Britton, Nathaniel Lord

Britton, Nathaniel Lord,

1859–1934, American botanist, grad. Columbia School of Mines, 1879. He taught geology and botany at Columbia, 1879–96. He was the New York Botanical Garden's first director and until his retirement in 1929 had a major part in its growth. His own contributions, chiefly in the field of tropical botany, include hundreds of thousands of specimens, many of great rarity, gathered on his trips to the tropics. The genus Brittonella is named for him. His chief works include An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada, and the British Possessions (with Addison Brown, 1896–98); The Bahama Flora (with C. F. Millspaugh, 1920); and four volumes on cacti (with J. N. Rose, 1919–23).