Lewis Edward Anderson (June 16, 1912 – February 1, 2007) 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 ...

dedicated to the study of

mosses Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and horn ...

, and was an expert on the

North American North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Ca ...

bryoflora.

Early life

Anderson was born to a farming family in a rural area of Batesville, Mississippi. He began his education in a small school that convened first grade only every other year, so he started at age 5 and was more or less moved along as teachers recognized comprehension, so he left high school at 15 and graduated from

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...

with a Bachelor of Science at 19. He undertook postgraduate studies in botany at

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 ...

and received a master's degree in 1933. It was here where Anderson became interested in mosses while studying under

Hugo Leander Blomquist Hugo Leander Blomquist (June 5, 1888 – November 28, 1964) was a Swedish-born American botanist. His well rounded expertise encompassed fungi, bacteria, bryophytes, algae, grasses, and ferns. Early life Although several sources state his birth ...

. At age 22, he earned his Ph.D. from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Career

In 1936, Anderson was added to the botany faculty at Duke University to specialize cytology, and he was given the responsibility of curating the moss herbarium. Anderson's research then began to shift from cellular cytology to the ecology and classification of mosses. He, with the help of his colleague Ruth Margery Addoms, built the institution's first general botany course. Throughout his career, Anderson was assisted by his wife, Pat, whom he met while she was a nursing student at Duke. They married in 1941 and after having 5 children between 1942 and 1947, she accompanied him on field trips, marking topography maps with collection sites and managing specimen packets. She also helped prepare and distribute "The Bryologist", journal of The American Bryological Society. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Anderson took leave from Duke to serve in the Navy and was intelligence officer from February through September, 1945 on the , an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. He was awarded a

Bronze Star The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone. Wh ...

and was discharged as a lieutenant commander. Anderson frequently collaborated with Howard A. Crum, and in 1981, the two published a two-volume flora on the mosses of eastern North America. Anderson continued to expand the bryophyte herbarium at Duke, and he helped to develop a graduate program in bryology. He retired from Duke in 1982.

Legacy

The moss genus '' Bryoandersonia'' was named after him by

Harold E. Robinson Harold Ernest Robinson (May 22, 1932 – December 17, 2020) was an American botanist and entomologist. Career Robinson's specialty was the sunflower family (Asteraceae) and the bryophytes. He has named or described over 2,800 new species and ...

. Some species, including '' Bryocrumia andersonii'', also bear his name. In 1998, the bryophyte herbarium at Duke University was officially named the L.E. Anderson Bryophyte Herbarium. It holds approximately 260,000 specimens.

Selected publications

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Lewis Edward Bryologists Botanists with author abbreviations American botanists 1912 births 2007 deaths