Michael Schuck Bebb
Encyclopedia
Michael Schuck Bebb was an amateur systematic botanist in the nineteenth century with a reputation as the leading salicologist in both America and Europe. His extensive work on the genus Salix led to several plants being named in his honour.
, Ohio
, one of five children to William Bebb
and Sarah Schuck. His formative years were spent on the family farm in Hamilton
, Ohio, where his interest in horticultural subjects took root amidst “the pleasure grounds, vegetable and fruit gardens” and “well stocked greenhouse”. Through his uncle, Evan Bebb, the young Bebb received a complete set of the Natural History Reports of the State of New York and Emerson
’s Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts. These books opened up the hitherto unknown world of botany to the sixteen year old, who could now trace the genera and species of given plants and learn from their relationship. Applying this new found knowledge to the trees, shrubs and herbs around him, Bebb began work collecting and preparing specimens for his famous herbarium
of later years.
During this time his father, William Bebb
had become active in politics and campaigned for the Whig
politician William Henry Harrison
in 1836 and 1840. In 1846 he himself was elected Governor of Ohio, only the third governor born in the state. After declining a second term in office, Governor Bebb withdrew from public life and moved his family to his newly acquired estate Fountaindale in Winnebago County, Illinois
. Instead of travelling with the family along the regular route to the estate via the Miami canal
, the seventeen year old Michael Schuck Bebb assisted his brother in law in driving a herd of short horn cattle four hundred miles into the state of Illinois. This epic journey opened up new and exciting species of flora
to the young man and further fuelled his growing passion for botany.
During his time at Fountaindale, Michael acquired four standard books, Wood
’s Class Book of Botany, Gray
’s Botanical Text Book and Manual, Torrey and Gray’s Flora of North America
and Gray’s Genera Illustrata, which enabled him to develop into a trained and skilled veteran of natural flora. During his time attending Beloit College
in Wisconsin
, he became acquainted with Dr.George Vasey
, after a chance encounter at a local state fair. A short time later, Michael received a collection of grasses, sedges and junci from Dr.Vasey. Their correspondence and exchanges would continue through the years. As well as Dr.Vasey, Bebb also corresponded with a number of other noted botanists over the years including Dr.Asa Gray
, William M. Canby and Henry Nicholas Bolander
.
In 1857, he married Katherine Josephine Hancock
, a member of the celebrated Massachusetts
family of the same name and in 1861 moved the family to Washington
where Michael was employed in the Pensions office. During his free time, Michael continued to collect plants and to correspond and exchange with the leading botanists of the day. He joined the Naturalists’ Club and became well known amongst the scientific community in Washington.
In 1865, his wife died, leaving him the sole guardian of their three children. He resigned from the Pensions office and on February 19, 1867 married Anna Carpenter and moved the whole family to the Fountaindale estate in Illinois. It was here, in 1873 that Bebb began his special study of willow
s, corresponding with the eminent British authority on Salix, Rev. J.E. Leefe. In 1874 he was asked to contribute his salices to Brewer
and Watson
’s Botany of California by Dr. Asa Gray, and in the same year he published his first scientific paper on willows in The American Naturalist, entitled “A new species of willow (S.laevigata) from California, and notes on some other North American species.”
In 1878 he began to contribute writings to the Botanical Gazette on various aspects of willows. These included six papers entitled “Notes on North American willows.” His work on willows also appeared in Rothrock
’s Botany of the Wheeler Report and in the Botany of California as well as his illustrations in the Gray’s Manual Flora. In 1880 the leading Swedish authority on salices, Nils J. Anderson died, leaving Michael Schuck Bebb as the eminent botanist on the genus salix.
In October 1879 the family moved from Fountaindale to Rockford, Illinois
. The financial strain of a farm the size of Fountaindale proved too costly for Bebb and he eventually sold the property to a practical farmer.
In 1885 he suffered a serious attack of pleurisy
, to which he never fully recovered, though this did not hamper his botanical zeal, publishing four series of “Notes on the White Mountain willows” in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club
between 1888 and 1890, and contributed the Salices to the sixth edition of Gray’s Manual, also in 1890.
Towards the end of his life, his industrious work on the genus Salix was rewarded by the naming of several plants in his honour. In 1885 the genus Bebbia
, native to Southern California
was named in his honour by Prof. E. L. Greene and published in the Bulletin of the California Academy of Sciences
. In 1889, the variety Carex tribuloides Wahl. var. Bebbii was created by Prof. L. H. Bailey
and in 1895, Salix Bebbiana
published by Prof. C. S. Sargent in Garden and Forest, with the inscription to Bebb “the learned, industrious and distinguished salicologist of the United States to whom, more than to any one else of this generation we owe our knowledge of American willows.”
Michael Schuck Bebb died on December 5 1895 surrounded by friends and family. He was buried at the West Side cemetery in Rockford, Illinois.
