuel Parish Samuel Bonsall Parish was an American amateur botanist and floristician who collected extensively in southern California and published floras of the region. His personal herbarium was sold to Stanford University, where he was named Honorary Curator. |
1861 - 1952 
Frances Parsons Frances Theodora Parsons was an American naturalist who authored several popular guides to North American flora. |
1907 - 2013 
Ruth Patrick Ruth Myrtle Patrick was an American phycologist and freshwater biologist/ecologist who primarily worked on diatoms. She was the inventor of the diatometer. She was 105 years old at the time of her death, the longest living botanist in our records thus far (2021). |
1895 - 1992 
Lily Perry Lily May Perry was a Canadian-American botanist at the Arnold Arboretum, best known for work on Asian medicinal plants. |
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1857 - 1950 
Henri Pittier Henri Pittier was a Swiss plant collector and taxonomist mostly associated with the flora of Venezuela, where he lived for many years and where the first national park was named in his honor. |
1889 - 1984 
James Poole James P. Poole was an American botanist who served as Curator of the Jesup Herbarium, Dartmouth College. |
1920 - 2015 
George Proctor George Proctor was an American plant taxonomist and floristician active in the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, where he worked at the Institute of Jamaica. He notoriously was convicted at age 86 of conspiracy to murder his wife and three others, and imprisoned for two years. |
1910 - 2014 
Elsie Quarterman Elsie Quarterman was an American plant ecologist who described the plant communities of the Tennessee cedar glades and rediscovered the Tennessee coneflower, Echinacea tennesseensis, thought to be extinct. |
1895 - 1986 
Eduardo Quisumbing Eduardo Quisiumbing was a Filipino plant taxonomist, ethnobotanist, plant anatomist and orchid specialist. |
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1901 - 1995 
Hugh Raup Hugh Miller Raup was a plant ecologist on the staff of the Arnold Arboretum, and professor at Harvard University. His ecological work involved the Mackenzie Basin, the Canadian Northwest Territories, and the Alcan Highway area (Alaska), among other sites. |
1894 - 1988 
Fredda Reed Fredda D. Reed was an American paleobotanist and educator who did early investigations on North American Carboniferous coal-ball plants. |
1914 - 2009 
John Reeder John Raymond Reeder was an American agrostologist and taxonomist who served on the faculty of Yale University and as Curator of the Herbarium, Peabody Museum of Natural History. |
1891 - 1983 
Louisa E. Rhine Louisa Ella Rhine was an American botanist but perhaps best known as "the first lady of parapsychology." |
1873 - 1963 
William Rice William S. Rice was an American woodblock and linoleum block print artist, famous for his landscapes, who was also an amateur botanist and botanical illustrator. |
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1855 - 1956 
Henry Ridley Henry Ridley was a British plant taxonomist, geologist, ornithologist and naturalist, who studied and published on many topics, and perhaps should be considered an early "evolutionary biologist." He also proposed that the decline of gymnosperms, such as the cycads, from the Jurassic to the late Cretaceous, was caused by competition from the newly emerged angiosperms. |
1881 - 1977 
Edith Roberts Edith Roberts was an American botanist and plant physiologist, and professor at Vassar College who created the first ecological laboratory in the United States. |
1909 - 2000 
Douglas Savile Douglas Savile was an Irish-Canadian mycologist, plant pathologist, and evolutionary biologist who specialized on coevolution of rust fungi and their hosts. |
1890 - 1990 
Hazel M. Schmoll Hazel M. Schmoll was an American botanist who concentrated on the flora of southwestern Colorado and was the first woman to earn a doctorate in botany from the University of Chicago. |
1885 - 1976 
Jacob Schramm Jacob "Jack" Schramm was a professor of botany at Cornell University from 1914-1925, but left to serve as Editor in Chief of Biological Abstracts until 1937, when he became professor at Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Morris Arboretum. |
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1829 - 1919 
Simon Schwendener Simon Schwendener as a Swiss botanist, microscopist and lichenologist, most famous for his "Dual Hypothesis" of the nature of lichens, which although controversial when proposed, was eventually proven correct. His original presentation on the matter was very direct: "According to the current view of the speaker lichens have to be seen not as autonomous plants, but as fungi in connection with algae." |
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. |
1891 - 1990 
Paul Sears Paul B. Sears was an American plant ecologist and palynologist, regarded as a pioneer in the study of fossil pollen to inform knowledge of past climate in the United States. |
1904 - 1997 
Aaron Sharp Aaron J. Sharp was an American bryologist and hepaticologist on the faculty of University of Tennessee, whose geobotanical research gave early support to the theory of plate tectonics. Sharp had special interest in floristic connections between the floras of eastern Asia and eastern North America, and eastern Mexico and eastern North America. |
1924 - 2016 
Thomas Sheehan Thomas John Sheehan was an American orchidologist and orchid breeder who earned his Ph.D. at Cornell University, and who published several books on orchids. He was the spouse of the botanical illustrator Marion Elizabeth Ruff. |
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1877 - 1968 
Victor Shelford Victor E. Shelford was an American ecologist, zoologist, and conservationist who published much on vegetational succession, and in 1913 published Animal Communities in Temperate America. Shelford was the first president of the Ecological Society of America. |
1922 - 2014 
Paul C. Silva Paul C. Silva was a phycologist and marine biologist best known as an expert on the algal genus Codium, and as creator of Index Nominum Algarum. He served as curator of algae at the Herbarium of the University of California, Berkeley. |
1829 - 1928 
John Smith John Donnell Smith was an American plant taxonomist who was wounded in the American Civil War at Gettysburg and lived to be 99 years old. He was an important collector of plant specimens in Central America. |
1856 - 1946 
Annie Smith Annie Morrill Smithwas an amateur American botanist and bryologist, involved with the Sullivant Moss Society and editor of The Bryologist. |
1895 - 1997 
