Frederick Vernon Coville

Frederick Vernon Coville ( born March 23, 1867 in Preston, New York, † January 9, 1937 in Washington DC ) was an American botanist. His botanical author abbreviation is " Coville "; earlier was also the abbreviation " Cov. " in use. He was considered an expert on the two plant families gooseberry plants ( Grossulariaceae ) and Rushes ( Juncaceae ); his areas of expertise included the heather family ( Ericaceae ).

Life and work

Coville was born on 23 March 1867 in the very small town of Preston in the state of New York. He received the B. A. 1887 by Cornell University, where he was an honor student and outstanding athlete. In 1887 he went to the U.S. Department of Agriculture ( U.S. Department of Agriculture, abbreviated USDA), where he was until 1893 botanical assistant. From 1893 to 1937, he was - as a successor to the late George Vasey - botanist at the USDA and at the same time curator ( Honorary Curator ) of the United States National Herbarium. As the National Herbarium in 1896 transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, he retained this position. Coville in 1924 and 1928 senior botanist principal botanist. In 1901, the Bureau of Plant Industries was set up, and Coville became head of the Office of Botanical Investigations and Experiments. He helped significantly with the construction of the 1927 established National Arboretum, the Acting Director, he was in 1929.

With professional field work Coville began in 1887 in Arkansas; he was with the Geological Survey of Arkansas in 1888 there. His most significant field work he did as a botanist at the Death Valley Expedition of 1891. In 1899, he took along with Thomas Henry Kearney at the Harriman Alaska Expedition involved have been described in the course of which 25 new willow species from Alaska. Coville also supported the creation of the Seed Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He worked there, among others, the genus of blueberries (Vaccinium ).

Coville died on 9 January 1937 at the age of 69 in Washington DC from coronary thrombosis.

Honors

Coville was 1899-1900 President of the Biological Society of Washington, 1903 President of the Botanical Society of Washington, and in 1912 the Washington Academy of Sciences. In 1900 he was a founder of the Washington Biologists ' Field Club, which he himself presided as President from 1919 to 1921. In the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1903, he was Vice President. He was also the 1915 president of the Cosmos Club and 1927-1929 President of the Arts Club. He was from 1920 to 1937 chairman of the " Research Committee " of the National Geographic Society.

In 1921 he received an honorary doctorate from George Washington University. The Massachusetts Horticultural Society awarded him the same year the George Robert White Medal of Honor in recognition of his outstanding work on blueberries.

Ehrentaxa

In his honor, the kind Arabis covillei Greene was named from the genus of geese Kressen.

Writings

Coville worked together with Nathaniel Lord Britton, the plant family Grossulariaceae whose work North American Flora ( Volume 22 ( 3) 1908 and "addition " in Volume 22 (6 ) 1918). Other typefaces:

• Botany of the Death Valley Expedition. In 1893.