Edgar Anderson, Sunflowers, and the Lessons of a Mentor

A portrait of Edgar Anderson, a prominent American botanist.

The Gift of Good Students The botanist Edgar Anderson wrote to his student Charles B Heiser Jr: “Oh stamp collecting, when will taxonomists ever take any interest in being biologists? Once, when I traveled with E.J. Palmer, I went to a good deal of trouble to get a whole sheet of lily pods, and he…

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Birds Know Best: The Ironic Tale of Audubon’s Resting Place

John James Audubon thumbnail image

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. April 26, 1785 On this day, the remarkable John James Audubon took his first breath in Haiti—a man whose destiny would become so intertwined with our feathered friends that even in death, birds…

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