John Merle Coulter

John Merle Coulter, Ph. D. (November 20, 1851 – December 23, 1928) was an American botanist and educator, brother of Stanley Coulter, born at Ningpo, China. He received his education at Hanover College in Indiana. He served in the Rocky Mountains for two years (1872–73) as botanist to the United States Geological Survey. He became professor of natural science at Hanover College, professor of biology at Wabash College (1879), president of Indiana University from 1891 to 1893, and from 1893 to 1896 he presided over Lake Forest University. In 1896 he became head of the department of botany at the University of Chicago. In 1875 he founded Botanical Gazette and thereafter continued to be its editor.

In 1909, Coulter and his wife Grace, along with their children Grace and Merle, survived the sinking of the White Star liner Republic in which six were killed.

In 1925, Coulter moved to Yonkers, New York to help organize the new Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, of which he was dean and chief advisor. He died in Yonkers in 1928.

His works include:

• Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado (1874), with Thomas Porter and Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden
• Manual of Rocky Mountain Botany (1885; revised, 1909)
• Manual of Texan Botany (1892–93)
• Plant Relations (1899; third revision, 1910)
• Plant Structures (1899; second edition, 1904)
• Morphology of Spermatophytes (1901)
• Morphology of Angiosperms (1903), with C. J. Chamberlain
• Plant Studies (1902; revised 1905)
• A Text-Book of Botany for Colleges and Universities(two volumes, 1910–11)
• Elementary Studies in Botany (1913)
• Plant Breeding (1914)

The standard author abbreviation J.M.Coult. is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.^[1]

References

1. ^ "Author Query". International Plant Names Index. http://www.ipni.org/ipni/authorsearchpage.do. 

External links

• IMA
• Living Rocks of New Mexico
• Works by John Merle Coulter at Project Gutenberg

Academic offices
Preceded by David Starr Jordan	President of Indiana University 1891–1893	Succeeded by Joseph Swain

Persondata
Name	Coulter, John Merle
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	November 20, 1851
Place of birth
Date of death	December 23, 1928
Place of death