Per Axel Rydberg (July 6, 1860 – July 25, 1931) was a Swedish-born, American botanist who was the first curator of the New York Botanical Garden

Herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant 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 sheet of paper (calle ...

Biography

Per Axel Rydberg was born in Odh,

Västergötland Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden. Vä ...

, Sweden and emigrated to the

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in 1882. From 1884 to 1890, he taught mathematics at Luther Academy in Wahoo, Nebraska, while he studied at the University of Nebraska. He graduated from the

University of Nebraska–Lincoln The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (Nebraska, NU, or UNL) is a public land-grant research university in Lincoln, Nebraska. Chartered in 1869 by the Nebraska Legislature as part of the Morrill Act of 1862, the school was known as the Univer ...

(B.S. in 1891) and (M.A. in 1895). He earned his graduate degree from

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(Ph.D. in 1898). After he graduated, Rydberg received a commission from the

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to undertake a botanical exploration of western Nebraska. He received another one in 1892 to explore the Black Hills of South Dakota, and in 1893 he was in the Sand Hills, again in western Nebraska. During this time he continued to teach at the Luther Academy. In 1900 Rydberg conducted field work in southeast Colorado. In 1901 he visited Kew Gardens in England and made a return trip to Sweden as well. In 1905 he was collecting in Utah with visits to the

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, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In 1911 he undertook an exploration of southeast Utah and in 1925, the

Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...

. A trip in 1926 took him to Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas. His final field expedition was in 1929 to Kansas and Minnesota but it was cut short due to illness and only included work in Kansas. He was a prolific research publisher, he described around 1700 new species in the course of his career. His expertise was principally in the flora of the Great Plains and

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. From 1899, Rydberg was on the staff of the New York Botanical Garden, and he later became the first curator of the Garden's

.Rydberg, P.A. 1895. ''Flora of the sand hills of Nebraska''. Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 3:133-203. Dr. Rydberg was elected to membership in the Torrey Botanical Club in 1896. In 1900 he joined the

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and was elected a fellow the following year. Also that year, he was chosen as an Associate of the

Botanical Society of America The Botanical Society of America (BSA) represents professional and amateur botanists, researchers, educators and students in over 80 countries of the world. It functions as a United States nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership society. History The s ...

. In 1907 he became a member of the American Geographical Society and the

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Personal life

Rydberg married his wife Alfrida Amanda (1878-1933). Rydberg died during 1931 in

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. He was buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery.

Selected works

*1895: ''Flora Of The Sand Hills Of Nebraska'' *1897: ''A Report Upon the Grasses and Forage Plants of the Rocky Mountain Region'' with C. L. Shear *1898
''A Monograph of the North American Potentilleae''
*1900
''Catalogue of the Flora of Montana and the Yellowstone National Park''
*1906
''Flora of Colorado''
*1917
''Flora of the Rocky Mountains and adjacent plains, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and neighboring parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, and British Columbia''
*1922
''Flora of the Rocky Mountains and adjacent plains, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and neighboring parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and British Columbia''
*1918: ''Monograph on Rosa'' *1923
''Flora of the Black Hills of South Dakota''
*1923: ''Memories from the Department of Botany of Columbia University'' *1932: ''Flora of the Prairies and Plains of Central North America'' with M. A. Howe

Other works

*1901
''Contributions to the botany of the Yukon Territory, (with Nathaniel Lord Britton, Marshall A. Howe, Lucien Marcus Underwood, and R. S. Williams)''
*1903
''Flora of the southeastern United States;being descriptions of the seed-plants, ferns and fern-allies growing naturally in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and the Indian territory and in Oklahoma and Texas east of the one-hundredth meridian,(with John Kunkel Small)''
*1919
''Key to the Rocky Mountain flora; Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and British Columbia.''
*1899-1913
''Studies on Rocky Mountain flora.''
(Series: Contributions from the New York Botanical Garden)

References

Other sources

*Tiehm, Arnold; Frans Antonie Stafleu (1990) ''Per Axel Rydberg : a biography, bibliography, and list of his taxa'' (Bronx, N.Y.: New York Botanical Garden)

External links

*
Brief biography
on the website of

Western Kentucky University Western Kentucky University is a public university in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It was founded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1906, though its roots reach back a quarter-century earlier. It operates regional campuses in Glasgow, Elizabet ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rydberg, Per Axel 1860 births 1931 deaths University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni Columbia University alumni American botanists Botanists with author abbreviations Swedish emigrants to the United States People from Västergötland Torrey Botanical Society members