Merritt Lyndon Fernald (October 5, 1873 – September 22, 1950) was an American botanist. He was a respected scholar of the

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

and phytogeography of the

vascular plant Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes (, ) or collectively tracheophyta (; ), are plants that have lignin, lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They also have a specialized non-lignified Ti ...

flora of temperate eastern

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. During his career, Fernald published more than 850 scientific papers and wrote and edited the seventh and eighth editions of ''Gray's Manual of Botany''. Fernald coauthored the book ''Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America'' in 1919–1920 with

Alfred Kinsey Alfred Charles Kinsey (; June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American sexologist, biologist, and professor of entomology and zoology who, in 1947, founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Insti ...

, which was published in 1943.

Biography

Fernald was born in

Orono, Maine Orono ( ) is a New England town, town in Penobscot County, Maine, United States. Located on the Penobscot River, Penobscot and Stillwater River (Maine), Stillwater rivers, it was first settled by Province of Maine, American colonists in 1774. ...

. His parents were Mary Lovejoy Heywood and Merritt Caldwell Fernald, a college professor at the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine, United States. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universitie ...

. Fernald attended Orono High School, during which time he decided that he wanted to become a botanist. He collected plants around Orono and published two botanical papers while still attending high school. Fernald attended Maine State College for a year, but began working as an assistant at the Gray Herbarium at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

when he was 17. He began studying at Harvard in 1891, graduated magna cum laude in 1897, and joined the faculty at Harvard, during which time he remained active at the Herbarium. With James Franklin Collins he coedited the

exsiccata Exsiccata (Latin, ''gen.'' -ae, ''plur.'' -ae) is a work with "published, uniform, numbered set of preserved specimens distributed with printed labels". Typically, exsiccatae are numbered collections of dried herbarium Biological specimen, spe ...

work ''Plants of eastern Quebec, Bonaventure County'' (1905). Fernald was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1900, the United States

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 1935, and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in 1936. Fernald was awarded the 1940

Leidy Award The Leidy Award is a medal and prize presented by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (formerly the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was named after US palaeontologist Joseph Leidy. ...

from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. On April 15, 1907, Fernald married Margaret Howard Grant (1875-1957), in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the daughter of Henry Tyler Grant Jr. and Annie M. (Manton) Grant. They had three children: Katherine (1908–1986) Mary (1910–1927) and Henry Grant Fernald (1913–1982). The botanical artist Minna Fernald was a relative.

References

Citations

Other sources

*Stuckey, Ronald L. (2000), ''Fernald, Merritt Lyndon'', In:

American National Biography Online The ''American National Biography'' (ANB) is a 24-volume biographical encyclopedia set that contains about 17,400 entries and 20 million words, first published in 1999 by Oxford University Press under the auspices of the American Council of Lea ...

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. *

External links

National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
1873 births 1950 deaths American botanists Harvard University alumni People from Orono, Maine Scientists from Maine {{US-botanist-stub Members of the American Philosophical Society