George Vasey (botanist)

George Vasey
Born	February 28, 1822 Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England
Died	March 4, 1893 (1893-03-05) (aged 71) Washington, D.C., United States
Alma mater	Berkshire Medical Institute
Known for	Chief Botanist of USDA, creator of the United States National Herbarium
Awards	Hon. M.A., fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Scientific career
Institutions	USDA
Author abbrev. (botany)	Vasey

George Vasey (February 28, 1822 – March 3, 1893) was an English-born American botanist who collected a lot in Illinois before integrating the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), where he became Chief Botanist and curator of the greatly expanded National Herbarium.

Biography

George Vasey was born in 1822 near Scarborough, England, the fourth of ten children. His family emigrated to the United States the next year, and they established in Oriskany, New York. He left school at 12 to take a job as a store clerk.

He took interest in botany after borrowing and, since he could not afford the volume, manually copying a book on the subject. This interest was later encouraged after a chance encounter with Peter D. Knieskern, another naturalist who allowed Vasey to begin writing to various other botanists. Until 1870 he would maintain an extensive correspondence and collect a great many specimens both in Oneida County and later McHenry County, but did not publish material of scientific relevance until the 1870s.

Vasey married Martha Jane Scott in 1846, having graduated the same year from

After a brief period where he stopped writing, he remarried to a widow, but was beset with heavy financial trouble by the time John Wesley Powell invited him to participate in an expedition in 1868. Greatly enthused by the adventure, he dedicated himself to scientific pursuit. He briefly edited Entomologist and Botanist before being curator of the Illinois State University Natural History Museum. He resigned the latter position to succeed Charles Christopher Parry as the USDA Chief Botanist. He quickly began work to improve the poor state of the National Herbarium, then organized an exhibit of the country's trees for the Centennial Exposition. The herbarium, hosted by the Smithsonian Institution, is considered the crowning of his career, particularly its grass collection, of which he was a specialist; in 1889 the Institute named him Honorary Curator. As Chief Botanist he launched the Contributions from the United States National Herbarium. With George Thurber he worked on grasses for Asa Gray and John Torrey's Flora of North America.

He was granted an honorary

• Delineations of the Ox Tribe; or, the Natural History of Bulls, Bisons, and Buffaloes (London: G. Biggs, 1851)
• A Descriptive Catalogue of the Native Forest Trees of the United States (Washington, 1876)
• The Grasses of the United States, a Synopsis of the Tribes, with Descriptions of the Genera (1883)
• Agricultural Grasses of the United States (1884)
• A Descriptive Catalogue of the Grasses of the United States (1885)
• Report of an Investigation of the Grasses of the Arid Districts (2 parts, 1886–87)
• Grasses of the South (1887)
• Grasses of the Southwest (1890–91)
• Grasses of the Pacific Slope (1892–93)

Notes

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References

• Collins, Ed (Winter 2001). "Searching for Doctor Vasey". Chicago Wilderness Magazine online. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
• JSTOR 2477497
  .
• Canby, Wm. M.;
  S2CID 84771961
  . (with bibliography)
• Spady, Betty (2004). "George Vasey: An Email Conversation". Rhododendron and Azalea News. 3 (1). Archived from the original on 2008-03-14. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
• Pennington, Susan J. (2004). "The Rebirth of the Contributions Series" (PDF). The Plant Press. 7 (4): 1. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
• Armstrong, Joseph E. "George S. Vasey Herbarium (ISU)". Archived from the original on 2008-05-09. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
• Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Vasey, George" . Encyclopedia Americana.
• Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1889). "Vasey, George" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

External links

• Works by George Vasey at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about George Vasey at Internet Archive
• Works by Vasey at Biodiversity Heritage Library