Clara Eaton Cummings

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Clara Eaton Cummings
Born13 July 1855
Died28 December 1906(1906-12-28) (aged 51)
NationalityAmerican
Scientific career
FieldsBotany
InstitutionsWellesley College

Clara Eaton Cummings (13 July 1855 – 28 December 1906) was an American

botanist and Hunnewell Professor of Cryptogamic Botany at Wellesley College in Massachusetts
.

Life and education

Cummings was born in Plymouth, New Hampshire, on July 13, 1855 to Noah Conner and Elmira George Cummings.[1] In 1876, she enrolled at the women's liberal arts college Wellesley, only one year after the opening of the institution.

Career

Cummings primarily studied cryptogamous (spore-reproducing) plants such as

liverworts and mosses of North America in 1885.[3]

She became a curator at the botanical museum at Wellesley from 1878–79 and was hired at Wellesley as an associate professor of botany for the 1879 school year.[1][4] In 1886 and 1887 she studied under Dr. Arnold Dodel at the University of Zurich where she did private work and prepared charts for a Cryptogamic Botany illustration. While in Europe, she traveled to various botanical gardens to study some of the great botanists.[5] After returning from Zurich, Cummings became an associate professor of cryptogamic botany at Wellesey.[1] Between 1892 and 1903 she published three exsiccata works called Decades of North American lichens with Thomas Albert Williams and Arthur Bliss Seymour as co-editors.[6]

In 1904, she published a catalog of 217 species of

Harriman Expedition which included 76 species new to Alaska and at least two species new to science.[7]

In February and March 1905, Cummings took a trip to Jamaica where she collected lichens. After her death, her collection was sent to the New York Botanical Garden.[8]

Cummings was an associate editor of

Plant World[9] and named in 1899 a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[10] She became a member of the Society of Plant Morphology and Physiology and served as Vice President in 1904.[11] She was a member of the Mycological society, the Torrey Botanical Club, the Boston Mycological Club, and the Boston Society of Natural History.[4]

Partial bibliography

  • Catalogue of Musci and Hepaticae of North America, North of Mexico (1885)[11]
  • The Lichens of Alaska (1904)[13]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c The Granite Monthly: A New Hampshire Magazine. Granite Monthly Co. 1907-01-01.
  2. ^ a b Palmieri, Patricia Ann. In Adamless Eden: The Community of Women Faculty at Wellesley. p. 117.
  3. ^ Cummings, Clara (1885). Catalogue of Musci and Hepaticae of North America, North of Mexico. Howard and Stiles.
  4. ^ .
  5. ^ Wellesley news : Free Download & Streaming. Wellesley, Mass : Wellesley College. Retrieved 2015-11-21 – via Internet Archive.
  6. ^ Triebel, D. & Scholz, P. 2001–2024 IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae. – Botanische Staatssammlung München: http://indexs.botanischestaatssammlung.de. – München, Germany.
  7. JSTOR 3238923
    .
  8. .
  9. .
  10. ^ "Historic Fellows". American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  11. ^ a b "Cummings, Clara Eaton (1855-1906)".
  12. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Cumm.
  13. .

External links