Georgia Mason

Last updated

Georgia Mason (March 16, 1910 - October 8, 2007) was a botanist at the University of Oregon and author of Guide to the Plants of the Wallowa Mountains of Northeastern Oregon, and Plants of Wet to Moist Habitats in and Around Eugene Oregon.

Biography

Georgia Mason was born Georgia Mavropoulos in West Orange, New Jersey, the daughter of Greek immigrants, Peter and Bessie Mavropoulos. [1] She taught grades 1 through 7 in New Jersey public schools from 1931-1941. It was during this time, that she changed her name to Mason for easier pronunciation. From 1941 through 1958, she taught science courses to grades 6 through 9. [2]

Mason was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to study for a Master of Science degree at Oregon State College (now Oregon State University) in Corvallis, Oregon. She started classes in 1958 at the age of 49, and graduated in 1960. [2] [3] She stayed in Oregon for the rest of her life. [2]

She began collecting herbarium specimens in 1959 and began focusing on the flora of the Wallowa Mountains in 1960, working in the herbarium at Oregon State College. She served as Acting Assistant Curator of the UO Herbarium in Eugene from 1961–62, during the sabbatical of the curator, LeRoy Detling. In the late 1960s, she worked on her specimens from the Arizona State University herbarium. After Detling's death in 1970, she was hired as the curator at University of Oregon. She served in this position until retirement in 1976. Post retirement, she taught adult education courses in botany at Lane Community College in Eugene, and led native plant walks. [2]

Guide to the Plants of the Wallowa Mountains of Northeastern Oregon [4] was first published by the University of Oregon in 1975. Plants of Wet to Moist Habitats in and Around Eugene Oregon. [5] was self-published in 1983. She founded an endowment for student work in the herbarium at Oregon State University in 1978. [2]

In all, Mason donated 4,549 specimens to Oregon herbaria, fourth-most of Oregon collectors as of 2010. She also collected in Washington, Wyoming, and Nebraska. [2] While curator at UO, she also mounted, labelled and accessioned roughly 3,000 specimens collected by Oregon botanist Lilla Leach; incorporated the approximately 3,800 collections of Eugene collector Orlin Ireland; formally accessioned hundreds of specimens; and updated names on hundreds of herbarium sheets in accordance with the 1973 "Flora of the Pacific Northwest" (Hitchcock and Cronquist) and other new floral references. [3]

Related Research Articles

<i>Pinus ponderosa</i> Species of large pine tree in North America

Pinus ponderosa, commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, western yellow-pine, or filipinus pine, is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is the most widely distributed pine species in North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh</span> Botanical garden in Edinburgh, Scotland

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland—Edinburgh, Dawyck, Logan and Benmore—each with its own specialist collection. The RBGE's living collection consists of more than 13,302 plant species, whilst the herbarium contains in excess of 3 million preserved specimens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Eastwood</span> Canadian American botanist (1859–1953)

Alice Eastwood was a Canadian American botanist. She is credited with building the botanical collection at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. She published over 310 scientific articles and authored 395 land plant species names, the fourth-highest number of such names authored by any female scientist. There are seventeen currently recognized species named for her, as well as the genera Eastwoodia and Aliciella.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Tyson Burbidge</span> Australian botanist, conservationist and herbarium curator

Nancy Tyson Burbidge was an Australian systemic botanist, conservationist and herbarium curator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter MacOwan</span> British botanist (1830-1909)

Peter MacOwan was a British colonial botanist and teacher in South Africa.

The Elm cultivar Ulmus 'Tiliaefolia' was first mentioned by Host in Flora Austriaca (1827), as Ulmus tiliaefolia [:linden-leaved]. The Späth nursery of Berlin distributed a 'Tiliaefolia' from the late 19th century to the 1930s as neither an U. montana hybrid nor a field elm cultivar, but simply as Ulmus tiliaefolia, suggesting uncertainty about its status. Herbarium specimens appear to show two clones, one smaller-leaved and classified as a field elm cultivar, the other larger-leaved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Vernon Coville</span> American botanist (1867–1937)

Frederick Vernon Coville was an American botanist who participated in the Death Valley Expedition (1890-1891), was honorary curator of the United States National Herbarium (1893-1937), worked at then was Chief botanist of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and was the first director of the United States National Arboretum. He made contribution to economic botany and helped shape American scientific policy of the time on plant and exploration research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rogers McVaugh</span>

Rogers McVaugh was a research professor of botany and the UNC Herbarium's curator of Mexican plants. He was also Adjunct Research Scientist of the Hunt Institute in Carnegie Mellon University and a Professor Emeritus of botany in the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Baldwin (botanist)</span> American physician and botanist

