Edward Lee Greene

Background

Edward Lee Greene was born on August 20, 1843 in Hopkinton, Rhode Island, the son of William and Abby (Crandall) Greene. About 1855 his parents moved to Illinois and thence to Wisconsin, settling near Janesville, where Edward picked up Norwegian from his neighbors and made friends with a Swedish naturalist, Thure Ludwig Theodore Kumlien.

Education

His attendance at Albion Academy was interrupted by three years’ service as a private in the 13th Wisconsin Infantry. Since the regiment was detailed for garrison, guard, patrol, and picket duty, Greene, with the Class-Book of Botany by Alphonso Wood in his blanket-roll, was able to botanize through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama and emerged from the war blithe and unscathed.

Though not of college rank, Albion Academy conferred degrees and in 1866 gave its returned pupil a Ph. B.

After teaching for a few years, Greene went in 1870 from Decatur, to Colorado, collected plants for Asa Gray and George Engelmann, and, though of Baptist and Quaker antecedents, entered Jarvis Hall, the Episcopal seminary conducted at Golden City by Bishop George Maxwell Randall.

Career

Ordained in 1873, he ministered to congregations at Pueblo, Colorado, Vallejo, California, and Georgetown, Colorado, and traversed as a missionary large tracts of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

In 1882 he was made rector of St. Mark’s, Berkeley, California, but, persuading himself that his ordination was invalid, he resigned in 1885 and became a Roman Catholic layman. He was instructor in botany at the University of California, 1885-86, assistant professor, 1886-90, and professor, 1890-95.

In 1895 he resigned.

Gifted with an unusual measure of self-esteem and with a wider field knowledge of the North American flora than was possessed by any other botanist of his day, he removed to Washington, where he was professor of botany in the Catholic University of America, from 1895 to 1904, and an associate of the Smithsonian Institution.

Asa Gray reviewed his early writings with unmistakable distrust; and until he left California he was subject to constant and bitter attack in Zoe. Greene’s assertion, however, of the right of a botanist to publish his results without first submitting specimens or manuscript to Asa Gray may well prove, in historical retrospect, his most significant effort in behalf of North American botany.

In 1914 he transferred his herbarium and library, rich in type-specimens and in rare botanical works, to Notre Dame University in return for a modest annuity. He died in Providence Hospital, Washington, after a long, wasting illness and was buried at Notre Dame, where he had planned to spend his remaining years.

Achievements

• Greenella, an herb discovered by him in southern Arizona, was named in his honor by Asa Gray. Except Thomas Nuttall, no other botanist in North America has had so long, picturesque, and dramatic a career. His more important separate publications were: West American Oaks; Pittonia: A Series of Papers Relating to Botany and Botanists; Flora Franciscana; Manual of the Botany of the Region of San Francisco Bay (1894); Plantee Bakeriance; Leaflets of Botanical Observation; and Landmarks of Botanical History, published by the Smithsonian Institution. In this last work his most eager interests centered.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Manual of the botany of the region of San Francisco Bay

    (This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

  • Flora Franciscana. An attempt to classify and describe the vascular plants of middle California

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Pittonia ?a series of papers relating to botany and botanists /by Edward L. Greene. Volume v.3 (1896-1898) - Primary Source Edition

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Leaflets of Botanical Observation and Criticism: (V. 1-2) (1903-1912)

    (Originally published in 1903-1912. This volume from the C...)

  • Illustrations of west American oaks
  • Landmarks of Botanical History, in Two Volumes

Views

To developing at Washington his ideas as to new species and nomenclature he bent for twenty years the full energies of a powerful mind and an unwasting enthusiasm, supplemented by a mastery of the English tongue remarkable for its purity, persuasiveness, and Biblical strength. Disregarding almost entirely the effects of climatic and edaphic influences, he thought of species as immutable and so was able to discover some three thousand new ones, but only a small proportion of them have been accepted by other botanists.

Personality

Students, drawn to him by his originality atid-in-dependence, thought him delightfully irregular. Well-formed physically, with a shock of hair turned white as cotton in early life, his was a striking figure set off by regular and handsome features and a noble bearing. Every student remembered his beneficent and disarming smile, his play of wit, and his strong relish for humor.

He never answered his opponents and never changed his views, and there were other botanists who admired both the man and his work.

Connections

Greene never married.

Father:

William Greene

Mother:

Abby (Crandall) Greene