Anna Buck Nickels (born Ohio, June 10, 1832; died Corpus Christi, Texas, January 3, 1917) [1] was an American cactus collector and florist. She was for many years one of the most important collectors, cultivators, and popularizers of the cactus of Mexico and southern Texas. The standard author abbreviation A.B.Nickels is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name . [2]
Nickels was born Anna Buck Snell in Ohio; her parents moved the next year to Knox County, Illinois. [3] The family purchased land in Victoria Township there in 1839. [4] She was one of eight children of Appleton Snell (1786-1864) and his wife Elizabeth Hubbell Snell (1803-1899). Anna married her first husband, David Foote Eells (1826-1866), in 1854; they had two children, Benjamin H. Eells (1854-1933) and Irene Eells Vera (1857-1935). She married lawyer Peter Nickels (born circa 1824) in 1869.
By her own account, Nickels began collecting cactus around 1870 and travelled to many areas of Mexico in search of them. By 1876 she was publishing a printed catalog with a list of species that she had available from her private nursery in Laredo. According to a reviewer, she sent 287 species of cactus for her exhibit at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where they won the highest honors. [5] In 1894 she found what was ultimately judged to be a new sub-species of Agave victoriae-reginae, now officially Agave victoriae-regina forma nickelsii. In 1900 Nickels provided cactus for a Mexican display at the Paris Exposition. Her cacti were distributed to various European nurseries after the Exposition and provided material for European botanists. [6]
In 1895 Nickels discovered a new species of Cereus, now known as Grusonia bradtiana, which was named at her request after George Bradt, the editor of The Southern Florist and Gardener by botanist John Merle Coulter.
In 1908 William Safford wrote in the Smithsonian Report for that year that Nickels had one of the most important collections of cactus in the United States at her Laredo nursery. He also noted that her observations of native use of peyote as an intoxicant and a febrifuge were published by Coulter in his 1894 Preliminary Revision of the North American Species of Cactus, Anhalonium, and Lophophora, and mentioned that she had provided plant materials for chemists, drug manufacturers, florists, and botanists for many years. In a 1915 article on peyote Safford included a picture of Nickels and noted in the caption that she had "called attention to the narcotic properties of Lophophora, and supplied to Parke, Davis, & Co. material with which to investigate the drug." [7]
The German botanist Max Gürke named a species Cereus nickelsii in her honor in 1910 (now Cephalocereus polylophus). The California botanist Mary Katharine Brandegee knew Nickels and named Mammillaria nickelsae (now Coryphantha nickelsiae) after her.
The Southern Florist and Gardener published a picture of Nickels in its June 1898 issue with the following text: "It is with the greatest pleasure we present to our readers the picture of our esteemed friend, Mrs. Anna B. Nickels of Laredo, Texas. She is one of the most widely and favorably known among all of the cactus fraternity the world over, and surely none of us can look upon the kindly features of this pioneer collector without a keen desire to grasp the hand that has been busy so many years in giving all of us pleasure. Many more years of robust health and usefulness is the sincere wish of the "Corner", and we feel sure that in this, all who read these lines will join us. Mrs. Nickels has very likely the largest number of succulent plants in this country, and no one having the opportunity to spend a few hours in Laredo should fail to see our friend's cactus farm."
A cactus is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word cactus derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek word κάκτος (káktos), a name originally used by Theophrastus for a spiny plant whose identity is now not certain. Cacti occur in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Although some species live in quite humid environments, most cacti live in habitats subject to at least some drought. Many live in extremely dry environments, even being found in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. Because of this, cacti show many adaptations to conserve water. For example, almost all cacti are succulents, meaning they have thickened, fleshy parts adapted to store water. Unlike many other succulents, the stem is the only part of most cacti where this vital process takes place. Most species of cacti have lost true leaves, retaining only spines, which are highly modified leaves. As well as defending against herbivores, spines help prevent water loss by reducing air flow close to the cactus and providing some shade. In the absence of true leaves, cacti's enlarged stems carry out photosynthesis. Cacti are native to the Americas, ranging from Patagonia in the south to parts of western Canada in the north—except for Rhipsalis baccifera, which also grows in Africa and Sri Lanka.
Desert Botanical Garden is a 140-acre (57 ha) botanical garden located in Papago Park, at 1201 N. Galvin Parkway in Phoenix, central Arizona.
The Huichol or Wixárika are an indigenous people of Mexico and the United States living in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango, as well as in the United States in the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. They are best known to the larger world as the Huichol, although they refer to themselves as Wixáritari in their native Huichol language. The adjectival form of Wixáritari and name for their own language is Wixárika.
The Moorten Botanical Garden and Cactarium is a 1 acre (0.40 ha) family-owned botanical garden in Palm Springs, California, specializing in cacti and other desert plants. The gardens lie within Riverside County's Coachella Valley, part of the Colorado Desert ecosystem.
