Richard Sumner Cowan (January 23, 1921 – November 17, 1997) 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 ...

Early life

Richard Sumner Cowan was born on January 23, 1921, in

Crawfordsville, Indiana Crawfordsville is a city in Montgomery County in west central Indiana, United States, west by northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,306. The city is the county seat of Montgomery County, the only cha ...

. His family moved to Florida and he was educated in the Tampa, Florida area. He returned to his birthplace in Indiana in 1938, and married Mary Frances Minnich in June 1941. In 1942 he received an AB degree from

Wabash College Wabash College is a private liberal arts men's college in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Founded in 1832 by several Dartmouth College graduates and Midwestern leaders, it enrolls nearly 900 students. The college offers an undergraduate liberal arts cur ...

. He joined the US Navy in 1943 and was deployed to the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

as a Seabee. While serving in the US Navy, he collected plants on

Tinian Tinian ( or ; old Japanese name: 天仁安島, ''Tenian-shima'') is one of the three principal islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Together with uninhabited neighboring Aguiguan, it forms Tinian Municipality, one of th ...

Island, despite the danger of being shot. He earned his master's degree at the University of Hawaii in 1948, and then got a job at

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, ...

. He joined two expeditions to

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

in search of

tepuis A tepui , or tepuy (), is a table-top mountain or mesa found in South America, especially in Venezuela and western Guyana. The word tepui means "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the Pemon, the indigenous people who inhabit the Gran S ...

. The first trip was 5 months long, beginning in October 1950. He completed his PhD in 1952 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 ...

, after which he continued to work at the Botanical Garden. Richard went back to South America to gather some species in Amapa,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, and

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...

. There was also a period of time that Richard worked at the Kew Botanical Gardens in Richmond, Kew, England prior to moving back to the USA.

Career

In May 1957, became an associate curator for the

Department of Botany Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

at 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 ...

, where he continued his work in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. He then became the director of the Smithsonian Institution - Natural History Museum at a later date. In 1961 he was elected to the Washington Biologists' Field Club, and in the same year got a membership to the flora and fauna committee. He received several unexpected promotions while working for the Smithsonian: first, in 1962 he became an assistant director of the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

, then in 1965 he became director of the museum, a position which he kept until 1972. Richard received a New York Botanical Garden Distinguished Service Award in 1968, and the same year was awarded with the Henry Allen Gleason Award from the

. The same year, he received another honor, a Smithsonian Institution Special Achievement Award for his

Swartzia ''Swartzia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. It was named in honor of Swedish botanist Olof Swartz and contains about 200 species. ''Swartzia'' is restricted in its geographical distribution to the New World Tropics, wher ...

revision. Owing to his administrative skills, he was a secretary-general for the

International Botanical Congress International Botanical Congress (IBC) is an international meeting of botanists in all scientific fields, authorized by the International Association of Botanical and Mycological Societies (IABMS) and held every six years, with the location rotat ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

in 1969. In 1972 he became an organizer for the International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology. He was appointed as a senior botanist in the Department of Botany in the same year. He was also recognized with a medal in 1979 for taxonomic literature, work he did for the

National Agricultural Library The United States National Agricultural Library (NAL) is one of the world's largest agricultural research libraries, and serves as a national library of the United States and as the library of the United States Department of Agriculture. Located ...

Retirement, marriage and death

Richard married Mary Frances Minnich in June 1941 and thereafter had a son Richard Ainesworth. Richard and Mary had a daughter Diedra Anne in September 1958 and adopted a son Charles Ian in 1961. He retired on October 31, 1985, and headed for

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in December. In 1986 he moved to

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

where he began a study of the Australian Acacia and other Australian

mimosoid The Mimosoideae are a traditional subfamily of trees, herbs, lianas, and shrubs in the pea family (Fabaceae) that mostly grow in tropical and subtropical climates. They are typically characterized by having radially symmetric flowers, with petals ...

s. On August 23, 1986, he married Roberta Ann Tobias, and adopted a son Michael Norman Sumner Cowan. In 1988 he was awarded the Commemorative Scroll Award from the Australian Systematic Botany Society for his work on Taxonomic Literature there. He received the Founder's Medal of the society in 1990 for the History and Bibliography of Natural History. He suffered a stroke in 1997, from which he recovered. After a tragic fall, he died from the effects of brain trauma on November 17, 1997.

Selected publications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowan, Richard Sumner 20th-century Australian botanists Wabash College alumni Smithsonian Institution people United States Navy personnel of World War II People from Crawfordsville, Indiana American botanists American expatriates in Australia Columbia University alumni 1921 births 1997 deaths 20th-century American scientists Seabees Accidental deaths in Australia Accidental deaths from falls Deaths from head injury Military personnel from Indiana