death_date religion birth_place image_size nationality field birth_date image article_title name alma_mater
15 march 1886 protestant episcopal church boston , massachusetts 175px american botany 7 december 1817 edward_tuckerman_1855-1886 . jpg edward tuckerman
 edward tuckerman union college -lrb- new york -rrb- ; harvard university
edward tuckerman

edward tuckerman -lrb- boston , massachusetts , december 7 , 1817 - march 15 , 1886 -rrb- 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 .
tuckerman was the eldest son of a boston merchant , also edward tuckerman , and sophia -lrb- may -rrb- 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 .
in 1846 he returned to harvard as a senior -lrb- telling the president he intended to correct his father 's error in breaking the family tradition -rrb- , completed a second ba in 1847 , then two or three years later entered the divinity school and graduated from there in 1852 .
after teaching at union college , tuckerman was a professor at amherst college from 1854 until his death , successively lecturer in history , professor of oriental history , and from 1858 professor of botany .
amherst awarded him an lld .
his first paper , on new england lichens , was given in 1838 or 1839 .
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 .
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 '' -lrb- published in 1875 -rrb- .
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 .
his career culminated in the publication of -lsb- https://books.google.com/books/about/genera_lichenum.html?id=hk4vaaaayaaj `` genera lichenum : an arrangement of the north american lichens '' -lrb- 1872 -rrb- and `` synopsis of the north american lichens '' , part 1 -lrb- 1882 -rrb- .
his last botanical publication was in 1884 , and he may have published anonymous theological articles after that .
tuckerman did not accept that lichens are a combination of fungi and algae , a theory advanced late in his life .
tuckerman was married to sarah , daughter of thomas parkman cushing , who was his father 's business partner .
they had no children .
