John Kunkel Small (January 31, 1869 – January 20, 1938) was an American botanist. Born on January 31, 1869, in

Harrisburg Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in Pe ...

Pennsylvania, Kunkel studied botany at

Franklin & Marshall College Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students. It was founded upon the merger of Fran ...

and

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 the first Curator of Museums at 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, ...

, a post in which he served from 1898 until 1906. From 1906 to 1934 he was Head Curator and then from 1934 until his death he was Chief Research Associate and Curator. Small's doctoral dissertation, published as '' Flora of the Southeastern United States'' in 1903, an
revised in 1913
and 1933, remains the best floristic reference for much of the South. Assisted by the patronage of

Charles Deering Charles Deering (July 31, 1852 – February 5, 1927) was an American businessman, art collector, and philanthropist. He was an executive of the agricultural machinery company founded by his father that became International Harvester. Charles's ...

, Small traveled extensively around Florida recording plants and land formations. Small was an early botanist explorer of Florida, documenting many things for the first time, although the

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...

and

fauna Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as ''Biota (ecology ...

were well known to the local

Seminole The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, ...

Indians. His first trip to the region was in 1901. Over the next 37 years, Small visited many times "to collect specimens, to study the natural history of the region, and to photograph natural landscapes, tropical plants, Seminoles and other local folk". Small explored by both car and boat, often bringing along his wife Elizabeth, and their two boys and two girls. "Small's botanical research was recorded in 450 published works, mostly articles, and numerous unpublished typescripts. Among his most well-known publications is the book ''

From Eden to Sahara From may refer to: * From, a preposition * From (SQL), computing language keyword * From: (email message header), field showing the sender of an email * FromSoftware, a Japanese video game company * Full range of motion, the travel in a rang ...

: Florida's Tragedy'', which received acclaim in 1929 for documenting the severe deterioration of south Florida's botanical resources that he had observed up to that time."

References

;Notes

External links

John K. Small Collection: 2,135 images of South Florida 1901-1938
;Bibliography * Core, Earl L. (1938), "John Kunkel Small", ''Castanea'', 3:27-28. * Austin, Daniel F. et al. ''The Florida of John Kunkel Small''. Bronx, NY: The New York Botanical Garden, 1987. . American taxonomists 01 1869 births 1938 deaths Bryologists Pteridologists Botanists active in North America Botanists with author abbreviations Writers from Florida 19th-century American botanists 20th-century American botanists {{US-botanist-stub