Billie June McCaskill, better known as June McCaskill (June 2, 1930 – May 9, 2001), was an American

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 ...

curator at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

and expert in weed identification.

Life

McCaskill was born in

Altadena Altadena () is an unincorporated area, and census-designated place in the San Gabriel Valley and the Verdugos regions of Los Angeles County, California. Directly north of Pasadena, it is located approximately from Downtown Los Angeles. Its po ...

, in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. She grew up in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial d ...

where her parents, Vern and Billie operated a nursery called McCaskill Gardens. She attended

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in ...

in 1949, and graduated with a degree in botany in 1951. She started her career at

in 1953, becoming the first curator of the Botany Department's Herbarium, a position that she held until her retirement. McCaskill specialised in the identification of weeds, and was particularly focused on agricultural weeds that were toxic to livestock. Her botanical skills were also used to investigate multiple homicides. She retired in 1991.

Published major work

*Bill B. Fischer, Arthur H. Lange, June McCaskill, Beecher Crampton, and Betsey Tabraham, Growers Weed Identification Handbook (University of California), multiple editions. *John M. Tucker, and June McCaskill. "Heteranthera Limosa in California." Madroño, vol. 19, no. 2, 1967, pp. 64–64.

Legacy

The June McCaskill Plant Identification Laboratory of the

's Center for Plant Diversity herbaria opened in 2005. It was named in her honour. The following cultivar was named in her honour by her father: * ''Camellia japonica'' 'June McCaskill.'

Botanical collections

Her collections of Californian weeds are held in various North American herbaria, including the

Herbarium, and the

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC; sometimes Ag-Canada; )''Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food (). is the Structure of the Can ...

National Collection of Vascular Plants. In Australasia, her specimens are held at the

Auckland War Memorial Museum The Auckland War Memorial Museum (), also known as Auckland Museum, is one of New Zealand's most important museums and war memorials. Its neoclassical architecture, neoclassical building constructed in the 1920s and 1950s, stands on Observatory ...

Herbarium, the Allan Herbarium, and the

National Herbarium of Victoria The National Herbarium of Victoria (Index Herbariorum code: MEL) is one of Australia's earliest herbaria and the oldest scientific institution in Victoria. Its 1.56 million specimens of preserved plants, fungi and algae—collectively known ...

Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (RBGV) are botanical garden, botanic gardens across two sites–Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, Melbourne and Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne, Cranbourne. Melbourne Gardens was founded in 1846 when land w ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCaskill, June 1930 births 2001 deaths 20th-century American botanists 20th-century American women scientists Plant collectors