Cornelia Smith Cornelia Marschall Smith was an American biologist and botanist who served on the faculty of Baylor University and John B. Stetson University during her long professional career (1928-1967). While at Baylor University, she was also Curator of the Strecker Museum. |
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1874 - 1972 
Laetitia Snow Laetitia Snow was an American professor of botany at Wellesley College who shared an interest in aquatic plants with Karl M. Wiegand at Cornell University, whom she consulted for her study of the Delaware coast. |
1906 - 2000 
George Stebbins G. Ledyard Stebbins was a leading American plant taxonomist, plant geneticist and evolutionary biologist whose work combined previously understood concepts like natural selection with newer information about genetics to create a better understanding of plant speciation. |
1919 - 2012 
Gladys Stewart Gladys Carroll Stewart was an American botanist, bryologist, and horticulturist who worked at the New York Botanical Garden and George Washington University. |
1890 - 1993 
Ralph Stewart Ralph Randles Stewart (R.R. Stewart), was an American botanist who lived in Pakistan teaching and studying plants. |
1911 - 2001 
Irene Stuckey Irene Hawkins Stuckey was an American botanist, plant physiologist, and economic botanist who became well-known for her nature photography. |
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1910 - 2009 
Armen Takhtajan Armen L. Takhtajan (or Takhtajian) was an Armenian-Azerbaijani phylogeneticist and phytogeographer who developed the influential "Takhtajan System" of plant classification, as well as a system of phytogeographic classification. |
1906 - 2002 
Bonnie Templeton Bonnie C. Templeton was a pioneering female botanist and Curator of Botany for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. |
1913 - 2004 
Betty Thomson Betty Flanders Thomson was an American botanist and faculty member at Connecticut College. |
1920 - 2015 
Robert Thorne Robert Thorne was an internationally renowned American botanist who earned his doctorate at Cornell University and devised the "Thorne System" of plant classification. He added over 60,000 specimens to the herbarium of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden where he was curator for nearly 30 years. |
1920 - 2011 
Mary Tindale Mary Douglas Tindale was an Australian pteridologist and the first principle research scientist for the New South Wales (NSW) Public Works. |
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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. |
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. |
1830 - 1923 
Mary Treat Mary Treat was a highly productive American naturalist who studied carnivorous plants in the New Jersey pine barrens. |
1916 - 2008 
John M. Tucker John M. Tucker was an American plant taxonomist and expert on oaks. The bulk of his professional career was spent on the faculty of University of California, Davis, where he also served as director of the Arboretum and of the Botany Department Herbarium, now named the J.M. Tucker Herbarium in his honor. |
1925 - 2020 
Billie Turner Billie Lee Turner was an American plant taxonomist on the faculty of University of Texas, known for his work on the flora of Texas and Mexico. |
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1805 - 1899 
Jonathan Turner Jonathan Baldwin Turner was an American botanist and activist in higher education. He is credited with promoting the use of Osage orange (Maclura pomifera) as hedgerows on the American prairies, before barbed wire was available to delineate properties. Turner's activism, besides being a vocal abolitionist, was instrumental in the establishment of the land-grant university in the United States. |
1877 - 1978 
Thomas Turner Thomas W. Turner was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in Botany, which he earned from Cornell University in 1921, and the first secretary of the Baltimore chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). |
1919 - 2017 
Natalie Uhl Natalie Whitford Uhl was an American botanist, palm systematist, and professor at Cornell University. |
1918 - 2010 
Charles Uhl Charles Uhl was a well-known cytologist, taxonomist and cytotaxonomist who worked extensively on Crassulaceae. Uhl was a faculty member at Cornell University and the spouse of Natalie Whitford Uhl, noted plant anatomist and palm taxonomist. |
1858 - 1949 
Josef Velenovsky Josef Velenovsky was a Czech pteridologist, bryologist and mycologist. |
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1914 - 2010 
Dorothy H. Richman Wade Dorothy Wade was a prairie conservationist and co-founder, with her spouse Douglas Wade, of Windrift Prairie Nursery in Illinois. |
1919 - 2019 
Florence Wagner Florence S. Wagner was an American botanist, cytologist, and pteridologist who, with her spouse Warren H. Wagner, revolutionized the understanding of fern systematics using cytology and chromosome numbers. |
1877 - 1971 
Elda Walker Elda Walker was an American botanist who taught botany and conducted research on grass floral morphology as well as life history and development of Equisetum at the University of Nebraska. She was a sibling of the mycologist Leva Belle Walker |
1897 - 1993 
Katherine Warington Katherine Warington was an English plant physiologist and the first to demonstrate that boron (as boric acid) was an essential plant micronutrient. |
1918 - 2020 
William Weber Bill Weber was an American botanist and authority on lichens and mosses of the Galapagos Islands and of the Rocky Mountains. |
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1896 - 1990 
Winona Welch Winona Hazel Welch was an American bryologist, the first woman to head the DePauw University Biology Department and the first female president of the Indiana Academy of Science. |
1914 - 2007
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Arnold Wellwood Arnold Wellwood was a Canadian plant geneticist who earned his Ph.D. under L.F. Randolph at Cornell University. He developed a high-yield maize during a research stint in Nigeria, and served on the faculty of Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario. |
1885 - 1982 
Edgar T. Wherry Edgar T. Wherry was an American mineralogist, soil scientist, and fern expert from Philadelphia who was the foremost fern taxonomist of his time and wrote three key guides to eastern North American ferns. |
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. |
1880 - 1972
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Elizabeth Wuist Elizabeth Wuist is known for her studies of apogamy in ferns and for her plant collecting in Australasia. |