Grady Linder Webster (1927–2005) was a plant systematist and taxonomist. He was the recipient of a number of awards and appointed to fellowships of botanical institutions in the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

. Webster's research included study of the diverse family

Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae, the spurge family, is a large family of flowering plants. In English, they are also commonly called euphorbias, which is also the name of a genus in the family. Most spurges, such as '' Euphorbia paralias'', are herbs, but some, ...

(spurges), on which he produced many papers, and he lectured on plant systematics, biogeography, and the ecology of pollination. Webster's career as a plant systematist was distinguished by the field research he undertook in remote tropical areas.

Biography

Born in

Ada, Oklahoma Ada is a city in and the county seat of Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 16,481 at the 2020 United States Census. The city was named for Ada Reed, the daughter of an early settler, and was inc ...

on 14 April 1927, his parents were Irena Lois Heard and Grady Webster, a newspaper publisher. His family moved to

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

during his childhood, and established a home amongst woodland. He worked within his father's business, which began an interest in world affairs, and gained an interest in plants during high school. Webster served as an ensign in the navy whilst he was enrolled at Stanford University, and completed a bachelor's degree in botany at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1949. He received a PhD while attending the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

under Rogers McVaugh and undertook a post doctoral fellowship 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 high ...

that was provided by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

. At Harvard he worked with I. W. Bailey and was married to Barbara Anne Donahue, a Ph.D. studying plant morphology, in 1956. An interest in the diverse Euphorbiaceae plant family inspired his field research, travelling to remote tropical and subtropical regions in Africa, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Australasia, and Europe. He contributed over 34000 specimens to

herbaria A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

around the world. He led an expedition to study the flora of a region known as the Maquipucuna Reserve in the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

, publishing surveys and a book on the remarkable species diversity of its cloud forests. Webster was appointed at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

, as a professor in the department of botany and the director of the arboretum. The Grady L. Webster Award of the

American Society of Plant Taxonomists The American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT) is a botanical organization formed in 1935 to "foster, encourage, and promote education and research in the field of plant taxonomy, to include those areas and fields of study that contribute to and b ...

(ASPT) and Botanical Society of America, named for their former president, is given annually and alternately to publications in either plant systematics or structural biology. During his lifetime he was awarded the Asa Gray and Merit awards of these societies. He received fellowships from Guggenheim, Smithsonian, and the

References

External links

Grady Webster Papers
a
Special Collections Dept.
University Library, University of California, Davis {{DEFAULTSORT:Webster, Grady Linder American taxonomists Botanists with author abbreviations 1927 births 2005 deaths Botanical Society of America University of Michigan alumni People from Ada, Oklahoma Scientists from Oklahoma 20th-century American botanists 21st-century American botanists