Rydberg, Per Axel (Sweden-United States 1860-1931)
botany, floristics
Photo courtesy Archives of the
New York Botanical Garden
Although not a man who attracted much attention as a theorizer, Rydberg was an energetic field biologist and meticulous (if somewhat radical) taxonomist whose efforts made him perhaps the foremost expert on Rocky Mountain and Great Plains floras. These days his most cited works are his Flora of the Rocky Mountains and Adjacent Plains and Flora of the Prairies and Plains of Central North America, but he also produced several other memorable "floras," as well as numerous reports and taxonomic reviews--in all, in fact, he is reputed to have described some seventeen hundred new species. For his later works Rydberg contributed all his own illustrations.
