CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE -- Otto and Isa Degener records

Otto Degener (1899–1988) was a systematic botanist and conservationist best known as a leading authority on the flora of the Hawaiian Islands. He earned his M.S. from the University of Hawaii in 1923 and his Ph.D. from Columbia University, where he studied under Nathaniel Lord Britton, Per Axel Rydberg, and Robert Almer Harper. Moving to Hawaii in 1922, he taught botany at the University of Hawaii from 1925 to 1927, and in 1929 was appointed the first naturalist for Hawaii National Park. He was appointed Collaborator in Hawaiian Botany by the NYBG in 1935 and was associated with the NYBG until his death.

Irmgard (Isa) Hansen (1924-2018) was a taxonomic botanist who specialized in agrostology and pharmacognosy. She began her career as a botanical assistant at the Berlin Botanical Garden and earned her doctorate in 1949 at the University of Berlin under Dr. Hermann Sleumer. To finance her education, she worked as a lecturer and research assistant to Drs. Robert Pilger and Hermann Sleumer at Humboldt University. After completing her studies, she worked at the Freie Universität Berlin, where she taught pharmacognosy to pharmacy and medical students.

On a trip to Berlin in 1952 seeking to consult a grass specialist, Dr. Otto Degener met Dr. Isa Hansen, and the two began a correspondence that led to their marriage in January 1953. Together they traveled the world, collected specimens, and studied the flora of the Hawaiian Islands, which resulted in 10 books and over 400 journal articles, including later volumes of the New Illustrated Flora of the Hawaiian Islands (Flora Hawaiiensis) – the first comprehensive flora of Hawaii since William Hillebrand’s 1888 publication.

Over the course of their careers, the Degeners collected more than 36,000 different plant species and preserved some 900 threatened and endangered plants. Otto Degener was awarded the Linnaeus Medal by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1962 and the Willdenow Medal from the Berlin Botanic Garden in 1979. Isa Degener was named an Honorary Collaborator of Hawaiian Botany at NYBG in 1975. In 1979, both Degeners received NYBG’s Distinguished Service Award and were jointly honored by the Senate of the State of Hawaii for their conservation efforts.

Otto Degener died on January 16, 1988, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Isa Degener passed away thirty years later, in 2018, in Waipahu, Hawaii.