Léo Lesquereux (1806 - 1889)
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Biography
Sources
Further Sources
Other Web Sources
Biography
A very interesting individual: an early expert on mosses (co-author of the first two major works on mosses in this country) and the person who realized the botanical origins of coal and peat.
The web site listed below has lots of excellent details about his life, and there's also a nice Encyclopedia Britannica article on him. My sources ( Humphrey and Kimberling, primarily, but also some sources whose primary interest is Sullivant) give different dates and chronologies for important events in Lesquereux's life, so I can't write a brief summary here. The sources listed below should certainly provide you with plenty of information.
I will mention, though, that he was deafened as a result of a childhood accident, and is sometimes held up as one of the few examples of a deaf person having a major career in the 19th century.
Sources
Harry Baker Humphrey (1961) Makers of North American Botany
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Further Sources
G. Sarton (1942) "article on Lesquereux" in Isis
J. Peter Lesley (1895) "Memoir Leo Lesquereux" in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
J. Peter Lesley (1890) "Obituary Notice of Leo Lesquereux" in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
W. J. Youmans (1896) Pioneers of Science in America
Charles Reid Barnes (1890) "Leo Lesquereux" in Botanical Gazette
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Other Web Sources
Leo Lesquereux
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