Charles Edwin Bessey

Charles Edwin Bessey (1845–1915) was an American botanist.

Biography

He was born at Milton, Wayne County, Ohio. He graduated in 1869 at the Michigan Agricultural College. Bessey also studied at Harvard University under Asa Gray, in 1872 and in 1875–76. He was professor of botany at the Iowa Agricultural College from 1870 to 1884. In 1884, he was appointed professor of botany at the University of Nebraska and became head dean there in 1909. He also served as Chancellor of the University of Nebraska from 1888 to 1891 and again from 1899 to 1900.^[1] He served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1911.

Works

• The Geography of Iowa (Cincinnati, 1878)
• Botany for High Schools and Colleges (New York, 1880)
• revision of McNab's Botany (1881)
• The Essentials of Botany (1884)
• Elementary Botany (1904)
• Plant Migration Studies (1905)
• Synopsis of Plant Phyla (1907)
• Outlines of Plant Phyla (1909)
• written with others, New Elementary Agriculture (ninth edition, 1911)

Legacy

His arrangement of flowering plants taxa, with focus on the evolutionary divergence of primitive forms, is considered by many as the system most likely to form the basis of a modern, comprehensive taxonomy of the plant kingdom.

In 2009 he was inducted to the Nebraska Hall of Fame.

Family

Bessey's son, Ernst Bessey was Professor of Mycology and Botany at Michigan State University.

See also

• Bessey system, his taxonomic plant system.
• Nebraska National Forest

Further reading

• Spaulding, P. (1915). "CHARLES EDWIN BESSEY". Science 41 (1055): 420–421. 1915 Mar 19. doi:10.1126/science.41.1055.420. PMID 17792492. 
• Ewan, Joseph (1970–80). "Bessey, Charles Edwin". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 102–104. ISBN 0684101149. 
• Overfield, Richard A. Science With Practice: Charles E. Bessey and the Maturing of American Botany. Iowa State University Press Series in the History of Technology and Science. Iowa State Press, 1993. (ISBN 0-8138-1822-2)
• Pool, Raymond J. A brief sketch of the life and work of Charles Edwin Bessey. Botanical Society of America, 1915.
• Tobey, Ronald C. 1981. Saving the Prairies: The Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895-1955. Berkeley: University of California Press. (ISBN 0-5200-4352-9)
•  "Bessey, Charles Edwin". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1891. 

References

External links

Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Charles_Edwin_Bessey Charles Edwin Bessey] at Wikimedia Commons

• Charles Edwin, Bessey. Botany for high schools and colleges (7 ed.). New York: Henry Holt & Company. http://www.google.com/books?id=WsMTAAAAYAAJ. Retrieved 2009-04-04. 
• Charles Bessey papers at the Iowa State University Library. Retrieved on July 10, 2009.
• Charles Bessey papers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Retrieved on October 13, 2009.

This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.