Margery Carlson
| Margery Claire Carlson | |
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Professor of Botany Margery C. Carlson, Northwestern University. Photo credit: Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University.
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| Born |
November 21, 1892 Arthur, Illinois |
| Died | July 5, 1985 (aged 92) Evanston, Illinois |
| Residence | 2308 Hartzell Street, Evanston, Illinois |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | B.S. from Northwestern University M.S. from University of Wisconsin Ph.D in botany from University of Wisconsin |
| Occupation | Botanist |
| Years active | 1930–1958 |
| Employer | Northwestern University, Field Museum of Natural History |
| Known for | Collection of new species, discovering Tillandsia carlsoniae |
| Title | Professor of Botany |
| Movement | Conservation |
| Board member of | Illinois Youth Commission |
| Partner(s) | Kate Staley |
| Awards |
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Margery Claire Carlson (November 21, 1892 – July 5, 1985) was an American botanist and a professor at Northwestern University. After earning a Ph.D. in botany and becoming the first full-time female professor at Northwestern, she went on a number of international scientific expeditions to Central America in order to collect plant specimens and find new species. Her relationship as a research assistant at the Field Museum of Natural History meant that a majority of her plant collection was donated to the museum and a special botany collection was created for her there. Carlson had a long history of involvement in the conservation movement and was honored with multiple awards, along with a nature preserve being named after her.
Carlson was born in Arthur, Illinois. Her parents, John E. Carlson and Nellie Marie Johnson, named her after the marguerite daisy.
She graduated with a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 1916 before earning a Master's degree and then a Ph.D. in botany by 1925 from the University of Wisconsin. Carlson afterward became a teacher at Wellesley College before returning to Northwestern University in 1930 to become a professor, where she would stay for the next three decades before retiring in the 1960s. She was the first woman to major in botany at Northwestern and the first woman to become a full professor at the university.
She also acted as a research assistant at the Field Museum for the specimens that she collected and the full collection they were a part of.
As a practicing botanist, Carlson made frequent trips to Mexico and Central America to search and catalog plant species in the regions. In a 1940 paper, Carlson described the first finding of a special type of seed coat found only in a few orchid species and surrounding the plant embryo. She described this as a "covering of the embryo" or an "inner seed coat".
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