John Thomas Howell (November 6, 1903 – May 7, 1994) was an 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 ...

and

taxonomist In biology, taxonomy () is the science, scientific study of naming, defining (Circumscription (taxonomy), circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxon, taxa (si ...

. He became an expert of ''

Eriogonum ''Eriogonum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Polygonaceae. The genus is found in North America and is known as wild buckwheat. This is a highly species-rich genus, and indications are that active speciation is continuing. It incl ...

'' (buckwheat) species, which are widely represented in the native California flora. He was the assistant of

Alice Eastwood __NOTOC__ Alice Eastwood (January 19, 1859 – October 30, 1953) was a Canadian American botanist. She is credited with building the botanical collection at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. She published over 310 scient ...

(1859−1953), the renowned botanist and botanical collection director at the

California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, that is among the largest List of natural history museums, museums of natural history in the world, housing over ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Taxa named for Howell

The genera of '' Howelliella'' (in the family

Plantaginaceae Plantaginaceae, the plantain family or veronica family, is a large, diverse family (biology), family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales that includes common flowers such as Antirrhinum, snapdragon and Digitalis, foxglove. It is unrelated ...

), ''Howellanthus'' (a synonym of ''

Phacelia ''Phacelia'' (phacelia, scorpionweed, Heliotropium, heliotrope) is a genus of about 200 species of annual plant, annual or perennial plant, perennial herbaceous plant, herbaceous flowering plant, plants in the borage family, native to North Ameri ...

'' in the

Boraginaceae Boraginaceae, the Borago, borage or forget-me-not family, includes about 2,000 species of shrubs, trees, and herbs in 146 to 154 genus, genera with a worldwide distribution. The APG IV system from 2016 classifies the Boraginaceae as single famil ...

family) and also '' Johanneshowellia'' (Howell's buckwheat) of the family

Polygonaceae The Polygonaceae are a Family (biology), family of flowering plants known Common name, informally as the knotweed family or smartweed—buckwheat family in the United States. The Botanical name, name is Basionym, based on the genus ''Polygonum'', ...

, are all named in his honor.

Taxa named by Howell

References

American taxonomists 1903 births 1994 deaths Botanists active in North America People associated with the California Academy of Sciences Scientists from San Francisco Scientists from California 20th-century American botanists Taxa named by John Thomas Howell {{US-botanist-stub

Taxa named for Howell

Taxa named by Howell

See also

References