Rimo Bacigalupi (1901–1996), known as "Bach",The nickname "Bach" was pronounced as English "Batch", the first syllable of "Bacigalupi". was an American botanist and taxonomist, an expert in the flora of California. He was the first curator of the

Jepson Herbarium The University and Jepson Herbaria are two herbaria that share a joint facility at the University of California, Berkeley holding over 2,200,000 botanical specimens, the largest such collection on the US West Coast. These botanical natural histo ...

at the University of California, Berkeley.

Biography

Rimo was a son of Prospero and Gisella Bacigalupi, who were of

Genovese Genovese is an Italian surname meaning, properly, someone from Genoa. Its Italian plural form ''Genovesi'' has also developed into a surname. People * Alfred Genovese (1931–2011), American oboist * Alfredo Genovese (born 1964), Argentine artis ...

origin. He was educated at Lowell High School and entered Stanford University intending to become a lawyer, but changed his major from English to botany, receiving the

A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four ye ...

degree in 1923 and A.M. in 1925. He then taught botany and Italian at

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

before studying at Harvard for his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

degree which was awarded in 1931. He worked for the California Forest Experimental Station of the

U.S. Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 United States National Forest, national forests and 20 United States Nationa ...

1933–1938. He served with the U.S. Army during World War II, then returned to Stanford as an instructor in biology. He was president of the

California Botanical Society The California Botanical Society was founded by Willis Linn Jepson in 1913, since when it has advanced the knowledge of botanical sciences in the Western United States Services The society services are: the journal ''Madroño'', published since ...

1957–1958. When

Willis Linn Jepson Willis Linn Jepson (August 19, 1867 – November 7, 1946) was an early California botanist, conservationist, and writer. Career Born at Little Oak Ranch near Vacaville, California, Jepson became interested in botany as a boy and explo ...

, professor of botany at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

, died in 1946, he left his estate to the University of California for the purpose of continuing his studies of Californian flora. With the bequest the university established the Jepson Herbarium and Library, and Bacigalupi was appointed its first curator in 1950. He retired in 1968 but continued his botanical studies until suffering a stroke in 1983. Besides his mastery of botany, Bacigalupi was an expert in operatic scores,

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language f ...

, postage stamps and railroads. He was a member of the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, w ...

for 71 years.

Eponyms

*'' Perideridia bacigalupii'' *'' Deinandra bacigalupii'' *'' Downingia bacigalupii''

Notes

References

1901 births 1996 deaths American botanists Lowell High School (San Francisco) alumni Stanford University alumni Harvard University alumni United States Forest Service officials United States Army personnel of World War II Stanford University faculty University of California, Berkeley staff Mills College faculty {{US-botanist-stub