Charlotte Elliott (1883-1974) was a pioneering American

plant physiologist Plant physiology is a subdiscipline of botany concerned with the functioning, or physiology, of plants. Plant physiologists study fundamental processes of plants, such as photosynthesis, respiration, plant nutrition, plant hormone functions, tropi ...

specializing in bacterial organisms that cause disease in crops who was the author of a much-used reference work, the ''Manual of Bacterial Plant Pathogens''. She was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Education

Elliott was born in Berlin, Wisconsin. She got her undergraduate degree in zoology at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1907. For a few years afterwards she taught biology at the state normal school in Spearfish and took summer courses at the University of Chicago. She returned to Stanford for master's work in plant physiology, receiving her A.M. in 1913. She was offered an appointment as assistant in the botany department but refused for reasons having to do with her family and instead returned to Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, she worked for two years (1914–16) as an instructor at South Dakota State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. She left to pursue graduate work in plant pathology, first as a research assistant at the

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) is a botanical garden in the Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn in New York City. The botanical garden occupies in central Brooklyn, close to Mount Prospect Park, Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park, ...

and then as a Ph.D. student at the

University of Wisconsin, Madison A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

, where she was supported by a Boston Alumne Fellowship. In 1918, she became the first woman to complete the doctoral program in botany at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her thesis work focused on halo blight, a disease affecting

oats The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural). Oats appear to have been domesticated as a secondary crop, as their seed ...

Career

Elliott was recruited by the bacteriologist

Erwin Frink Smith Erwin Frink Smith (January 21, 1854 – April 6, 1927) was an American plant pathologist with the United States Department of Agriculture. He played a major role in demonstrating that bacteria could cause plant disease. Life and career Smith wa ...

to work in the Bureau of Plant Industry at the

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and producti ...

(USDA). There she continued her research as a phytobacteriologist or specialist in the organisms harmful to plants, publishing numerous papers in her field. Among her scientifically notable papers is one establishing the role of the

flea beetle The flea beetle is any small, jumping beetle of the leaf beetle family (Chrysomelidae) that is part of the tribe (biology), tribe Alticini, which is part of the subfamily Galerucinae. Historically the flea beetles were classified as their own ...

as a

vector Vector most often refers to: * Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction * Disease vector, an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematics a ...

in the development of the disease known as

Stewart's wilt Stewart's wilt is a bacterial disease of corn caused by the bacterium '' Pantoea stewartii''. The disease is also known as bacterial wilt or bacterial leaf blight and has been shown to be quite problematic in sweet corn. The causal organism is a ...

corn Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...

(maize). This research led to a method for forecasting how bad the disease would be in any given year based on temperature indexes that reflected how successfully the beetles had survived the preceding winter. Her work also led to the description of several new species. Elliott wrote a widely used book, ''Manual of Bacterial Plant Pathogens'', first published in 1930, reissued with revisions in 1951, and still being drawn on by researchers today. In 1942, she served as the president of the Botanical Society of Washington. Elliott died in 1974.

Selected publications

Books

*''Manual of Bacterial Plant Pathogens'' (1930) * ''Halo-Blight of Oats'' (1920)

Articles

*"''Helminthosporium-Turcicum'' Leaf Blight of Corn". ''Phytopathology'' 36.8 (1946): 660–666. With Merle T. Jenkins. *"Seasonal Development, Insect Vectors, and Host Range of Bacterial Wilt of Sweet Corn." ''Journal of Agricultural Research'' 60.10 (1940): 645–686. With F.W. Poos. *"Dissemination of Bacterial Wilt of Corn." ''Iowa State College Journal of Science'' 9 (1935): 461–480. *"Overwintering of ''Aplanobacter stewarti''." ''Science'' 80.2074 (1934): 289–290. With F.W. Poos.

Education

Career

Selected publications

Books

Articles

References

Further reading