Alwyn Gentry
Alwyn Howard Gentry (born January 6, 1945 in Clay Center , USA ; † August 3, 1993 in Guayaquil , Ecuador ) was an American botanist . His special field of interest was the systematics of the trumpet tree plants , to which he made a great contribution through his work. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " AHGentry ". His Peruvian wife Rosa Ortiz (* 1961) is also a botanist.
Life
Alwyn Gentry was born on January 6, 1945 in Clay Center , Kansas . He graduated from the community high school in 1963, after which he began his studies at Kansas State University . From there he received two degrees in 1967: a Bachelor of Arts in physics and a Bachelor of Science in botany and zoology.
During the summer of 1967 he was on his first research trip to Costa Rica , where he first undertook research on the trumpet tree family (Bignoniaceae). He completed his master's thesis on the genus Tabebuia in autumn 1968 and received the title Master of Science in January 1969. This was followed by a further research stay in Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico .
Work on his doctoral thesis began in the fall of 1969 at Washington University in St. Louis . He completed this work with the title "An Eco-Evolutionary Study of the Bignoniaceae of Southern Central America" in December 1972. As early as October 1972, Gentry was employed as assistant to the curator of the Missouri Botanical Garden . There he spent the rest of his career and from there embarked on numerous expeditions to South America, South Africa and Madagascar .
The results of his taxonomic studies of the South American trumpet tree should appear in a three-part series of the "Flora Neotropica". The first volume in this series was published in 1980, the second in 1992, and a third was not completed. In addition, he worked on a large number of families for the "Flora of Panama" and wrote the adaptations of the trumpet tree plants for several flora plants.
On August 3, 1993, Gentry died in a plane crash while on an expedition through Ecuador. In addition to Gentry, the pilot, the ornithologist Theodore Albert Parker III and the president of the local group of the Fundación Natura Eduardo Aspiazu died .
Dedication names
The plants Anthurium gentryi Croat. and Syngonium gentryanum Croat. have been named after him.
literature
- James S. Miller, Peter H. Raven et al .: Alwyn Howard Gentry: A Tribute . In: Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden , Volume 83, Number 4, 1996. pp. 433-460.
- Walter Erhardt, Erich Götz, Nils Bödeker, Siegmund Seybold: The great ZANDER . 2: types and varieties. Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-8001-5406-7 .
Web links
- Author entry and list of the described plant names for Alwyn Gentry at the IPNI
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gentry, Alwyn |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Gentry, Alwyn Howard (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American botanist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 6, 1945 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Clay Center |
| DATE OF DEATH | 3rd August 1993 |
| Place of death | near Guayaquil , Ecuador |