From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 2, April 2022.
John Boggan, Botanical Type Register Manager for the US Herbarium, retired at the end of March 2022. Boggan began his career in the Department of Botany in 1991 as a contractor for the Biological Diversity of the Guianas program, working with Vicki Funk and Carol Kelloff as their data manager. He then went on to become a research assistant for Larry Skog and co-authored several papers on Gesneriaceae, and also worked for Jun Wen.
He became the Type Register Manager in 2003 and was responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the Type collection, which currently numbers around 115,000 botanical Type specimens. He also managed the Botanical Type Specimen Register and added approximately 500-1000 new Type records per year to Botany’s data catalog, making the US Herbarium Type Register one of the finest and most complete in the world. Before retirement, Boggan rearranged the Type Herbarium to reflect the APG IV (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group) conversion ongoing in the general herbarium. Boggan was particularly good at finding a Type designation from a few clues on a specimen, and he was amazing at reading bad handwriting on labels. We will miss his talents and dedication to the collection.
Comments