Edward Lee Greene

Edward Lee Greene ( born August 20, 1843 in Hopkinton, Rhode Iceland, † November 10, 1915 in Washington, DC) was an American botanist and theologian. His botanical author abbreviation is " Greene ".

Life and work

Edward Lee Greene was born on August 20, 1843 in Hopkinton, about 30 miles southwest of Providence. Even as a child he was interested in plants. In 1855 the family moved to Illinois, soon after further into the small Albion in Dane County in southern Wisconsin. Greene came in 1859 on the Albion Academy, which was operated by the Northwestern Seventh Day Baptist Association ( until 1894 ). At this religion is strong institution taught Thure Kumlien, a Swedish naturalist who had studied at the University of Uppsala. Kumlien undertook field trips with students. By Kumlien Greene was encouraged in his botanical interests, and also the interest of classical and modern languages ​​- should stop Greene's life - was awakened in him. Up to Kumliens death in 1888, the two were connected.

In August 1862 Greene went - just like his father and two brothers - the Thirteenth Wisconsin Infantry of the Union Army. He was little involved in combat and used extensively the opportunity to collect plants. Greene did not progress beyond the rank of Private and left the Union Army on July 13, 1865.

Then he returned to Albion Academy, where he graduated in 1866 with a Bachelor of Philosophy. Then he began to teach in rural communities in the area of Decatur, Illinois. In addition to his interest in plants, he devoted himself in time and other science subjects such as taxidermy. He resided a long time with a German family, where he learned German so well that he could teach the language in 1869 at the Albion Academy. After a disagreement with the school administration, he gave his authority to teach on, however, and turned back to Illinois.

1870 Greene decided to continue west to draw. He contacted Asa Gray and George Engelmann, who supported him and expressed interest in his services as a plant collector. In April 1870 Gray arrived in the vicinity of Denver, where he collected the following summer plants. In the autumn he again turned more to his religious side. Growing up in a Baptist family, he had been in Illinois Methodist. Now in Colorado, it kept religiously new. He visited the Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Denver and decided in early 1871, the 1870 newly opened College Jarvis Hall in Golden in a double role of acting - as a teacher of botany and at the same time as a candidate for the holy order ( priest candidates ). In September 1871 he was admitted to the Sacred Order of Deaconry. He took over the leadership of a congregation in Greeley, Colorado and was the end of January 1873 ordained as priests. He was pastor of a parish in Pueblo, Colorado. Greene's botanical interests moved temporarily into the background. In August 1872 he joined at the invitation of Asa Grays of a group ( including Gray and Charles Christopher Parry ), the mountain Parry 's Peak and Gray 's Peak climbed in Colorado.

In February 1874 Greene took over as pastor of a church community in Vallejo California near San Francisco; In April 1875, he returned as rector of a church in Georgetown, Colorado. In March 1876 Greene went as a missionary to Yreka California. In the spring of 1877 he traveled to Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. He spent the summer in the area of Silver City. His next stop was Creswell, Colorado, where he stayed until 1879. During this time he collected plants both in Colorado and in Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. On 21 February 1880 he returned to Silver City. Here he botanized among others in the Mogollon Mountains and the Piños Altos Range. In the same year he began publishing plants from New Mexico in the Botanical Gazette. The following year, 1881, he took over the mission as rector at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley, California. With his arrival in California, he changed his religious setting, away from the Episcopal doctrine towards the Roman Catholic faith. 1883 his congregation was melted to half, after which the Episcopal Church excluded him from the church. He put his offices there and in 1884 a Roman Catholic. At about the same time, Greene oriented by botanists from the eastern states such as Asa Gray away, and turned to botanists of the western states as Parry. Henry Hurd Rusby and John Gill Lemmon sent him into plants. In September 1882 he began lecturing at the University of California. Beginning in 1883, he published Californian plants in the Botanical Gazette; He was curator of the herbarium at the California Academy of Sciences. In 1885 he was awarded the position of instructor in botany at the University of California. In the same year he was accepted formally in the Roman Catholic Church.

Greene founded in 1887 the journal Pittonia. 1890/91 advised the University a private botanical chair, Greene received; In 1891 he became a full professor. In 1892, he was - along with John Merle Coulter and Nathaniel Lord Britton - one of the three U.S. representative to the International Committee on Botanical Nomenclature. In 1893 he was elected President of the Botanical Congress in Madison, Wisconsin, was elected. During this time he was an aggressive fighter for a reform of the nomenclature; there were differences of opinion with other botanists as well as the university president. 1894 Greene took a professorship of botany at the Catholic University in Washington, DC of. There he had the School of Biological Sciences in personal union alone stopped and had only a few students. He returned his post in September 1904 and worked as an unpaid associate. His interest now waving of taxonomy and systematics on the history of botany. His extensive language skills helped him literary material that was provided to him by the Smithsonian Institute ( next to a small monthly salary ) to work through. 1907, the first volume of his applied on several volumes of work was done; it was released as Landmarks of Botanical History Part I. 1909. The second volume Greene has begun, but never completed. It was produced in 1936 by the Smithsonian Institute as a copy writer and published only in 1983 correctly.

1907 Greene expressed after contact with a former student at the Catholic University - Professor of Botany at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana was - interested to move there. After visiting and negotiations with the local President Greene came in the spring of 1915 to South Bend. In October 1915 he went back to Washington DC., Where he wanted to write to his Botanical History. He fell ill and came to Providence Hospital, where he died on 10 November 1915.

Honors

In 1894 he was awarded an honorary LL.D. a from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. The plant genera Green Ella A. Gray, Greenocharis Gürke et Harms and mote McVaugh (the latter as an anagram ) are named in his honor.

Writings (selection )

• Flora franciscana. From 1891 to 1897.
• Manual of the Botany of the Region of San Francisco Bay. In 1894.
• Edward Lee Greene, Frank N. Egerton (ed.): Stanford University Press, 1983, ISBN 978-0-8047-1075-6. originally published as: Edward Lee Greene: Landmarks of Botanical History 1 Prior to 1562 AD Smithsonian Institution, Washington in 1909, OCLC 174,698,401th

Swell

• Archive description in the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.
• Robert Zander, Fritz Encke, Günther Buchheim, Siegmund Seybold (eds.): Handbook of Plant Names. 13th edition. Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-8001-5042-5.