20
Celebrated amateur botanist and early mentor, later
colleague, of Asa Gray; practicing physician and professor
at Columbia and Princeton universities; contributed to the
botanical write-ups of most of the government exploring
expeditions of his time, though joining none of them in the
field; wrote Flora of New York (1843) and, with Gray, the
unfinished Flora of North America (1838-1843); visited the
West late in life, but did not tarry in New Mexico; honored
by the journal, Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club;
outstanding taxonomist of western American plants and
referred to by Isely (1994) as “a gifted, pragmatic
systematist and a superb human being.”
Andropogon torreyanus Steudel [=Bothriochloa
laguroides (DC.) Herter subsp.
torreyana (Steud.) Allred & Gould]
Agrostis torreyi Kunth [=Muhlenbergia torreyi
(Kunth) A.S. Hitchc. ex Bush]
Torreyochloa
Tracy, Samuel Mills (1847-1920).
Agronomist and forage botanist of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture; botanized near Raton, New Mexico in 1887,
and nearby in southern Colorado in 1898 (with E.L. Greene
and F.S. Earle); co-author (with G.C. Nealley and G.
Vasey) of Report of an investigation of the grasses of the
arid districts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and
Utah (1887); long-time resident of Biloxi, Mississippi, and
Director of U.S.D.A. Experiment Station at Starkville; his
collections and library formed the basis of Tracy
Herbarium (TAES) at Texas A&M University.
Poa tracyi Vasey
Tweedy, Frank (1854-1937).
Topographic engineer and sometime plant collector with
the U.S. Geological Survey, collecting chiefly from the
northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest.
Stipa tweedyi Scribn.
Vasey, George (1822-1893).
English-born American botanist and eminent agrostologist;
practiced medicine in Illinois and helped found the Illinois
Natural History Society; accompanied J.W. Powell to
Colorado in 1868, serving as botanist to the expedition;
curator of U.S. National Herbarium, 1872-1893; visited
New Mexico in 1884 and 1886; authored Grasses of the
Southwest (1890) and co-author (with G.C. Nealley and
S.M. Tracy) of Report of an investigation of the grasses of
the arid districts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada,
and Utah (1887);
Stipa vaseyi Scribn. [=Achnatherum robustum
(Vasey) Scribn.]
Aristida vaseyi Woot. & Standl. [=Aristida
purpurea Nutt. var. nealleyi (Vasey) Allred]
Warnock, Barton H. (1911-1998)
Enigmatic, energetic, captivating, sometimes cantankerous
botanist of Trans-Pecos Texas; professor at Sul Ross
University (Alpine, Texas); mentor to numerous Texas
botanists, both professional and amateur; known
affectionately as “Doc” by students and ranchers alike;
published series of photographic wildflower books (with
photographer Peter Koch) of the Big Bend, Guadalupe
Mountains and Sand Dune Country, and Davis Mountains
and Marathon Basin, all in Texas.
Bouteloua warnockii Gould & Kapadia
Wheeler, George Montegue (1842-1905).
Major in the Army and topographic engineer in charge of
government surveys west of the 100th meridian, making 14
trips during 1871-1879; some of the journeys were
accompanied by botanist J.T. Rothrock who wrote-up the
botanical collections; commemorated by Wheeler Peak in
northern New Mexico, its highest mountain at 13,160 ft.
Poa wheeleri Vasey [=Poa nervosa (Hook.)
Vasey var. wheeleri (Vasey) C.L.
Hitchc.]
Wilcox, Timothy Erastus (1840-1932).
Surgeon associated with U.S. Army who collected in
western states.
Panicum wilcoxianum Vasey [=Dichanthelium
oligosanthes (Schult.) Gould var.
wilcoxianum Gould (Vasey) Gould &
Clark]
Wolf, John (1820-1897).
Illinois botanist and naturalist; accompanied the Wheeler
expedition to the west, making numerous plant collections
under the direction of J.T. Rothrock, particularly in 1873.
Sporobolus wolfii Vasey [=Muhlenbergia
ramulosa (Kunth) Swallen]
Trisetum wolfii Vasey
Wright, Charles (1811-1885).
Indefatigable botanical explorer of the last century,
collecting plants mostly for Asa Gray; graduate of Yale
University; visited the region in 1849 (Texas) and 1851-52
(mostly New Mexico, environs of Santa Rita, and Arizona)
as Surveyor and Botanist for the U.S.-Mexican Boundary
Survey; southwestern collections treated in Gray’s Plantae
Wrightianae (1852, 1853); accompanied Ringgold's North
Pacific Exploring Expedition of 1853-1855; spent 11 years
collecting in Cuba, the results of which are enumerated in
Grisebach’s Plantae Wrightianae (1860-1862); of whom
Gray said: "Surely no botanist ever earned such scientific
remembrance by entire devotion, acute observation, severe
exertion, and perseverance under hardship and
privation....No name is more largely commemorated in the
Botany of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona than that of
Charles Wright."
Andropogon wrightii Hack. [=Bothriochloa
wrightii (Hack.) Henr.]
Aristida wrightii Nash [=Aristida purpurea Nutt.
var. wrightii Nash]
Muhlenbergia wrightii Vasey ex Coult.
Pappophorum wrightii S. Wats. [=Enneapogon
desvauxii Beauv.]
Sporobolus wrightii Munro ex Scribn.
Acknowledgments
In addition to the authors of the works cited below, grateful acknowledgments are extended to Gary Donart, Reggie Fletcher,
Larry Foster, Paul Fryxell, Tim McKimmie, Rex Pieper, Michael Powell, Roger Steib, and Wayne Springfield for their help in
gathering biographical information.
Sources
Allred, K.W. Elmer Ottis Wooton and the botanizing of New Mexico. Syst. Bot. 15(4):700-719.