João Murça Pires (1917-1994) was a Brazilian

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

, who worked principally at the Instituto Agronômico do Norte.

Life

Pires was born in Bariri, Brazil on June 27, 1917. He received both his undergraduate (1942) and doctoral (1983) degrees from the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo. He was a member of the

Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript a ...

and the

Brazilian Academy of Sciences Brazilian commonly refers to: * Brazil, a country * Brazilians, its people * Brazilian Portuguese, its dialect Brazilian may also refer to: * "The Brazilian", a 1986 instrumental music piece by Genesis * Brazilian Café, Baghdad, Iraq (1937) * Bra ...

in. He served twice as the President of the Botanic Society of Brazil. He was awarded a

John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated dis ...

in 1982 in the field of plant sciences.

Work

He initiated the herbarium and botanical section at the Instituto Agronômico do Norte and founded the Department of Botany and the herbaria at the Universidade de Brasília. He also helped restructure the Department of Botany at the

Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi The Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, commonly shortened MPEG, is a Brazilian research institution and museum located in the city of Belém, state of Pará, Brazil. It was founded in 1866 by Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna as the Pará Museum of Natur ...

Belém Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará), often called Belém of Pará, is the capital and largest city of the state of Pará in the north of B ...

, and the herbaria there is named after him. He collected, and described plants from the

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

Legacy

He is the authority for at least 109

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

including:

References

Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Members of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences 20th-century Brazilian botanists 1917 births 1994 deaths People from Bariri {{Botanist-stub