Edward Tuckerman (1817 - 1886)
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Biography
Sources
Selected publications
Genera
Biography
1817 December 7, born in Boston
1837 graduates from Union College in Schenectady, New York
1839 graduates from Harvard Law School
1841 goes to Europe; spends a year bumming around
1843 (approximate year) earns M.A. from Union College
1846 matriculates as an undergraduate [yes, that's correct] at Harvard
1847 graduates from Harvard College
1852 graduates from Harvard Divinity School
1854 marries Sarah Eliza Sigourney Cushing; builds house in Amherst
starts lecturing at Amherst College; becomes professor or oriental history
1858 appointed chair of botany at Amherst College
Tuckerman is known as the dean of American lichenologists. Indeed, he occupies the same sort of position in the field that Sullivant does in bryology. It seems to me that (if Gray's description is accurate) his descriptions of taxa must have rivaled those of Rolf Singer:
In disquisition, the long and comprehensive sentences which he so carefully constructs are unmistakably clear to those who will patiently plod their way through them, and his choice even of unusual words is generally felicitous; but sometimes the statements are so hedged about and interpenetrated by qualifications or reservations, and so pregnant with subsidiary although relevant considerations, that they are far from easy reading. Like nests of pill-boxes, they are packed into least bulk; but for practical use they need to be taken apart.
Gray also tells the story of how he ended up at Harvard at such a late age:
Applying for admission... he remarked to President Quincy that his father had broken the family tradition by sending him to another college, and that he proposed to correct thte mistake. To the suggestion that, being already an alumnus of the Law School as well as of Union, the University would willingly concede to him the earlier degrees he sought, he replied that he proposed to receive them in the ordinary way.
But you'll notice that it only took him a year, anyway.
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Sources
Dr. Asa Gray (1889) Scientific Papers of Asa Gray
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Selected Publications
Edward Tuckerman (1843) Enumeratio Methodica Caricum quarundam (Methodical Listing of the Carices from around here)Gray calls this "the first considerable, and a really successful, attempt to combine the species of this genus into natural groups.
Edward Tuckerman (1843) "Observations on some interesting Plants of New England" in American Journal of Science there was a second of these in 1848, and a third in 1849
Edward Tuckerman (1847) "Synopsis of the Lichens of New England, the other Northern States, and British America" in Proceedings of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, USA 1there are other articles by Tuckerman in volumes 4-7 of the Proceedings, mostly on material from expeditions
Edward Tuckerman (1851) Lichenes Americae Septentrionalis Exsiccati (Exsiccati of the Lichens of North America) 3 vol.Gray doesn't actually give a date for this; the one I've supplied is approximate, just to get his publications in what seems to be the right order.
Edward Tuckerman (1853) Lichenes Caroli Wrightii Cubae curante E. Tuckerman (Lichens of the Charles Wright expedition to Cuba, curated by E. Tuckerman)Gray's comments seem to indicate that this is another set of exsiccati.
Again, the date is approximate.
Edward Tuckerman (1866) Lichens of California, Oregon, and the Rocky Mountains, so far as yet knownGray notes that this work is important not so much for the species, but because "in this he lays down the principles and matured opinions which he had adopted, and which he firmly adhered to, for the taxonomy and classification of Lichens," which principles are more put into practice in his last two books.
Edward Tuckerman (1872) Genera lichenum (The Genera of Lichens)
Edward Tuckerman & Charles Christopher Frost (1875) A Catalogue of Plants growing without cultivation within thirty miles of Amherst CollegeFrost handled the fungi, Tuckerman did everything else
Edward Tuckerman (1882 - 1888) A Synopsis of the North American Lichens 2 vol.
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Genera
Thamnidium Tuckerman: Schwendener
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