Biography
Michael Schuck Bebb was born on December 23, 1833 in Butler CountyButler County, Ohio
Butler County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. As of 2010, the population was 368,130. Its county seat is Hamilton. It is named for General Richard Butler, who died in 1791 fighting Indians in northern Ohio. Butler's army marched out of Fort Hamilton, where the city of...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, one of five children to William Bebb
William Bebb
William Bebb was a Whig politician from Ohio. He served as the 19th Governor of Ohio, he was the third native Ohioan to be elected to the office....
and Sarah Schuck. His formative years were spent on the family farm in Hamilton
Hamilton, Ohio
Hamilton is a city in Butler County, southwestern Ohio, United States. The population was 62,447 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Butler County. The city is part of the Cincinnati metropolitan area....
, Ohio, where his interest in horticultural subjects took root amidst “the pleasure grounds, vegetable and fruit gardens” and “well stocked greenhouse”. Through his uncle, Evan Bebb, the young Bebb received a complete set of the Natural History Reports of the State of New York and Emerson
George Barrell Emerson
George Barrell Emerson was an American educator and pioneer of women's education.-Biography:He was born in Kennebunk, Maine. He graduated from Harvard College in 1817, and soon after took charge of an academy in Lancaster, Massachusetts...
’s Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts. These books opened up the hitherto unknown world of botany to the sixteen year old, who could now trace the genera and species of given plants and learn from their relationship. Applying this new found knowledge to the trees, shrubs and herbs around him, Bebb began work collecting and preparing specimens for his famous herbarium
Herbarium
In botany, a herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in...
of later years.
During this time his father, William Bebb
William Bebb
William Bebb was a Whig politician from Ohio. He served as the 19th Governor of Ohio, he was the third native Ohioan to be elected to the office....
had become active in politics and campaigned for the Whig
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...
politician William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison was the ninth President of the United States , an American military officer and politician, and the first president to die in office. He was 68 years, 23 days old when elected, the oldest president elected until Ronald Reagan in 1980, and last President to be born before the...
in 1836 and 1840. In 1846 he himself was elected Governor of Ohio, only the third governor born in the state. After declining a second term in office, Governor Bebb withdrew from public life and moved his family to his newly acquired estate Fountaindale in Winnebago County, Illinois
Winnebago County, Illinois
Winnebago County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 295,266, which is an increase of 6.1% from 278,418 in 2000...
. Instead of travelling with the family along the regular route to the estate via the Miami canal
Miami Canal
The Miami Canal, or C-6 Canal, flows from Lake Okeechobee in the U.S. state of Florida to its terminus at the Miami River, which flows through downtown Miami. The canal flows in a south and southeasterly direction for approximately 77 miles, and passes through three counties: Broward, Palm Beach,...
, the seventeen year old Michael Schuck Bebb assisted his brother in law in driving a herd of short horn cattle four hundred miles into the state of Illinois. This epic journey opened up new and exciting species of flora
Flora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...
to the young man and further fuelled his growing passion for botany.
During his time at Fountaindale, Michael acquired four standard books, Wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
’s Class Book of Botany, Gray
Asa Gray
-References:*Asa Gray. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.*Asa Gray. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.*Asa Gray. Plant Sciences. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2001....
’s Botanical Text Book and Manual, Torrey and Gray’s Flora of North America
Flora of North America
The Flora of North America North of Mexico is a multivolume work describing the native plants of North America. These days much of the Flora is available . The work is expected to fill 30 volumes when completed...
and Gray’s Genera Illustrata, which enabled him to develop into a trained and skilled veteran of natural flora. During his time attending Beloit College
Beloit College
Beloit College is a liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin, USA. It is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, and has an enrollment of roughly 1,300 undergraduate students. Beloit is the oldest continuously operated college in Wisconsin, and has the oldest building of any college...
in Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
, he became acquainted with Dr.George Vasey
George Vasey (botanist)
George S. Vasey was an English-born American botanist who collected a lot in Illinois before integrating the United States Department of Agriculture , where he became Chief Botanist and curator of the greatly expanded National Herbarium.-Biography:George Vasey was born in 1822 in Snainton near...
, after a chance encounter at a local state fair. A short time later, Michael received a collection of grasses, sedges and junci from Dr.Vasey. Their correspondence and exchanges would continue through the years. As well as Dr.Vasey, Bebb also corresponded with a number of other noted botanists over the years including Dr.Asa Gray
Asa Gray
-References:*Asa Gray. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.*Asa Gray. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.*Asa Gray. Plant Sciences. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2001....
, William M. Canby and Henry Nicholas Bolander
Henry Nicholas Bolander
Henry Nicholas Bolander was a German-American botanist and educator.Bolander was born in Schlüchtern, Germany and emigrated to the United States in 1846. He joined his uncle in Columbus, Ohio and enrolled in the Columbus Lutheran Seminary. He graduated from the seminary and was ordained a...
