James Francis Macbride

James Francis Macbride (19 May 1892 – 16 June 1976) was an American botanist who devoted most of his professional life to the study of the flora of Peru. Born on 19 May 1892 in Rock Valley, Iowa. Macbride graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1914 and worked briefly at the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University.

In 1921, Macbride joined the staff of the Department of Botany at Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, to head the nascent Flora of Peru program. Peru had been selected as the center of floristic research by C. F. Millspaugh, the Museum's first Curator of Botany. In 1922, Macbride and his assistant William Featherstone embarked on the first of two expeditions to Peru. They initially collected in the highland regions of the Departments of Lima, Junín, Huánuco, and Pasco. Macbride returned the following year to the Huánuco region and the Río Ucayali.

For a decade from 1929, Macbride visited Europe to photograph specimens of tropical American flora preserved in herbaria, accumulating photographs of over 40,000 specimens. These photographs were to prove of particular importance, as many of the specimens held in German herbaria were later destroyed in the Allied bombing campaigns of World War II. Expeditions to Peru continued in his absence, and by 1936 the Field Museum's herbarium held over 33,000 Peruvian plant specimens, the largest such collection in the world. [1]

Publication of the Flora of Peru began in 1936, and continued for another 24 years. In the late 1940s, Macbride moved to California where he continued his work on the Flora at the University of California and at Stanford University, publishing his last family treatment in 1960, leaving only 20 families out of 180 untreated in the series.

Macbride died aged 84 on 16 June 1976 at Riverside, California.

Macbride is commemorated by the genus Macbrideina Standley and numerous species.

Macbride, J. F. (1936-1960). Flora of Peru, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. http://www.sacha.org/macbr/intro.htm

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