American botanist at the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University. Interested in taxonomy and organic evolution, particularly within the Asteraceae family, Harvey Monroe Hall and was also concerned with the conservation of wildlife preserves. Born in Lee County, Illinois, he grew up near Riverside in California and attended the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a BSc in 1901, an MSc in 1902 and a PhD in 1906. Having worked as an assistant botanist at the university's Agricultural Experiment Station, Hall remained at this institution to become Assistant Professor of Economic Botany and in 1908 was named Associate Professor.

In 1919 Hall began to work for the Carnegie Institution of Washington at their Department of Plant Sciences in Berkeley, enabling him to pursue his research into various groups of North American flowering plants. When, in 1929, the laboratory moved to the University of Stanford campus he settled there to continue his research. Hall also served as a Professor of Botany and as Honorary Curator of the University of California's herbarium until his death in 1932. Married to Carlotta Case, a University of California graduate interested in ferns, the pair worked together to publish A Yosemite Flora in 1912. An authority on the Asteraceae family, Hall published his Compositae of southern California in 1907 and also studied the Carduales, being responsible for this section of the North American Flora (published in two parts in 1914 and 1915). Other topics which concerned him include the rubber plants of North America, hay-fever plants and ornamental trees and shrubs. He was also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Californian Academy of Sciences.

Sources:
Memorial Resolution: Harvey Monroe Hall (1874-1932), Stanford University Historical Society:
http://histsoc.stanford.edu/pdfmem/HallHM.pdf, accessed 14th June 2011
Hall, Harvey Monroe (1874-1932), The Social Networks and Archival Context Project, University of Virginia:
http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=Hall+Harvey+Monroe+1874-1932-cr.xml, accessed 14th June 2011.