American botanist and physician based in California. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Albert Kellogg studied medicine with a physician in Middletown in preparation for his degree, which was taken at the Medical College of South Carolina and at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he was named doctor of medicine. Interested in natural history from a young age he took the opportunity to travel in the southern and south-western states in the mid 1840s, studying the vegetation and collecting plants along his way. Travelling frequently due to ill health he moved to California during the gold rush of 1848 and, journeying by sea around Cape Horn he set up a business in Sacramento before settling in San Francisco as a physician. Over the years Kellogg became the first resident botanist in California, no easy task as there was very little botanical literature to aid his early studies. Exercising his love of natural history in the Sierra Nevada he was the first to adequately study the Sequoia gigantea (Lindl.) Torr. Ex A.Gray, publishing his extensive account in 1855. Two years prior to this he had become one of the founding members of the California Academy of Sciences.

In search of adventure again, Kellogg joined the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey as botanist and surgeon, leaving on their expedition to explore the Bering Sea and Alaska in 1867. The trees he studied along the Pacific coast during this expedition contributed to his most impressive botanical work, the Forest Trees of California. Published in 1882 it contained many of his own drawings as he was a talented draftsman. In total Kellogg added some 40 new species to the flora of North America and the genus Kelloggia Torr. ex Hook.f. was named after him for his contributions.

Sources:
H.H. Behr et al. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Ser. 2, 1(2): 276-277
H.B. Humphrey, 1961, The Makers of North American Botany: 139-141
R.F.C. Stearns, 1889, "Death of Dr. Albert kellogg", Science, 9: 391-392.