Dictionary
of Botany

Liberty Hyde Bailey
William Bartram
George Bass

Elizabeth Blackwell
Aime Bonpland
Norman Borlaug

Michal Piotr Boym
Luther Burbank

Liberty Hyde Bailey
b. 3-15-1858; South Haven, Michigan
d. 12-25-1954

Liberty Hyde Bailey was a botanist, horticulturalist, plant breeder, teacher, writer, philosopher, environmentalist, and plant explorer.

He studied cultivated plants and removed the barriers between theoretical botany and horticulture, the practice of applied plant sciences.

• Liberty Hyde Bailey at Amazon

William Bartram
b. 4-20-1739; Kingsessing, PA
d. 7-22-1823

William Bartram, the son of botantist John Bartram, was noted from his youth for his botanic and ornithological drawings. William was the author of “Bartram's Travels”, which described his four year visit to eight southern colonies beginning in 1773.

Bartram's Garden, the oldest surving botanic garden in North America, is on the site of the Bartram family farm.

George Bass
b. 1-30-1771; Aswarby, Lincolnshire, England
d. 1803; lost at sea

Naval surgeon and botanist George Bass, who brought a small boat with him on his assignment with the HMS Reliance, used his little Tom Thumb to explore Australia.

• George Bass

Elizabeth Blackwell
b. 1700; Aberdeen, Scotland
d. 1758

Elizabeth Blackwell (née Blachrie) was among the first women to achieve fame as a botanical illustrator, drawing and engraving the plates of A Curious Herbal, designed for physicians as a reference to medicinal plants.

(She is not the Elizabeth Blackwell who earned the first medical degree in the US.)

Aimé Bonpland
b. 8-22-1773; La Rochelle, France
d. 5-4-1858; Argentina

Aime Bonpland was a French army surgeon, explorer, botantist and professor of natural history who collected and classified plants in the Amazon and Orinoco River basins.

He was part of a Alexander von Humboldt expedition and imprisoned for ten years in Paraguay as an accused spy.

A street in Buenos Aires and a crater on the moon are named for him, as well as many plants and animals.

• Measuring the World: A Novel

Norman Borlaug
b. 3-25-1914; Cresco, Iowa
d. 12-12-2009; Dallas, TX

Norman Borlaug, an agricultural scientist and humanitarian, has been called the “father of the Green Revolution”. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

Papaya Tree, Art Print, Michal Boym

Michal Piotr Boym (1612-1659) was a Jesuit priest, scientist, and early explorer, who is notable for his documention of the geography, flora and fauna of China.

• Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts: China, Healing, and the West to 1848
• more tree posters
• more fruit posters

Luther Burbank
b. 3-7-1849; Lancaster, Massachusetts
d. 4-11-1926; California

Luther Burbank, botanist, horticulturist and agricultural innovator, had as his objective to improve the quality of plants and thereby increase the world's food supply.

Burbank developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over a 55-year career that include the Shasta Daisy, the potato that McDonald's uses for french fries, and the poppy that is the California state flower.

Luther Burbank was not considered a “scientist” in the academic sense because he didn't keep careful records of observations.

"And to think of this great country in danger of being dominated by people ignorant enough to take a few ancient Babylonian legends as the canons of modern culture. Our scientific men are paying for their failure to speak out earlier. There is no use now talking evolution to these people. Their ears are stuffed with Genesis." Luther Burbank

• Life and Works of Luther Burbank (autobiography)