Robert Folger Thorne

Robert Folger Thorne (born July 13, 1920 in Spring Lake , New Jersey , † March 24, 2015 ) was an American botanist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Thorne ".

Life

Thorne was a Consolidated B-24 bomber pilot during World War II . His plane was shot during a mission over Austria, but Thorne managed to navigate his plane to Vis , at that time the only island in Dalmatia (now Croatia) held by partisans. After returning to Italy, he flew 29 more missions before he retired.

During his visit to Dartmouth College he attended some science courses, where his interest in botany awakened. He abandoned his plans to study linguistics and began studying botany, earning his Masters of Science degree in 1942 and his PhD from Cornell University in 1949 .

He then spent thirteen years at the University of Iowa , where he was from 1950 William Arthur Anderson head of the vascular plant department of the Ada Hayden Herbarium, whose inventory he estimated at around 143,000 pieces in 1952 and which he did until 1962, when he University left, had enlarged by around 27,000 pieces.

Thorne then took over the management of the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens and traveled through Australia, New Guinea and Mexico. In 1992 Thorne emerged as the author of a major taxonomic draft, which he updated again in 2000. However, its system was only widespread in the USA.

Works (selection)

• With Earl W. Lathrop : Flora of the Santa Ana Mountains
• With Earl W. Lathrop : Flora of the Santa Rosa Plateau
• With James Henrickson and Barry A. Prigge : Flora of the Higher Ranges of the Eastern Mojave
• Flora of Santa Catalina Island
• Classification and geography of flowering plants , in: Botanical Review 58: 225-348, 1992
• An updated phylogenetic classification of the flowering plants , in: Aliso 13: 365-389, 1992
• The classification and geography of the flowering plants: dicotyledons of the class Angiospermae , in: Botanical Review 66: 441-647, 2000

proof

• Biographical data on the California Plant Names site: Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations A Dictionary of Botanical Etymology , keyword thorneri

Web links

• Author entry and list of the described plant names for Robert Folger Thorne at the IPNI
• Information about its system ( memento from June 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Presentation of its system ( memento from June 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• In Memory of Robert Folger "Bob" Thorne