Abstract Detail

Botanical History

Klahs, Phillip [1].

Jacob Peter Anderson and the Allure of Studying Alaska's Flora.

Jacob Peter Anderson (1874-1953) was born in Utah, became a teacher in Nebraska, and was a homesteader in Kansas. He received a master’s degree in Botany from Iowa State College in 1916 and moved to Juneau, Alaska the next year to become a commercial florist, where he would spend more than two decades exploring Alaska and actively collecting plant material. He was a member of the territorial House of Representatives for Alaska before it became a state, and after acting as director of the U.S. Census for the Alaskan territory in 1940, he returned to Iowa with his herbarium collection to work on a publishable flora of Alaska. At this time his personal collection included over 24,000 specimens and represented the largest Alaskan collection in existence. Between 1941 and 1952 he synthesized his work into a survey of the Alaskan flora that was posthumously published as a single book in 1959. His personal collection was kept at the Iowa State Herbarium (ISC) until 2003 when it was transferred to the University of Alaska Museum of the North (ALA). His botanical work remains an important foundation for interacting with the Alaskan flora.

1 - Iowa State University, 251 Bessey Hall, 2200 Osborn Drive, Ames, IA, 50011, United States

Keywords:
regional flora
Herbarium.

Presentation Type: Poster
Number: PBH001
Abstract ID:333
Candidate for Awards:None