.
In 1857, he married Katherine Josephine Hancock
Hancock
-Places:In the United States:*Hancock, Iowa*Hancock, Maine*Hancock, Maryland*Hancock, Massachusetts*Hancock, Michigan*Hancock, Minnesota*Hancock, New Hampshire*Hancock , New York**Hancock , New York, in the town of Hancock...
, a member of the celebrated Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
family of the same name and in 1861 moved the family to Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
where Michael was employed in the Pensions office. During his free time, Michael continued to collect plants and to correspond and exchange with the leading botanists of the day. He joined the Naturalists’ Club and became well known amongst the scientific community in Washington.
In 1865, his wife died, leaving him the sole guardian of their three children. He resigned from the Pensions office and on February 19, 1867 married Anna Carpenter and moved the whole family to the Fountaindale estate in Illinois. It was here, in 1873 that Bebb began his special study of willow
Willow
Willows, sallows, and osiers form the genus Salix, around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere...
s, corresponding with the eminent British authority on Salix, Rev. J.E. Leefe. In 1874 he was asked to contribute his salices to Brewer
William Henry Brewer
William Henry Brewer was an American botanist. He worked on the first California Geological Survey and was the first Chair of Agriculture at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School....
and Watson
Sereno Watson
Sereno Watson was an American botanist.Graduating from Yale in 1847, he drifted through various occupations until, in California, he joined the Clarence King Expedition and eventually became its expedition botanist...
’s Botany of California by Dr. Asa Gray, and in the same year he published his first scientific paper on willows in The American Naturalist, entitled “A new species of willow (S.laevigata) from California, and notes on some other North American species.”
In 1878 he began to contribute writings to the Botanical Gazette on various aspects of willows. These included six papers entitled “Notes on North American willows.” His work on willows also appeared in Rothrock
Joseph Rothrock
Joseph Trimbel Rothrock was an American environmentalist, recognized as the "Father of Forestry" in Pennsylvania. In 1895, Rothrock was appointed the first forestry commissioner to lead the newly formed Division of Forestry in the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture...
’s Botany of the Wheeler Report and in the Botany of California as well as his illustrations in the Gray’s Manual Flora. In 1880 the leading Swedish authority on salices, Nils J. Anderson died, leaving Michael Schuck Bebb as the eminent botanist on the genus salix.
In October 1879 the family moved from Fountaindale to Rockford, Illinois
Rockford, Illinois
Rockford is a mid-sized city located on both banks of the Rock River in far northern Illinois. Often referred to as "The Forest City", Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County, Illinois, USA. As reported in the 2010 U.S. census, the city was home to 152,871 people, the third most populated...
. The financial strain of a farm the size of Fountaindale proved too costly for Bebb and he eventually sold the property to a practical farmer.
In 1885 he suffered a serious attack of pleurisy
Pleurisy
Pleurisy is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining of the pleural cavity surrounding the lungs. Among other things, infections are the most common cause of pleurisy....
, to which he never fully recovered, though this did not hamper his botanical zeal, publishing four series of “Notes on the White Mountain willows” in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club
Torrey Botanical Society
Torrey Botanical Society was started in the 1860s by colleagues of John Torrey. It is the oldest botanical society in the Americas...
between 1888 and 1890, and contributed the Salices to the sixth edition of Gray’s Manual, also in 1890.
Towards the end of his life, his industrious work on the genus Salix was rewarded by the naming of several plants in his honour. In 1885 the genus Bebbia
Bebbia
Bebbia is a genus of plants in the daisy family; it is often considered monotypic, but it is sometimes treated as a genus of two or more species if Bebbia juncea is divided. The common name of B. juncea is sweetbush. It is an aromatic shrub of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico...
, native to Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
was named in his honour by Prof. E. L. Greene and published in the Bulletin of the California Academy of Sciences
California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is among the largest museums of natural history in the world. The academy began in 1853 as a learned society and still carries out a large amount of original research, with exhibits and education becoming significant endeavors of the museum during the twentieth...
. In 1889, the variety Carex tribuloides Wahl. var. Bebbii was created by Prof. L. H. Bailey
Liberty Hyde Bailey
Liberty Hyde Bailey was an American horticulturist, botanist and cofounder of the American Society for Horticultural Science.-Biography:...
and in 1895, Salix Bebbiana
Salix bebbiana
Salix bebbiana is a species of Willow that is indigenous to Canada and the northern United States, from Alaska and Yukon south to California and Arizona and north-east to Newfoundland and New England...
published by Prof. C. S. Sargent in Garden and Forest, with the inscription to Bebb “the learned, industrious and distinguished salicologist of the United States to whom, more than to any one else of this generation we owe our knowledge of American willows.”
Michael Schuck Bebb died on December 5 1895 surrounded by friends and family. He was buried at the West Side cemetery in Rockford, Illinois.