William Baldwin was an American physician and botanist who is today remembered for his significant contributions to botanical studies, especially Cyperaceae. He lived in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Georgia, and served as a ship's surgeon on two voyages overseas. He published only two scientific papers, but his major contributions were in the knowledge that he imparted to other botanists in his letters to them and in the thousands of specimens that he provided for their herbaria. He wrote letters to Henry Muhlenberg, Stephen Elliott, William Darlington, Zaccheus Collins, and others. His most important collections were from Georgia, Florida, and eastern South America. When he died, he left a large herbarium that proved to be of great value, especially to Lewis David von Schweinitz, John Torrey, and Asa Gray. He had a special interest in the plant family Cyperaceae and his incomplete, unpublished manuscripts were a major source for monographs by John Torrey and Asa Gray. The historian Joseph Ewan has said that "Baldwin's treatment of a number of genera, especially in the Cyperaceae, showed penetrating observation, understanding, and diagnosis". The genus Balduina was named for him by Thomas Nuttall. Most of what we know of him is from the biography written by his friend, William Darlington, in 1843.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilbur Howard Duncan</span> American botanist

Wilbur Howard Duncan was a botany professor at the University of Georgia for 40 years where he oversaw an expansion in the school's herbarium collection and described three new plant species. Duncan also authored several books on plant species of the Eastern and Southeastern United States.

Bonnie Carolyn Templeton was an American botanist. She served as curator of botany for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County from 1929 to 1970, a time when women in science were uncommon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Katharine Brandegee</span> American botanist

Mary Katharine Brandegee was an American botanist known for her comprehensive studies of flora in California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose E. Collom</span> American botanist (1870–1956)

Rose Eudora Collom was an American botanist and plant collector. She was the first paid botanist of the Grand Canyon National Park. She discovered several plant species, some of which were named in her honor, and collected numerous plant specimens.

<i>Ulmus minor</i> Suberosa Elm cultivar

The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Suberosa', commonly known as the Cork-barked elm, is a slow-growing or dwarf form of conspicuously suberose Field Elm. Of disputed status, it is considered a distinct variety by some botanists, among them Henry (1913), Krüssmann (1984), and Bean (1988), and is sometimes cloned and planted as a cultivar. Henry said the tree "appears to be a common variety in the forests of central Europe", Bean noting that it "occurs in dry habitats". By the proposed rule that known or suspected clones of U. minor, once cultivated and named, should be treated as cultivars, the tree would be designated U. minor 'Suberosa'. The Späth nursery of Berlin distributed an U. campestris suberosa alataKirchn. [:'corky-winged'] from the 1890s to the 1930s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hazel Schmoll</span> American botanist

Hazel Marguerite Schmoll (1890–1990) was an American botanist, and the first to conduct a systematic study of plant life in southwestern Colorado. She was also the first woman to earn a doctorate in botany from the University of Chicago. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1985.

William Conklin Cusick was an American botanist who specialized in the flora of the Pacific Northwest. His botanical knowledge was largely self-taught and he is considered one of the top three self-taught botanists of his era for the Pacific Northwest; the other two being Thomas Jefferson Howell and Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf.

Ethel Katherine Crum (1886-1943) was an American botanist, noted for collecting and studying California flora, as well as serving as assistant curator of the University of California Herbarium. She discovered and formally described at least 13 species and varieties of plants. The standard author abbreviation Crum is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emma Cole</span> American botanist, botanical collector, and teacher (1845–1910)

Emma Jane Cole was an American teacher, botanist, and curator, and the author of Grand Rapids Flora: A Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferns Growing Without Cultivation in the Vicinity of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2007.

Janet Louise Cosh was an amateur botanist, botanical collector and secondary school teacher. The Janet Cosh Herbarium at the University of Wollongong is named in her honour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Hunter Thomas</span> American botanist (1928–1999)

John Hunter Thomas was an American botanist, professor of biological sciences at Stanford University, curator and director of the Dudley Herbarium, and joint curator at the California Academy of Sciences. He was known for his study of plants in the Sonoran Desert, the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Alaska North Slope, and for his history of botanical exploration in Washington, Oregon, and California. His doctoral research on the plants of the Santa Cruz Mountains was published as a guide to the vascular plants of coastal, central California, and was recognized as a standard reference work for regional flora. It was used for decades as teaching material for courses in systematic botany and the ecology of vascular plants at Stanford. Thomas helped establish the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and was a primary contributor to what later became the Jasper Ridge Oakmead Herbarium (JROH). In total, Thomas collected more than 20,000 plant specimens for herbaria throughout his career.

References

  1. Love, Rhoda M. "Georgia Mason: Eleven Summers Alone in the Wallowas" (PDF). Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Botanical Electronic News". Dr. A. Ceska. Archived from the original on 22 November 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
  3. 1 2 Mason, Georgia (2020-10-19). "Georgia Mason Herbarium Fund | Department of Botany and Plant Pathology". bpp.oregonstate.edu. Retrieved 2015-12-15.
  4. Mason, Georgia (2024). Guide to the Plants of the Wallowa Mountains of Northeastern Oregon. Pathfinder Books. ISBN   9798869189714. OCLC   1434055775 . Retrieved 8 August 2024.
  5. Wagner, D. H. (January 1984). "Review: Plants of Wet to Moist Habitats in and around Eugene, Oregon" . Madroño . 31 (1). California Botanical Society: 66. Retrieved 8 August 2024.