{{Short description|American botanist (1817–1886)}} {{redirect|Tuck.|other uses|Tuck (disambiguation){{!}}Tuck}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Edward Tuckerman | image = Edward_Tuckerman_1855-1886.jpg | image_size = 175px | caption = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1817|12|7|mf=y}} | birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts | death_date = {{Death date and age|1886|3|15|1817|12|7|mf=y}} | death_place = | residence = | citizenship = | ethnicity = | field = Botany | work_institution = Amherst College | education = Boston Latin School | alma_mater = Union College<br>Harvard Law School<br>Harvard Divinity School | doctoral_advisor = | doctoral_students = | known_for = | author_abbreviation_bot = Tuck | author_abbreviation_zoo = | prizes = | spouse = Sarah Cushing | footnotes = }}
'''Edward Tuckerman''' (December 7, 1817, in Boston, Massachusetts – March 15, 1886) was an American botanist and professor who made significant contributions to the study of lichens and other alpine plants. He was a founding member of the Natural History Society of Boston and most of his career was spent at Amherst College. He did the majority of his collecting on the slopes of Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Tuckerman Ravine was named in his honor. The standard botanical author abbreviation '''Tuck.''' is applied to species he described.
==Early life and education== Tuckerman was the eldest son of a Boston merchant, also Edward Tuckerman, and Sophia (May) Tuckerman. He studied at Boston Latin School and then at his father's urging at Union College in Schenectady, which he entered as a sophomore and where he completed a BA in 1837 and to which he returned for his MA after taking a law degree at Harvard in 1839, traveling in Germany and Scandinavia, and making the first of his botanical studies in the White Mountains.<ref>Asa Gray, "Edward Tuckerman," ''Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences'' 21 (1885-86) 539-47, repr. in Charles Sprague Sargent, ed., ''Scientific Papers of Asa Gray'' volume 2, pp. 491-98, [https://books.google.com/books?id=3_hGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA491 p. 491].</ref> In 1846, he returned to Harvard as a senior (telling the President he intended to correct his father's error in breaking the family tradition), completed a second BA in 1847, then two or three years later entered the Divinity School and graduated from there in 1852.<ref>Gray, pp. 491-92.</ref> His brother was Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (1821–1873), the American poet and his first cousin was Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871), an American writer, essayist and critic. His sister was the writer and spiritualist medium Sophia May Eckley (1822-1874).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Eckley |first=Sophia May |title=Sophia M. Eckley sketchbook1853 |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?cc=clementsead;c=clementsead;idno=umich-wcl-P-1950eck;didno=umich-wcl-P-1950eck;view=text |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=quod.lib.umich.edu}}</ref>
==Career== When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark went on their 1804-1806 expedition across the western United States, they collected many plant, seed, and flower species that had never been seen before. Lewis wrote notes about these species and they were put on scrap book paper. After Lewis supposedly committed suicide in 1809, dozens of his scrapbook pages were stolen by a botanist who was supposed to draw and classify the plants collected on the expedition. He took the papers to England to sell for money at an auction in 1842. Tuckerman noticed the auction and the significance of these papers. He bought them and then donated them to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}
After teaching at Union College, Tuckerman was a professor at Amherst College from 1854 until his death,<ref name=Amherst/> successively Lecturer in History, Professor of Oriental History, and from 1858 Professor of Botany.<ref name=Ewan>Joseph Ewan, "Frederick Pursh, 1774-1820, and his Botanical Associates," ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' vol. 96 no. 5 (1952) pp. 599-628, [https://books.google.com/books?id=PNxdbMQdB2QC&pg=PA625 p. 625].</ref> Amherst awarded him an LLD.<ref name="Gray, p. 492">Gray, p. 492.</ref>
He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1855.<ref>[http://www.americanantiquarian.org/memberlistt American Antiquarian Society Members Directory]</ref>
His first paper, on New England lichens, was given in 1838 or 1839.<ref name="Gray, p. 492"/> In 1843, he published privately the first serious systematic analysis of the genus ''Carex'', ''Enumeratio Methodica Caricum Quarundam.'' Tuckerman liked to write his botanical studies in Latin.<ref name=Ewan/><ref name="Gray, p. 493">Gray, p. 493.</ref> He also made the first systematic study of native ''Potamogeton'', and after becoming Professor of Botany at Amherst, began preparing ''A Catalogue of Plants Growing without cultivation within 30 miles of Amherst College'' (published in 1875).<ref name="Gray, p. 493"/> However, his main focus was lichens. He published a number of important studies in the field, drawing on both his own collecting and specimens sent to him from elsewhere, in particular by Charles Wright from Cuba.<ref>Gray, p. 494: "from the Rocky Mountains, Texas, the Pacific coast, the Sandwich Islands [Hawai'i], and especially . . . the rich collections gathered in Cuba and elsewhere by the late Charles Wright."</ref> His career culminated in the publication of [https://books.google.com/books?id=hK4VAAAAYAAJ ''Genera Lichenum: An Arrangement of the North American Lichens''] (1872) and [http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001497334 ''Synopsis of the North American Lichens'', Part 1] (1882).<ref>Gray, pp. 494-95.</ref> Between 1847 and 1863 Tuckerman edited three exsiccata-like series, one of them being ''Lichenes Americae septentrionalis exsiccati, curante Edvardo Tuckerman''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Lichenes Americae septentrionalis exsiccati, curante Edvardo Tuckerman: IndExs ExsiccataID=868249535 |website=IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae |publisher=Botanische Staatssammlung München |url=https://www.botanischestaatssammlung.de/DatabaseClients/IndExs/Exsiccatae_IndExs_Details.jsp?ExsiccataID=868249535 |access-date=20 April 2024}}</ref> His last botanical publication was in 1884, and he may have published anonymous theological articles after that.<ref>Gray, p. 497.</ref> Tuckerman did not accept that lichens are a combination of fungi and algae, a theory advanced late in his life.<ref>Gray, p. 496.</ref>
===Honours=== He was honoured in the naming of several plant taxa including; ''Tuckermania'' {{Au|Klotzsch, 1841}} (family Ericaceae) now a synonym of ''Corema''.<ref>{{cite web |title=''Tuckermania'' Klotzsch {{!}} Plants of the World Online {{!}} Kew Science |url=https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:14527-1 |website=Plants of the World Online |access-date=26 November 2022 |language=en}}</ref> and ''Tuckermannia'' {{Au|Nutt. 1841}} (Asteraceae family) now a synonym of ''Coreopsis''.<ref>{{cite web |title=''Tuckermannia'' Nutt. {{!}} Plants of the World Online {{!}} Kew Science |url=https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:30019659-2 |website=Plants of the World Online |access-date=26 November 2022 |language=en}}</ref>
In 1933 Hungarian lichenologist Vilmos Kőfaragó-Gyelnik circumscribed the lichen genus of ''Tuckermannopsis''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kärnefelt |first1=Ingvar |last2=Thell |first2=Arne |chapter=The delimitation of the genus ''Tuckermannopsis'' Gyeln. (Parmeliaceae, lichenized Ascomycetes) based on morphology and DNA sequences |series=Bibliotheca Lichenologica |editor-last1=McCarthy |editor-first1=P.M. |editor-last2=Kantvilas |editor-first2=G. |editor-last3=Louwhoff |editor-first3=S.H.J.J. |volume=78 |title=Lichenological Contributions in Honour of Jack Elix |date=2001 |publisher=J. Cramer |location=Stuttgart/Berlin |pages=193–210 |issn=1436-1698 |isbn=978-3-443-58057-5}}</ref> ''Tuckneraria'' is a genus of lichen-forming fungi, which was published by Randlane & A.Thell in 1994.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tuckneraria - Search Page |url=http://www.speciesfungorum.org/Names/Names.asp?strGenus=Tuckneraria |website=www.speciesfungorum.org |publisher=Species Fungorum |access-date=27 October 2022}}</ref> Lastly, Esslinger in 2003 published ''Tuckermanella'', a genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Parmeliaceae.<ref name="Esslinger 2003">{{cite journal |last1=Esslinger |first1=T.L. |year=2003 |title=''Tuckermanella'', a new cetrarioid genus in western North America |journal=Mycotaxon |volume=85 |pages=135–141 |url=http://www.cybertruffle.org.uk/cyberliber/59575/0085/0135.htm}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Burkhardt | first=Lotte | title=Eine Enzyklopädie zu eponymischen Pflanzennamen |trans-title=Encyclopedia of eponymic plant names | publisher=Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum, Freie Universität Berlin | year=2022 | isbn=978-3-946292-41-8 | url=https://doi.org/10.3372/epolist2022|format=pdf |language=German |location=Berlin | doi=10.3372/epolist2022 | s2cid=246307410 |access-date=January 27, 2022}}</ref>
Between 1937 and 1942 the Farlow Herbarium distributed an exsiccatal series called ''Reliquiae Tuckermanianae''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Reliquiae Tuckermanianae: IndExs ExsiccataID=620716690 |website=IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae |publisher=Botanische Staatssammlung München |url=https://www.botanischestaatssammlung.de/DatabaseClients/IndExs/Exsiccatae_IndExs_Details.jsp?ExsiccataID=620716690 |access-date=6 January 2025}}</ref>
==Personal life== Tuckerman was married to Sarah, daughter of Thomas Parkman Cushing, who was his father's business partner.<ref name=Amherst>Daria D’Arienzo and Margaret R. Dakin, [https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/magazine/issues/2007_spring/better_home "An Even Better Home at Amherst,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402184542/https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/magazine/issues/2007_spring/better_home |date=2015-04-02 }} ''Amherst Magazine'', Amherst College, Spring 2007. Accessed March 20, 2010.</ref><ref>Ezra Scollay Stearns, ''History of Ashburnham, Massachusetts, from the Grant of Dorchester Canada to the Present Time, 1774-1836'', Ashburnham: 1887, [https://books.google.com/books?id=JQs1AAAAIAAJ&dq=Thomas+Parkman+Cushing&pg=PA663 p. 663].</ref> They had no children. Tuckerman died on March 15, 1886.
==See also== *:Category:Taxa named by Edward Tuckerman
==References== {{Reflist|2}}
==External links== {{Appletons' Poster|Tuckerman, Joseph|year=1889|Edward Tuckerman}}
* [https://archivesspace.amherst.edu/repositories/2/resources/52 Edward Tuckerman Botanical Papers] at the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections * [https://archivesspace.amherst.edu/repositories/2/resources/373 Edward Tuckerman Materials] at the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections
* Fred Burchsted, [http://www.huh.harvard.edu/libraries/nenats/NEnatsSZ.html#Tu New England Naturalists: A Bio-Bibliography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100303025540/http://www.huh.harvard.edu/libraries/nenats/NEnatsSZ.html#Tu |date=2010-03-03 }} *[https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.CRMS146 Guide to Edward Tuckerman, A Synopsis of the Lichenes of New England, the Other Northern States, and British America 1853-1870] at the [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/ University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tuckerman, Edward}} Category:American lichenologists Category:American pteridologists Category:1817 births Category:1886 deaths Category:American mycologists Category:Botanists active in North America Category:Botanists with author abbreviations Category:Amherst College faculty Category:Union College (New York) alumni Category:Harvard Law School alumni Category:Harvard Divinity School alumni Category:19th-century American botanists Category:Scientists from New York (state)