American botanist. Joseph Nelson Rose was born on a farm near Liberty, Indiana, and raised by his widowed mother, his father having died in the Civil War when Rose was still a young boy. He attended Wabash College, completing a PhD in 1889 under the supervision of J.M. Coulter, with whom he co-published several papers on systematics, including a revision of North American Umbelliferae. In 1893 he joined the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington as an assistant botanist. Three years later, when the National Herbarium was returned to the United States National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, the USDA relocated him, changing his position to assistant curator of botany and eventually promoting him to associate curator in 1905.
At the USDA, his interest in the flora of Mexico and Central America was piqued by the succulent plant collections of Edward Palmer, who invited him on an expedition to Mexico in 1897. This was the first of many collecting trips Rose would make in various parts of Mexico until 1911, the results of which were published as 'Studies of Mexican and Central American Plants' (1897-1911). Some of his live specimens he sent to Nathaniel Lord Britton at the New York Botanical Garden, who shared his expertise in the Crassulaceae family, leading to a famous professional alliance between the two botanists.
In 1912 Rose took a leave of absence from the Smithsonian Institution to collaborate with Britton and the Carnegie Institution on a standard-setting monograph on Cactaceae, which appeared in four volumes between 1919 and 1923 with illustrations by Mary Emily Eaton. Rose and Britton collected material for their Cactaceae work in the West Indies (1913); Chile, Peru, and Bolivia (1915); Argentina and Brazil (1916); Venezuela and Ecuador (1918), frequently accompanied by other collectors such as Joseph Adolph Shafer and Daniel Trembly MacDougal. When it was finished, Rose returned to work at the Smithsonian Institution and, again in collaboration with Britton, began work on studies the Caesalpinaceae and Mimosaceae. He died in Washington, DC, on 4th May 1928. His botanical eponyms include the genera Roseanthus Cogn. and Roseocactus A. Berger with Brittonrosea Speg. (Cactaceae) commemorating the alliance between Rose and N.L. Britton.
Sources:
A.M. Socha, ȯrom Areoles to Zygocactus: An Evolutionary Masterpiece", New York Botanical Garden:
www.nybg.org/bsci/herb/cactaceae1.html.
