Almut Gitter Jones (8 September 192312 October 2013) was a German-American

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

mycologist Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their taxonomy, genetics, biochemical properties, and use by humans. Fungi can be a source of tinder, food, traditional medicine, as well as entheogens, poison, and ...

, and

plant taxonomist Plant taxonomy is the science that finds, identifies, describes, classifies, and names plants. It is one of the main branches of taxonomy (the science that finds, describes, classifies, and names living things). Plant taxonomy is closely allied ...

known for her work researching the genus ''

Aster Aster or ASTER may refer to: Biology * ''Aster'' (genus), a genus of flowering plants ** List of ''Aster'' synonyms, other genera formerly included in ''Aster'' and still called asters in English * Aster (cell biology), a cellular structure shap ...

'', as well as for her work as curator of the

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...

at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

. Jones was born Almut Gitter in

Oldenburg Oldenburg may also refer to: Places * Mount Oldenburg, Ellsworth Land, Antarctica *Oldenburg (city), an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany **Oldenburg (district), a district historically in Oldenburg Free State and now in Lower Saxony * Ol ...

to Alfred and Emma ( Eickhorst) Gitter. She married fellow botanist

George Neville Jones George Neville Jones, usually known as G. Neville Jones, (1903–1970) was an English-born botanist who spent most of his life and career in the United States. He was a professor of botany at the University of Illinois (Urbana) at the time of his ...

Urbana, Illinois Urbana ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. As of the 2020 census, Urbana had a population of 38,336. It is a principal city of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, which had 236,000 residents i ...

in 1958. She died in

. She described over fifty species, and the genus ''

Almutaster ''Almutaster'' is a North American genus of plants in the family Asteraceae containing the single species ''Almutaster pauciflorus'' (formerly ''Aster pauciflorus''), which is known by the common name alkali marsh aster. It is native to Canada (N ...

'' of the family

Asteraceae Asteraceae () is a large family (biology), family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the Order (biology), order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchi ...

was named for her in 1982. 2019

References

1923 births 2013 deaths American women botanists 20th-century American botanists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American botanists 21st-century American women scientists University of Illinois alumni University of Illinois faculty People from Oldenburg (city) German emigrants to the United States American women academics Biologists from Illinois {{US-botanist-stub