Timothy Plowman

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Timothy Charles Plowman (born November 17, 1944 in Harrisburg , Pennsylvania , † January 7, 1989 ) was an American botanist . His special field of interest was the ethnobotany of South American plants. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Plowman ".

Life

Timothy Plowman graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in 1966, and later earned his master's degree from Harvard University in 1970 and his doctorate in 1974 . His doctoral supervisor Richard Evans Schultes introduced him to ethnobotany and wrote his dissertation on the genus Brunfelsia . After his dissertation, he mainly dealt with the study of the genus of the coca bushes ( Erythroxylum ), but the Brunfelsia were still an integral part of his work.

In 1978 he moved to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago , where he received a tenure position in 1983 , was head of the museum's botanical department from 1986 to 1988 and became curator in 1988 .

In total, he published over 60 scientific papers, most of them in the fields of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacy. In 1989 he died of complications from an HIV infection.

Honors and afterlife

Before his death, Timothy Plowman worked on a revision of the genus Brunfelsia , which should be the continuation of his dissertation. In 1994 colleagues from the Field Museum of Natural History sent the manuscript of this work, as well as notes and archival material, to Sandra Knapp of the Natural History Museum in London with a request to verify that Plowman's work could be completed and published. Together with JR Press she revised the manuscript and submitted it for publication in 1996, in 1998 appeared "A Revision of the South American Species of Brunfelsia (Solanaceae)" .

The Field Museum of Natural History named their collection on economic botany in honor of Plowman, the "Timothy C. Plowman Latin American Research Award" was created to give young Latin American scientists the opportunity to visit the Field Museum and to study the collections there To use economic botany and systematics.

Plant names

The plant genus Plowmania was named in honor of Timothy Plowman. The only species of the genus, Plowmania nyctaginoides , was initially described as Brunfelsia nyctaginoides , but excluded from the genus Brunfelsia by Plowman . The first description of the genus Plowmania was in 1986 by Armando Hunziker .

literature

  • Wade Davis: Foreword to: Timothy C. Plowman (Author), Sandra Knapp, JR Press (Ed.): A Revision of the South American Species of Brunfelsia (Solanaceae). (= Fieldiana Botany, New Series. Number 39). Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago , August 1998, OCLC 924426846 .
  • William Burger: Timothy Plowman (1944-1989). In: Taxon. Volume 38, Number 2, May 1989, pp. 329-330.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Plowman, Timothy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Plowman, Timothy Charles (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American botanist
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Harrisburg , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1989