Louis Otho Williams

Louis Otho Williams (born December 16, 1908 in Jackson , Wyoming , † January 6, 1991 ) was an American botanist . He was the principal curator in the Department of Botany at the Chicago Natural History Museum. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " LOWilliams ".

Career

Williams received his first botanical training at the University of Wyoming under Aven Nelson. He received his PhD from Washington University and the Missouri Botanical Garden. He then spent seven years as a research assistant at the Ames Orchid Herbarium at Harvard University . During this time he was the editor of the American Orchid Society Bulletin .

plant

During the Second World War , he worked for a number of years on a rubber procurement project in Brazil . He then returned to Harvard. A little later he went to the Escuela Agricola Panamericana in Honduras . Among other things, he helped set up a large herbarium and initiated the Ceiba magazine . After working for the "Plant Industry Station" of the Department of Agriculture in Beltsville ( Maryland ), he went to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago , where in 1964 he became chief curator of the Department of Botany.

Together with Paul Carpenter Standley and Julian Alfred Steyermark he wrote the work Flora of Guatemala (from 1946). Williams was married to Terua Williams for over 50 years. He died of a heart attack on January 6, 1991 at the age of 82 . In the course of his career, Williams published around 300 scientific articles, mainly on orchids and American flowering and useful plants. His plant collection numbered over 43,000 specimens, mostly from the Rocky Mountains and Central America .

Honors

The genus Williamsia Merr. from the family of the redness plants (Rubiaceae) is not for him, but according to Robert Statham Williams was named (1859-1945). The plant genus Neowilliamsia Garay from the orchid family was named after Louis Otho Williams .

literature

William Burger: Louis Otho Williams (1908-1991) . In: Taxon . tape 40 , no. 2 , May 1991, pp. 355-356 .

swell

Robert Zander : Zander concise dictionary of plant names . Ed .: Fritz Encke , Günther Buchheim, Siegmund Seybold . 13th, revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-8001-5042-5 .
Short biography at Botanical Society of America

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymic plant names - extended edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .

Web links

Author entry and list of the described plant names for Louis Otho Williams at the IPNI

personal data
SURNAME	Williams, Louis Otho
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Williams, Louis Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American botanist
DATE OF BIRTH	December 16, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH	Jackson , Wyoming
DATE OF DEATH	January 6, 1991

[Burkhardt_2018-1] Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymic plant names - extended edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .