Helen Katherine Myers Sharsmith (August 26, 1905 – November 10, 1982) was an American biologist.

Biography

Helen Sharsmith was born 1905 in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. She received an AB and MA from

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1927 and 1928, then worked as a high school and junior college teacher. She met her future husband,

Carl Sharsmith Carl William Sharsmith (March 14, 1903 – October 14, 1994) was an American naturalist and Yosemite park ranger, notable for his knowledge and interpretation of the natural history of the Sierra Nevada. He taught botany at various universit ...

, while taking a class in the Yosemite Outdoor Field School in

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...

. She and her husband married and both earned doctorates from

, hers in 1940. Sharsmith was a research assistance at University of California and a biology teacher while working on her degree. Later, she worked as a biology assistant at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and a senior botanist at Berkeley, where she retired in 1969. Sharsmith's dissertation was later published as a book, ''Flora of the Mount Hamilton Range of California'' (1945). This was the result of extensive field research in the area. She also wrote ''Spring Wildflowers of the San Francisco Bay Region'' (1965). The Sharsmiths had two children, John, named after

John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...

, and a daughter Linnea, named after

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

. They were later divorced. Sharsmith died 1982 in Alameda County, California.

Legacy

* Sharsmith's stickseed (''Hackelia sharsmithii'') — named for her husband by I.M. Johnston, but discovered by Sharsmith and her husband

at Mirror Lake after climbing

Mount Whitney Mount Whitney (Paiute: Tumanguya; ''Too-man-i-goo-yah'') is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States and the Sierra Nevada, with an elevation of . It is in East–Central California, on the boundary between California's Inyo and Tu ...

* Sharsmith's Onion (''Allium sharsmithiae'') (Ownbey & Aase ex Traub) McNeal — Aliso or ''Allium fimbriatum'' S. Watson var. ''sharsmithiae'' Ownbey & Aase ex Traub.). Endemic to Mount Hamilton area of the

Diablo Range The Diablo Range is a mountain range in the California Coast Ranges subdivision of the Pacific Coast Ranges in northern California, United States. It stretches from the eastern San Francisco Bay area at its northern end to the Salinas Valley are ...

in the southeastern

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. * Sharsmith's harebell (''Campanula sharsmithiae''), or Mt. Hamilton Bellflower (N. Morin) — endemic to Mount Hamilton area of the

in the southeastern San Francisco Bay Area. * Sharsmith's draba (''Draba sharsmithii''), or

draba (Rollins and R.A. Price) — endemic to southern

Sierra Crest The Sierra Crest is a roughly generally north-to-south ridgeline that demarcates the broad west and narrow east slopes of the Sierra Nevada and that extends as far east as the Sierra's topographic front (e.g., Diamond Mountains and Sierran esc ...

area.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharsmith, Helen American biologists Botanists active in California 1905 births 1982 deaths American women botanists American women biologists Botanists with author abbreviations Biologists from California University of California, Berkeley alumni Scientists from Oakland, California 20th-century American botanists 20th-century American women scientists

Biography

Legacy

See also

References