Velva Rudd

From Plant Press, Vol. 3, No. 1, January 2000.

Velva E. Rudd, legume specialist and former curator in the Department, died peacefully on 9 December 1999 at her home in California. After retiring from the Smithsonian, she was for a time a staff associate in the herbarium of California State University in Northridge. She is commemorated by the Mexican legume genus Ruddia Yakovlev (1971), and various species named in her honor including Clidemia ruddae Wurdack (Melastomataceae) from Mexico, Acacia ruddiae Janzen from Costa Rica, Dioclea ruddiae R.H. Maxwell from Venezuela, and Ormosia ruddiana Yakovlev from Minas Gerais, Brazil.