Citizenship USA Name Walter Swingle Author abbrev. (botany) | Institutions USDA Nationality USA Role Botanist | |
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Spouse Lucie Romstaedt, Maude Kellerman Died January 19, 1952, Washington, D.C., United States Education Kansas State University, University of Bonn | ||
Walter Tennyson Swingle (January 8, 1871 – January 19, 1952) was an American agricultural botanist who contributed greatly to the classification and taxonomy of citrus.
Contents
- Life
- Education
- Contribution to US agricultural industry
- Monumental collection
- Selected publications
- References
Life
He was born in Canaan, Pennsylvania and moved with his family to Kansas two years later.
Swingle married Lucie Romstaedt in 1901; she died in 1910. He married Maude Kellerman in 1915 and had four children; Stella and John (twins), Frank and Mary.
Education
He graduated from the Kansas State Agricultural College in 1890, and studied at the University of Bonn in 1895-96 and 1898.
Contribution to US agricultural industry
He worked at the United States Department of Agriculture (1891), investigated subtropic fruits, established laboratories in Florida, became an agricultural explorer, and (after 1902) had charge of crop physiology and breeding investigations.
He made several visits to the Mediterranean countries of Europe, to North Africa, and to Asia Minor, from where he introduced the date palm, pistachio nut, and other useful plants, and also the fig insect to make possible the cultivation of Smyrna figs in California.
He also traveled to Asia, bringing back 100,000 Chinese volumes on botany to the Library of Congress. Swingle developed the tangelo in 1897 in Eustis, Fla.
Much of his research is published in the five volume book, The Citrus Industry, of which he took a great portion.
Monumental collection
An extensive collection related to Swingle and his life, photos and works entitled the "Swingle Plant Anatomy Reference Collection" is hosted at the University of Miami.