American botanist. Philip Munz was born in Saratoga, Wyoming, but grew up mostly in Denver, where he entered university at the age of 17. After completing his MA, he took on graduate work in entomology at Cornell University under Professor Needham and wrote a doctoral thesis that dealt with wing venation of Zygoptera.

Despite his having only minored in botany, Pomona College in southern California offered him an assistant professorship in the subject, not only to teach botany but to be, in fact, the entire Botany Department. Arriving in Claremont in August 1917, he set about to learn the flora of the area as rapidly as possible, aided by an eager sophomore, Ivan Johnston. He also began the Pomona College Herbarium, engaged in field work, and started research on Onagraceae, and other prominent plant groups of the region.

In 1926 he advanced to full professor. His knowledge of the southern California flora built gradually into A Manual of Southern California Botany (1935). His wife Alice McCully, who was a trained botanist, accompanied him on field trips and helped him with his research, as did their sons while they were growing up, one of whom became a professor of zoology at the University of Oregon. The family's field trips in the eastern United States and the Pacific Northwest were centered on the Onagraceae. So was Munz's most extensive field work, an expedition to South America in 1938-1939, on a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, which resulted in a number of generic and regional monographs. He regularly made field trips with his students, some of whom (for example, F.R. Fosberg, C.L. Hitchcock, D.D. Keck, and L.C. Wheeler) became noted botanists in their own right. While at Pomona, he acquired the Marcus E. Jones collection for the herbarium and was involved in conservation projects, such as the Joshua Tree National Monument.

Although he was named Dean of the Faculty in 1942, he had no desire to advance into administrative posts, being at his happiest when teaching and studying botany. In 1944 he returned to Cornell as a professor of botany, fully expecting to remain there until his retirement. However, when Susanna Bixby Bryant died in 1946, he readily accepted an offer from the board of trustees of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden to succeed her as director. It was under his directorship that the Garden was moved to its current site in Claremont, California, and that the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and Pomona College herbaria and botanical libraries were amalgamated there in one building. Throughout this period Munz was working with his former student David Keck, then at the New York Botanical Garden, on A California Flora (1959), which appeared shortly before his retirement in 1960.

As Director Emeritus, he remained busy. In addition to accumulating materials for a Supplement to the California flora, published in 1968, he produced monographs on Onagraceae and Delphinium and began a new flora of southern California, which was completed and published shortly before his death. Plants that have been named after him include Cereus munzii Parish (= Echinocereus munzii (Parish) L.D. Benson), Iris munzii R.C. Foster, Layia munzii D.D. Keck, Opuntia munzii C.B. Wolf and the genus Munzothamnus P.H. Raven. (Asteraceae).

Sources:
S. Carlquist, 1974, "Philip A. Munz, Botanist and Friend", Aliso, 8(3): 211-220.