Albert Spear Hitchcock (September 4, 1865 – December 16, 1935) was an American botanist and agrostologist. Hitchcock graduated from the Iowa Agricultural College with bachelor's degree in 1884 and M.S. in 1886. From 1892 to 1901 he was a professor of botany at the

Kansas State Agricultural College Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public instit ...

. Hitchcock joined the

USDA The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

in 1901 as Assistant Agrostologist under

Frank Lamson-Scribner Frank Lamson-Scribner (April 19, 1851 – February 22, 1938) was an American botanist and pioneering plant pathologist. He was the first United States Department of Agriculture scientist hired to study plant disease in economic plants and first USDA ...

. In 1905 he was put in charge of the grass herbarium and became Systematic Agrostologist. After 1928, he held the title of Principal Biologist in charge of Systematic Agrostology of the Department of Agriculture and kept that title until his death in 1935. In 1912 he became Custodian of Grasses, Division of Plants,

United States National Museum 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 ...

. Hitchcock remained Custodian without remuneration until his death. His field notebooks are archived in the Smithsonian Institution. He was a professor of botany in the Kansas State Agricultural College and authored over 250 works during his lifetime.

Contributions to science

The Hitchcock-Chase Collection consists of 2,707 drawings (mostly ink, but some pencil) of grasses, representing hundreds of genera, that were assembled by the Smithsonian Institution agrostologists Albert Spear Hitchcock (1865–1935) and Mary Agnes Chase (1869–1963). The collection is on indefinite loan to Hunt Institute from the Smithsonian.

Works

Manual of the Grasses of the West Indies
– Miscellaneous Publication #243,

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

, Washington DC (1936)
Manual of the grasses of the United States
– Miscellaneous Publication #200,

, Washington DC (1935)
A Manual of Farm Grasses
(1921)
A.S. Hitchcock Field Books, a set on Flickr

References

External links

* * * American taxonomists 1865 births 1935 deaths Agrostologists Smithsonian Institution people United States Department of Agriculture officials Botanical Society of America Kansas State University faculty 19th-century American botanists 20th-century American botanists {{US-botanist-stub