Bergerocactus emoryi is a species of cactus, known commonly as the golden-spined cereus, golden snake cactus, velvet cactus or golden club cactus. It is a relatively small cactus, but it can form dense thickets or colonies, with the dense yellow spines giving off a velvety appearance when backlit by the sun. From April to May, yellow, green-tinged flowers emerge, which transform into reddish, globular fruit. This species is native to the California Floristic Province, and is found in northwestern Baja California and a small part of California, in San Diego County and on the southern Channel Islands. Where the Mediterranean climate of the California Floristic Province collides with the subtropical Sonoran Desert near El Rosario, hybrids with two other species of cacti are found. It is the sole member of the monotypic genus Bergerocactus, named after German botanist Alwin Berger.
Ariocarpus is a small genus of succulent, subtropical plants of the family Cactaceae.
Ganna Walska Lotusland, also known as Lotusland, is a non-profit botanical garden located in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, California, United States. The garden is the historic estate of Madame Ganna Walska. The County of Santa Barbara restricts visitation via a conditional use permit: Lotusland botanic garden is open to the public by advance reservation only, with walking tours 1½ to 2 hours long.
Jane Colden was an American botanist, described as the "first botanist of her sex in her country" by Asa Gray in 1843. Although not acknowledged in contemporary botanical publications, she wrote a number of letters resulting in botanist John Ellis writing to Carl Linnaeus of her work applying the Linnaean system of plant identification to American flora, for which botanist Peter Collinson stated "she deserves to be celebrated". Contemporary scholarship maintains that she was the first female botanist working in America. She was regarded as a respected botanist by many prominent botanists including John Bartram, Peter Collinson, Alexander Garden, and Carl Linnaeus. Colden is most famous for her untitled manuscript, housed in the British Museum, in which she describes the flora of the Hudson Valley in the Newburgh region of New York state, including ink drawings of 340 different species.
Astrophytum asterias is a species of cactus in the genus Astrophytum, and is native to small parts of Texas in the United States and Mexico. Common names include sand dollar cactus, sea urchin cactus, star cactus and star peyote.
The Tamaulipan mezquital is a deserts and xeric shrublands ecoregion in the southern United States and northeastern Mexico. It covers an area of 141,500 km2 (54,600 sq mi), encompassing a portion of the Gulf Coastal Plain in southern Texas, northern Tamaulipas, northeastern Coahuila, and part of Nuevo León.
Robert James Petre, 8th Baron Petre was a renowned horticulturist and a British peer. Petre was responsible in the late 1730s for the layout of the gardens at Worksop Manor in Nottinghamshire. He was also responsible for the first extensive planting of North American trees in Great Britain. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. A Caribbean genus of the verbena family was named for him.
In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions. The word succulent comes from the Latin word sucus, meaning "juice" or "sap".
The peyote is a small, spineless cactus which contains psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. Peyote is a Spanish word derived from the Nahuatl peyōtl, meaning "caterpillar cocoon", from a root peyōni, "to glisten". Peyote is native to Mexico and southwestern Texas. It is found primarily in the Sierra Madre Occidental, the Chihuahuan Desert and in the states of Nayarit, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and San Luis Potosí among scrub. It flowers from March to May, and sometimes as late as September. The flowers are pink, with thigmotactic anthers.
The Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory is a greenhouse and a botanical garden located on Belle Isle, a 982-acre (397-hectare) island park located on the Detroit River within Detroit, Michigan. While located near the Canada–United States border, the island is entirely within the U.S. The park itself consists of 13 acres of preserved land for the conservatory and its botanical garden.
Elzada Clover (1897–1980) was an American botanist who was the first to catalog plant life in the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. She and Lois Jotter became the first two women to raft the entire length of the Grand Canyon.
Ysabel Galbán Wright was a Cuban-American botanist and plant collector who specialized in cacti.
Iris Sheila Collenette was a British botanist, plant collector, and author noted for her work on the flora of Saudi Arabia, particularly her books An illustrated guide to the flowers of Saudi Arabia and Wildflowers of Saudi Arabia. The species Aloe sheilae and Rhytidocaulon sheilae were named in her honor. She collected the holotype of Hypericum collenetteae, named by Norman Robson. She identified at least fourteen species. The standard author abbreviation Collen. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
Ann Fowler Rhoads is an American botanist who worked as a plant pathologist at Morris Arboretum for 36 years, retiring in 2013. She is the co-founder of the Pennsylvania Flora Project of Morris Arboretum. In addition, Rhoads is a former Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a former Research Associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences.
Dudleya pachyphytum is an insular succulent plant known by the common name Cedros Island liveforever. It is a member of the genus Dudleya, in the family Crassulaceae. Characterized by thick, blunt leaves covered in a white, powdery wax and adorned by white flowers in bloom, it is regarded as one of the most attractive and charismatic members of its genus. It is endemic to the foggy northern end of Mexico's Cedros Island, occupying an ecological niche shared with the Cedros Island Pine.
