Henry Hurd Rusby (1855–1940) was an American botanist, pharmacist and explorer. He discovered several new species of plants and played a significant role in founding the

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

and developing research and exploration programs at the institution. He helped to establish the field of economic botany, and left a collection of research and published works in botany and pharmacology. He joined a series of expeditions from 1880 and 1921 and in 1921, he led the

Mulford Expedition The Mulford Biological Exploration of the Amazon Basin was a scientific expedition to the Amazon conducted in 1921. It was organized by Henry Hurd Rusby, who at age 64, was a well known explorer, a professor at Columbia University, and a staff membe ...

to the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

Biography

Henry H. Rusby grew up in Franklin (today Nutley) New Jersey. He showed a passionate interest in plants. At 21, his herbarium won first prize at the

Philadelphia Centennial Exposition The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair to be held in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the ...

in 1876. He came to meet Dr.

George Thurber George Thurber (Providence, Rhode Island, September 2, 1821 – Passaic, New Jersey, April 2, 1890) was a United States naturalist and writer. He had a special interest in grasses of the United States. Biography He was mainly self-educated, thou ...

who was President of the

Torrey Botanical Club Torrey Botanical Society (formerly Torrey Botanical Club) was started in the 1860s by colleagues of John Torrey. It is the oldest botanical society in the Americas. The Society promotes the exploration and study of plant life, with particular ...

. Rusby joined the club in 1879, and by then studied medicine at the School of Medicine of New York University. In 1880, still a medical student, he spent 18 months collecting plants in Texas and New Mexico for the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. In 1883 he returned to the southwest to study and collect medicinal flora of Arizona, for

Parke-Davis Parke-Davis is a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Although Parke, Davis & Co. is no longer an independent corporation, it was once America's oldest and largest drug maker, and played an important role in medical history. In 1970 ...

& Co. In 1884, he graduated with his degree in medicine, and in the following year he embarked on a two-year expedition for Parke, Davis & Co., crossing South America and exploring remote regions of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Brazil. In 1887, he married Margaretta Saunier Hanna.RUSBY, Henry Hurd
in ''

Who's Who in America Marquis Who's Who ( or ) is an American publisher of a number of directories containing short biographies. The books usually are entitled ''Who's Who in...'' followed by some subject, such as ''Who's Who in America'', ''Who's Who of American Wome ...

'' (1901-1902 edition), via

archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

Although trained as a physician, Rusby chose to leave medicine for his interest in plants. In 1889, he became Professor of Botany and Materia Medica at the School of Pharmacy at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He was Dean of the Faculty for 26 years until his retirement in 1930, and Dean Emeritus until his death in 1940. His association with

began even before the garden was formally created. As a member of Torrey Botanical Club, he encountered the celebrated botanist and taxonomist

Nathaniel Lord Britton Nathaniel Lord Britton (January 15, 1859 – June 25, 1934) was an American botanist and taxonomist who co-founded the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, New York (state), New York. Early life Britton was born in New Dorp, Staten Island, New ...

. Establishing a botanical garden was a goal for the Torrey Botanical Club. In 1888 a pro-Garden committee of Botany, with eight distinguished members of the club, including Britton and Rusby was formed. Rusby was instrumental in collaboration between the Herbarium School of Columbia, and the botanical Library at the New York Botanical Garden. In 1893, Nathaniel Lord Britton published ''

Rusbya ''Rusbya'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Ericaceae. It only contains one known species, Rusbya taxifolia Britton It is native to Bolivia. The genus name of ''Rusbya'' is in honour of Henry Hurd Rusby (1855– ...

'', a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s from Bolivia, belonging to the family

Ericaceae The Ericaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with c.4250 known species spread across 124 genera, making it th ...

and its name is in honour of Henry Hurd Rusby. On January 26, 1898, Rusby was designated the "Honorary Curator of the Museum of Economic Botany. His tropical explorations, particularly in the Amazon, provided materials for taxonomic studies and economic botany by the New York Botanical Garden. Productivity in these explorations was due to his strength and exploration skills. In 1921, at age 65, he made his last trip to South America as Director of the "Mulford Biological Exploration of the Amazon Basin". Rusby died on November 18, 1940, aged 85.

Selected works

* with

Smith Ely Jelliffe Smith Ely Jelliffe (October 27, 1866 – September 25, 1945) was an American neurologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst. He lived and practiced in New York City nearly his entire life. Originally trained in botany and pharmacy, Jelliffe switche ...

:
''Essentials of Vegetable Pharmacognosy
', 1895.
''"Report of Work on the Mulford Biological Exploration of 1921–22".''
Journal of the New York Botanical Garden 23(272): 101–111, August 1922.
''"New Species of Trees of Medicinal Interest from Bolivia".'' Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 49: 259–264, September 1922
& Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, October 1922.
''"Descriptions of New Genera and Species of Plants Collected on the Mulford Biological Exploration of the Amazon Valley, 1921–1922,"''. Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden 7: 205–387, March 1927.
* ''Autobiography, Jungle Memories''. 1933.

Biography

Selected works

References

See also