American botanist. Frederick Vernon Coville worked for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 1888 until his death in 1937. He was head of the Office of Economic and Systematic Botany, curator of the National Herbarium, and founder of the National Arboretum, all of which were then in the custody of the USDA. For many years, he served as chairman of the Research Committee of the National Geographic Society, and because of his interest in desert flora, he was one of the prime movers in establishing the Desert Botanical Laboratory near Tucson, Arizona. His other specialities included the Juncaceae; the management of dry rangeland; the history of botanical exploration in the American West; Native American ethnobotany, and the culture and breeding of currants, gooseberries, and blueberries. During his career he contributed nearly 175 titles to periodicals and journals, many of which were descriptions of new species.

Coville was born in Preston, New York State, and attended Cornell University (AB 1887). He served as botanical assistant on the Arkansas Geological survey before joining the USDA as an assistant botanist in July 1888. In 1993 he succeeded Dr George Vasey as botanist and curator of the National Herbarium and in 1901 was put in charge of the newly created Bureau of Plant Industry.

His most important field work was as botanist on the Death Valley Expedition of 1891, which he published two years later as Botany of the Death Valley Expedition, one of the earliest studies of desert vegetation. At the time of his death he was engaged in writing a popular flora of Death Valley, which included new material collected on his recent trips. He also collected in Canada and, early in the new century, in Mexico.

Sources:
W.R. Maxon, "Obituary: Frederick Vernon Coville", Science, 85(2203): 280-281.