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American cryptogamic botanist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clara Eaton Cummings (13 July 1855 – 28 December 1906) was an American cryptogamic botanist and Hunnewell Professor of Cryptogamic Botany at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
Clara Eaton Cummings | |
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Born | 13 July 1855 |
Died | 28 December 1906 51) | (aged
Nationality | American |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Botany |
Institutions | Wellesley College |
Cummings was born in Plymouth, New Hampshire, on July 13, 1855 to Noah Conner and Elmira George Cummings.[1] In 1876, she enrolled at the women's liberal arts college Wellesley, only one year after the opening of the institution.
Cummings primarily studied cryptogamous (spore-reproducing) plants such as mosses and lichens. She characterized hundreds of lichen specimens but was "very conservative" on declaring new species.[2] Much of her work appeared in the books of other botanists,[2] although she did publish a catalog of liverworts and mosses of North America in 1885.[3]
She became a curator at the botanical museum at Wellesley from 1878–79 and was hired at Wellesley as an associate professor of botany for the 1879 school year.[1][4] In 1886 and 1887 she studied under Dr. Arnold Dodel at the University of Zurich where she did private work and prepared charts for a Cryptogamic Botany illustration. While in Europe, she traveled to various botanical gardens to study some of the great botanists.[5] After returning from Zurich, Cummings became an associate professor of cryptogamic botany at Wellesey.[1] Between 1892 and 1903 she published three exsiccata works called Decades of North American lichens with Thomas Albert Williams and Arthur Bliss Seymour as co-editors.[6]
In 1904, she published a catalog of 217 species of Alaskan lichens collected during the Harriman Expedition which included 76 species new to Alaska and at least two species new to science.[7]
In February and March 1905, Cummings took a trip to Jamaica where she collected lichens. After her death, her collection was sent to the New York Botanical Garden.[8]
Cummings was an associate editor of Plant World[9] and named in 1899 a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[10] She became a member of the Society of Plant Morphology and Physiology and served as Vice President in 1904.[11] She was a member of the Mycological society, the Torrey Botanical Club, the Boston Mycological Club, and the Boston Society of Natural History.[4]
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