Forest Buffen Harkness Brown (1873-1954) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 botanist known for his work on pteridophytes  and spermatophytes.

Life and research

Brown studied forestry, systematic botany, and ecology at the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

 in 1902, receiving his masters in 1903. Early in his career, Brown studied plant distribution on the flood plain of the Huron River

Huron River (Michigan)

The Huron River is a river in southeastern Michigan, rising out of the Huron Swamp in Indian Springs Metropark in northern Oakland County and flowing into Lake Erie on the boundary between Wayne County and Monroe County...

 in Ypsilanti, Michigan

Ypsilanti, Michigan

Ypsilanti is a city in Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 22,362. The city is bounded to the north by the Charter Township of Superior and on the west, south, and east by the Charter Township of Ypsilanti...

.

He worked for the United States Forest Service

United States Forest Service

The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...

 before joining Ohio State University

Ohio State University

The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...

 as professor of botany. Brown pursued further research on Hawaiian trees at Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 for two years and received his Ph.D. in 1918. He married biologist Elizabeth Dorothy Wuist on August 20 of the same year, and the two of them performed two years of field work on the Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bayard Dominick Expedition to the Marquesas Islands

Marquesas Islands

The Marquesas Islands enana and Te Fenua `Enata , both meaning "The Land of Men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the southern Pacific Ocean. The Marquesas are located at 9° 00S, 139° 30W...

 (1921-1922), along with ethnologist Edward S. Handy and archeologist Ralph Lauton. Brown and his wife also visited the Tuamotu archipelago and New Zealand where they collected 9000 dried plant and 120 wood samples. In 1920, Brown was a research fellow at Yale when he became a staff botanist for the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

. His wife joined him at the Bishop Museum as a research associate in cryptogamic botany.

Collections

• Ypsilanti Historical Society, YHS Letter Collection. Leters and drawings (1889-1918).