American botany professor and curator. Louis F. Henderson collected extensively in the north-western United States, covering almost every corner of Oregon as well as Idaho and Washington. Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, his father was a lawyer in New Orleans and, as a supporter of Lincoln, was murdered after the Civil War. Educated at Cornell University he graduated in 1874 and moved west to begin a career as a teacher. At first in California, he went on to Oregon the following year and became teacher and principal at Portland High School in 1877. Henderson began to collect plants in Oregon immediately, making trips into the Blue and Siskiyou Mountains. In 1889 he settled in Olympia, Washington, to take on a role as state botanist and forester and continued to gather specimens near the mouth of the Columbia River and on Mount Adams.

Moving to Moscow, Idaho, in 1893 he became the first professor of botany at the University of Idaho and founded its herbarium, remaining in that role until 1908. Unfortunately the collection of 85,000 specimens, along with many of Henderson's personal files, was destroyed in the Administration Building fire of 1906.

Many years after his retirement to Hood River, Oregon, Henderson's skills as a curator and collector were once again called upon by A.R. Sweetser, who employed him as curator of the Oregon University plant collection. From 1923 he spent every summer gathering specimens for the herbarium throughout Oregon, and during the winter months mounted specimens and looked after the collection. It was not until 1939 that his advancing years finally took their toll and Henderson retired once more, this time to Tacoma to live with one of his two daughters. Henderson had married fellow teacher Kate Robinson in 1883 and achieved the impressive feat of swimming across the Columbia River from Hood River to Washington, which gained him a considerable amount of publicity, being almost 70 years old at the time. Some 16 species epithets pay tribute to his contributions to botany, including Angelica hendersonii J.M. Coult. and Rose and Sidalcea hendersonii S.Watson.

Sources:
R. Love, 2008-2001, "Louis F. Henderson (1853-1942)", Oregon Encyclopedia:
http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/henderson_louis_f_1853_1942_/, accessed 14 April 2011
E.P. Thatcher, 1980, "Thomas J. Howell and Louis F. Henderson: Eastly Resident Botanists of the Pacific Northwest", Northwest Science, 54(2): 81-91.