Sidney Fay Blake (1892–1959) 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 plant

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 ...

, "recognized as one of the world's experts on botanical nomenclature."

Biography

Blake was born in 1892 in

Stoughton, Massachusetts Stoughton (official name: Town of Stoughton) is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 29,281 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The town is located approximately from Boston, from Providence, Rh ...

. In 1912, he received a bachelor's degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, a master's degree in 1913, and a Ph.D. in

botany 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 ...

in 1917 with a thesis on '' Viguiera''. The same year he received his Ph.D., he started his botanical career at the Bureau of Plant Industry for 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 ...

, and worked there till he died in 1959. In 1943 he was elected president of the

American Society of Plant Taxonomists The American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT) is a botany, botanical organization formed in 1935 to "foster, encourage, and promote education and research in the field of plant taxonomy, to include those areas and fields of study that contribut ...

. Blake published many articles and monographs but only one two-volume work, ''Geographical Guide to Floras of the World''. The first volume, co-authored by Alice C. Atwood (1876–1947), was published in 1942. The second volume, written by Blake alone, was published in 1961 two years after his death. He married the entomologist Doris M. Holmes in 1918. They had one daughter. In 1930, botanist Standl. published '' Neoblakea'', 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 South America,belonging to the family

Rubiaceae Rubiaceae () is a family (biology), family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with Petiole ( ...

, with the name honouring Sidney Fay Blake. Then in 2011, botanists E.E.Schill. and Panero published '' Sidneya'', which is a genus of

s from Mexico and surrounds belonging to the family

Asteraceae Asteraceae () is a large family (biology), family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the Order (biology), order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchi ...

References

20th-century American botanists 1892 births 1959 deaths Harvard University alumni People from Stoughton, Massachusetts {{US-botanist-stub