Lucien Marcus Underwood papers

Lucien Marcus Underwood (1853-1907) was a botanist, educator, and founding member of the Board of Scientific Directors of the New York Botanical Garden. Underwood was born in New Woodstock, New York 26 October 1853. He obtained his M.S. (1878) and Ph.D. (1879) at Syracuse University. His doctoral thesis, later published, was The Geological Formations Crossed by the Syracuse and Chenango Valley Rail Road. During his graduate education he grew interested in the study of ferns (pteridology). In 1881 he published Our Native Ferns and How to Study Them, the first manual of North American ferns. This, as well as Moulds, Mildews, and Mushrooms (1899), achieved a popularity beyond the audience of professional botany.

Through the 1880s Underwood taught geology, botany, and natural science at several colleges and universities. Two notable appointments were Syracuse University (1883; 1887-1890) and DePauw University (1890-1895). At Syracuse he began to study the full scope of cryptogamic flora - the mosses, hepatics (liverworts), and fungi. With a Morgan Fellowship at Harvard University (1890) he studied the Sullivant and Taylor hepatic collections. Underwood’s authoritative publications on the hepaticae inspired an exhaustive study of the flora of North America, The Systematic Botany of North America (later known as North American Flora), that evolved into a major collaboration with Nathaniel Lord Britton and many American botanists.

Beginning in 1892 Underwood served on the Committee on Nomenclature of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that drafted the "Rochester Code" of botanic nomenclature. The committee elected Underwood as the American delegate to the International Botanic Congress in Genoa, Italy, where he took part in the decision to set 1753 as the date for officially establishing botanical names. In 1896 Underwood succeeded Britton as Professor of Botany at Columbia University and joined the staff of the NYBG. He participated in botanical expeditions to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, and the Rocky Mountains and was elected to the NYBG Board of Scientific Directors, and served as chairman (1901-07). He contributed a section on pteridophyta to the Britton & Brown Illustrated Flora, was editor of the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, and assisted in the founding of the Botanical Society of America.

Underwood's life ended in tragedy when he took his life in 1907. His sudden death dealt Britton a personal and professional blow, leaving a void in the NYBG directorship. Despite this misfortune, Lucien Underwood is rightly remembered for his scientific accomplishments, his dedication as an educator, and his critical role as a founding member of the NYBG.