Clara Eaton Cummings | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 13 July 1855 |
| Died | 28 December 1906 (aged 51) |
| Nationality | American |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany |
| Institutions | Wellesley College |
Clara Eaton Cummings (13 July 1855 – 28 December 1906) was an American cryptogamic botanist and Hunnewell Professor of Cryptogamic Botany at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
Cummings was born in Plymouth, New Hampshire, on July 13, 1855 to Noah Conner and Elmira George Cummings. [1] In 1876, she enrolled at the women's liberal arts college Wellesley, only one year after the opening of the institution.
Cummings primarily studied cryptogamous (spore-reproducing) plants such as mosses and lichens. She characterized hundreds of lichen specimens but was "very conservative" on declaring new species. [2] Much of her work appeared in the books of other botanists, [2] although she did publish a catalog of liverworts and mosses of North America in 1885. [3]
She became a curator at the botanical museum at Wellesley from 1878–79 and was hired at Wellesley as an associate professor of botany for the 1879 school year. [1] [4] In 1886 and 1887 she studied under Dr. Arnold Dodel at the University of Zurich where she did private work and prepared charts for a Cryptogamic Botany illustration. While in Europe, she traveled to various botanical gardens to study some of the great botanists. [5] After returning from Zurich, Cummings became an associate professor of cryptogamic botany at Wellesey. [1] Between 1892 and 1903 she published three exsiccata works called Decades of North American lichens with Thomas Albert Williams and Arthur Bliss Seymour as co-editors. [6]
In 1904, she published a catalog of 217 species of Alaskan lichens collected during the Harriman Expedition which included 76 species new to Alaska and at least two species new to science. [7]
In February and March 1905, Cummings took a trip to Jamaica where she collected lichens. After her death, her collection was sent to the New York Botanical Garden. [8]
Cummings was an associate editor of Plant World [9] and named in 1899 a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [10] She became a member of the Society of Plant Morphology and Physiology and served as Vice President in 1904. [11] She was a member of the Mycological society, the Torrey Botanical Club, the Boston Mycological Club, and the Boston Society of Natural History. [4]
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Richard Spruce was an English botanist specializing in bryology. One of the great Victorian botanical explorers, Spruce spent 15 years exploring the Amazon from the Andes to its mouth, and was one of the first Europeans to visit many of the places where he collected specimens. Spruce discovered and named a number of new plant species, and corresponded with some of the leading botanists of the nineteenth century.
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Lois Clark (1884–1967) was an American botanist, bryologist, and professor who studied plants of the Northwestern United States, particularly the genus Frullania. She taught at the University of Idaho and the University of Washington. The standard author abbreviation L.Clark is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
Geneva Sayre was an American bryologist and bibliographer. She "pioneered bibliographical and historical bryology, a new field in the study, evaluation, and organization of the literature of bryology."
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Exsiccata is a work with "published, uniform, numbered set[s] of preserved specimens distributed with printed labels". Typically, exsiccatae refer to numbered collections of dried herbarium specimens or preserved biological samples published in several duplicate sets with a common theme or title, such as Lichenes Helvetici. Exsiccatae are regarded as scientific contributions of the editor(s) with characteristics from the library world and features from the herbarium world. Exsiccatae works represent a special method of scholarly communication. The text in the printed matters/published booklets is basically a list of labels (schedae) with information on each single numbered exsiccatal unit. Extensions of the concept occur.
Lincoln Ware Riddle was an American botanist who specialized in the study of lichens. Born and educated in Massachusetts, Riddle made significant contributions to lichenology, leveraging extensive scientific collections at Wellesley College and Harvard University. Throughout his career, he held esteemed positions at both institutions and was actively involved in botanical societies and editorial boards. His untimely death at the age of 40 left a notable void in the botanical community, but his impact remains, marked by various publications and honors.
