Ethel Anson Peckham

Ethel Anson (Steel) Peckham (1879–1965) was an American horticulturist and botanical artist who bred plants that grow from bulbs and rhizomes such as iris and daffodil. She was a founding member and early director of the American Iris Society (AIS), editor of its first major checklists, and author of its iris-judging rules. She bred iris herself and is credited with helping to introduce a new class, the miniature tall bearded iris. She is one of only a dozen people to have received the AIS Gold Medal, the society's highest honor, and she was also awarded the Gold Medal of the British Iris Society for her paintings of iris.

Ethel Anson Steel was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on November 30, 1879, to William White Garrigues Steel and Juliet (Rauch) Steel. She was educated at private schools in England.

In 1906, she married Wheeler Hazard Peckham, with whom she had two children, Content and Anson. They lived in New Rochelle, New York.

In 1920 Peckham helped to establish both the American Iris Society and its first trial garden, which was located at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). She continued to be involved with both organizations throughout her life. At NYBG, she was named honorary curator of both the iris and narcissus collections in 1927. She was a contributor to the NYBG's Journal and also to another of its publications, Addisonia.

At the AIS, she held the post of director for a decade (1925–35), during which period she also had charge of the AIS test gardens. She took over management of the AIS's preliminary checklists and compiled and edited the monumental 1929 and 1939 lists, comprising 12,000 and 19,000 species, cultivars, and their synonyms, respectively. This was an important undertaking at the time, when irises were growing in popularity as American garden plants but their nomenclature was in disarray.

Peckham also served to different times as the society's registrar and its recorder, and she developed the AIS's first set of rules for judging iris, thus making it possible for iris competitions to be held using nationally agreed standards.

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