Name Edward Alexander | Died August 18, 1985 Fields Botany | |
Born July 31, 1901
Asheville, North Carolina ( 1901-07-31 ) Institutions New York Botanical Garden Education North Carolina State University | ||
Author abbrev. (botany) | ||
Edward Johnston Alexander (July 31, 1901 – August 18, 1985) was an American botanist who discovered three species and one genus, but only named one of them. He was born in Asheville, North Carolina and studied at North Carolina State University from 1919 to 1923, though he failed to graduate. He was a longtime assistant and curator at New York Botanical Garden, originally under the guidance of John Kunkel Small. While at the Botanic Garden, he served as an editor of the Garden's botanical journal Addisonia for about thirty years, until the journal ceased publication in 1964.
Alexander undertook several botanical expeditions in his lifetime, including to Pecos, Texas with J.K. Small and the southern Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains with Thomas H. Everett. His most successful expedition was to southern Mexico from 1944 to 1945. On that trip, he collected around 1,600 specimens and 1,000 seeds and roots for the herbarium and propagation houses at the New York Botanical Garden.
Alexander never married. He died in 1985.