Ellsworth Paine Killip (September 2, 1890 – November 21, 1968) was a

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

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 ...

. His name is linked to over 600 species names. Around 150 species are named for him, including '' Linanthus killipii''. Killip specialized in the taxonomy of South American plants. Killip joined the staff of the United States National Museum (USNM; now known as the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

) in 1919 as an Aide in the Division of Plants. He was promoted to Assistant Curator in 1927, Associate Curator in 1928, and Curator in 1946. In 1947, Killip was appointed Head Curator of the newly established Department of Botany, USNM, a position he retained until his retirement in 1950. In 1925, '' Killipia'' was a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s from Colombia and Ecuador, belonging to the family

Melastomataceae Melastomataceae () is a family of dicotyledonous flowering plants found mostly in the tropics (two-thirds of the genera are from the New World tropics) comprising c. 175 genera and c. 5115 known species. Melastomes are annual or perennial herbs ...

, named after him. It is now been downgraded to a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of ''

Miconia ''Miconia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the glory bush family, Melastomataceae, native to warm temperate to tropical regions of the Americas. The species are mostly shrubs and small to medium-sized trees up to 15 m tall. The generic name ...

''.

References

External links

*
Personal papers
at Smithsonian Institution Archives

at passionflow.co.uk
Works
at

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20th-century American botanists 1890 births 1968 deaths {{US-botanist-stub