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George Vasey (botanist)
George Vasey (February 28, 1822 – March 4, 1893) was an English-born American botanist who collected a lot in Illinois before integrating the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), where he became Chief Botanist and curator of the greatly expanded National Herbarium. LifeGeorge Vasey was born on February 28, 1822 near the town of Scarborough, England, the fourth of ten children. His family emigrated to the United States the next year, settling in the village of Oriskany, New York. He left school at age 12 to become a store clerk in Oriskany. By age 13, he had expressed an interest in botany by manually copying a text book on the subject in its entirety. This interest was nurtured by a chance encounter with the botanist Peter D. Knieskern,[2] who later encouraged young Vasey to correspond with other botanists including Torrey, Gray, and others. By the age of 21, Vasey had graduated from the Oneida Institute. He attended the Berkshire Medical Institute, graduating with an M.D. degree in 1846. In December of that same year, he married Martha Jane Scott. The couple initially settled in Dexter, New York but in 1848 the family moved to Illinois, first to Elgin, and then to Ringwood. Here Vasey would practice medicine for nearly two decades. During this time, he kept his passion for botany alive by continued correspondence and field work. He became a founding member of the Illinois Natural History Society in 1858, and over the next few years, he wrote prolifically for the society and the weekly newspaper Prairie Farmer. In 1854, he opened a dry goods store to support his growing family, which now included four children and his mother. By 1861 he had two more children but in 1864 he lost his youngest child to whooping cough. When his wife began to grow weak, Vasey relocated the family to Richview, Illinois but to no avail. Martha Vasey died in 1866. In the months following her death, Vasey stopped writing for a brief period. Due to an unrelated legal matter, he was also beset with heavy financial trouble. Vasey remarried in 1867. His wife (maiden name: Barber) assumed complete responsibility for the family and its financial affairs. This enabled Vasey to consider an offer to participate in an expedition to Colorado. This marked the beginning of George Vasey's career as a botanist, which spanned a 25-year period from 1868 to 1893. Following a brief illness, George Vasey died in Washington, D.C. on March 4, 1893.[3] CareerJohn Wesley Powell invited George Vasey to participate in an expedition to Colorado in 1868. Vasey, working with other members of the traveling party, documented 66 pages of flora and collected almost 700 plant specimens during the expedition.[4] Greatly enthused by the adventure, Vasey dedicated himself to botanical pursuits. He co-edited the journal The American Entomologist and Botanist prior to becoming curator of the Illinois State University Natural History Museum in 1870.[5] He resigned the latter position to succeed Charles Christopher Parry as the Chief Botanist at the United States Department of Agriculture in 1872, a position he held until his death in 1893.[6] He quickly began work to improve the poor state of the National Herbarium, by organizing an exhibit of the country's trees for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The herbarium, hosted by the Smithsonian Institution, is considered the crowning achievement of his career, particularly its grass collection, of which he was a specialist. In 1889 the Smithsonian named him Honorary Curator. As Chief Botanist he launched the Contributions from the United States National Herbarium. With George Thurber he worked on grasses for Asa Gray and John Torrey's Flora of North America. Until 1870 he would maintain an extensive correspondence and collect a great many specimens both in Oneida County and later McHenry County. However, he did not publish material of scientific relevance until the 1870s. Of his published work his several-volumes monograph of the United States grass, the last part of which was published after his death, is one of the most notable, as are his 1884 Agricultural Grasses of the United States and his work to describe unpublished species who had accumulated in the herbarium, a work he completed less than a week before his death in 1893. AwardsHe was granted an honorary M.A. in 1864 from Illinois Wesleyan University. In 1869 he was made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 1892, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; that same year he was representative to the 1892 International Botanical Congress in Genoa, where he was a vice-president. Selected publicationsUpon his death in 1893, a comprehensive bibliography of the published works by George Vasey was prepared by Josephine A. Clark, Botanical Division, U.S. Department of Agriculture.[7]
LegacyAt least three genera have been named in honor of George Vasey, including Vaseya, Vaseyanthus, and Vaseyochloa. As of December 2024[update], Vaseya Thurb. and Vaseyanthus Cogn. are synonyms of Muhlenbergia Schreb. and Echinopepon Naudin,[8][9] respectively, whereas the generic name Vaseyochloa Hitchc. is widely accepted.[10] The species Vaseyochloa multinervosa (Vasey) Hitchc. was first described and named as Melica multinervosa by Vasey himself.[11] Dozens of taxa have names that include the epithet vaseyi.[12] Some of these honor George Vasey while others acknowledge his son, George Richard Vasey, a plant collector who collected hundreds of plants in California and North Carolina during the period 1876–1881.[13] References
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