David Stoughton Conant (June 17, 1949,

Springfield, Vermont Springfield is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,062. History The land currently recognized as Springfield is the traditional land of the Pennacook and Abenaki people. One of the ...

– June 27, 2018) was an American

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

, specializing in the systematics and genetics of tropical

tree fern The tree ferns are arborescent (tree-like) ferns that grow with a trunk elevating the fronds above ground level, making them trees. Many extant tree ferns are members of the order Cyatheales, to which belong the families Cyatheaceae (scaly tree ...

Biography

After graduating from Fall Mountain Regional High School, Conant matriculated at the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mo ...

. There he received in 1971 a Bachelor of Science degree in botany and was mentored by Albion R. Hodgdon. At

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, Conant graduated with a Ph.D. in botany. His doctoral dissertation was supervised by Rolla M. Tryon Jr. In 1976 Conant became a faculty member in the Science Department of

Lyndon State College Lyndon State College was a public liberal arts college at Lyndon, Vermont. In 2018, it merged with Johnson State College to create Northern Vermont University; the former campus of Lyndon State College is now the university's Lyndon campus. I ...

(which in 2018 became part of

Northern Vermont University Northern Vermont University (NVU) is a public university in Johnson and Lyndon, Vermont. Established in 2018 by the unification of the former Johnson State College and Lyndon State College, the university offers over 50 Bachelor's degree progr ...

). In 2009 he retired from Lyndon State College and donated his personal herbarium of over 3,000 dried botanical specimens to the college. He was the editor-in-chief of the journal ''Rhodora'' for a brief period in 1996. He spent sabbatical years at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

, and

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

. After retiring from Lyndon State College, Conant started a business doing excavation projects. Later in

Barnet, Vermont Barnet is a town in Caledonia County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,663 at the 2020 census. Barnet contains the locations of Barnet Center, East Barnet, McIndoe Falls, Mosquitoville, Passumpsic and West Barnet. The main settlemen ...

, he concentrated on working with his wife on their property, where they cleared fields and built a network of roads through wooded areas. In 1979 he married Aminta Kitfield (honored by the botanical eponym '' Cyathea amintae''). Upon his death he was survived by his widow, three daughters, and four grandchildren.

Awards and honors

* 1991 — Edgard T. Wherry Award of the Botanical Society of America for the article ''Phylogenetic implications of chloroplast DNA variation in the Cyatheaceae'' coauthored by Diana B. Stein and Angela E. Valinski * 1996–1998 — President of the New England Botanical Club * 2004–2008 — President of the

American Fern Society The American Fern Society was founded in 1893. Today, it has more than 1,000 members around the world, with various local chapters. Among its deceased members, perhaps the most famous is Oliver Sacks, who became a member in 1993. Willard N. Clut ...

Eponyms

* ''Alsophila conantiana'' Lehnert

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Conant, David Stoughton 1949 births 2018 deaths Conant family 20th-century American botanists 21st-century American botanists University of New Hampshire alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni