Hitchcock, Albert Spear

Albert Spear Hitchcock, (born Sept. 4, 1865, Owosso, Mich., U.S.—died Dec. 16, 1935, at sea, en route from Europe to the U.S.), U.S. botanist and specialist on the taxonomy of the world’s grasses who developed the practice of using type specimens (or holotypes) for plant nomenclature.

During his student days at Iowa State Agricultural College, Hitchcock was greatly influenced by Charles E. Bessey, who was a pioneer in the study of plant morphology in the United States. After receiving his M.S. degree in 1886, he served as instructor in chemistry at Iowa State University until 1889. From 1889 to 1892 Hitchcock was curator of the herbarium at the Missouri Botanical Garden, where he proposed using the type specimen as the basis for describing a new species. He then returned to academic life as professor of botany at Kansas State Agricultural College.

In 1901 he joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture and began his worldwide travels to collect grass samples for the National Herbarium in Washington, D.C. He increased its collection of grasses to one of the largest and most complete in the world. Using these specimens, he began in 1905 to publish a series of monographs and handbooks on the grasses of many parts of the Americas. His most important work, Manual of Grasses of the United States (1935), remains a standard reference.

Hitchcock was also deeply concerned over the rapid disappearance of tropical forests and jungles. He was directly responsible, in his capacity as chairman (1920–26) of the executive committee of the Institute for Research in Tropical America (called the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute from 1946), for the designation of Barro Colorado Island in Panama as a permanent biological preserve.