Leslie Andrew Garay

Leslie Andrew Garay (August 6, 1924 - August 19, 2016) was an American botanist. He is the retired curator of the Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium at Harvard University, where he succeeded Charles Schweinfurth in 1958. In 1957 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Garay was born in Hungary, and after the Second World War he emigrated first to Canada and then to the United States. He was a taxonomist with his specialty in the Spermatophytes. Not only was he an orchid taxonomist, he was also an orchid collector. He was particularly interested in the orchids of tropical America and Southeast Asia.

His ideas were influential in orchid taxonomy, and he reorganized several genera, including the Oncidium. In addition to reclassification of various species into different genera, he defined a number of new genera including the Chaubardiella in 1969 and the Amesiella in 1972.

Among his influential publications were:

The following plants have been named after Garay in his honour:

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