Chrono-Biographical Sketch: Harry A. Allard

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Chrono-Biographical Sketches

Allard, Harry Ardell (United States 1880-1963)
botany, floristics

Photo courtesy of the Torrey Botanical Society.

The lengthy obituary for Allard that appears in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club summarizes his many contributions as follows: "Future generations of scientists will know of Harry Allard's co-discovery of photoperiodism, his fundamental work on tobacco mosaic and plant breeding, his papers on the flora of Virginia, his collections of lichens and flowering plants, and his pioneer observations on the stridulation of insects" (p. 151). The 1955 9th edition of American Men of Science additionally lists as his research interests: "plant breeding and nutrition; cotton, the distribution of Fowler's toad; musical Orthoptera; mosaic diseases of tobacco; day length and plant growth; Virginia and West Virginia botanical notes relating to new state records; ecology and floristics of Bull Run Mountain and other areas in Virginia."

Life Chronology

--born in Oxford, Massachusetts, on 28 January 1880.
--1899-1900: spends the winter in London when unable to get travel papers to join the Boer rebellion
--1905: B.S. in botany and geology, University of North Carolina
--1906-1946: scientist for the Department of Agriculture (first in the Office of Plant Breeding, then in the Office of Tobacco Investigations), including numerous field investigations
--1908: works in Georgia, developing cotton varieties
--1911: begins studies on tobacco mosaic diseases
--1920: his first publication on photoperiodism appears in Vol. 18 of the Journal of Agricultural Research
--1946: retires from government service
--1948: receives honorary D.Sc. from the University of North Carolina
--1956: receives the Botanical Society of America's Certificate of Merit
--dies on 25 February 1963.

For Additional Information, See:

--Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club , Vol. 91(2) (1964): 151-164.
--Plant Physiology, Vol. 38(3) (1963): 361.

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