American botanist and conservationist from Wisconsin, Louis Pammel was interested in the flora and parks of the upper Mississippi valley. Born at LaCrosse, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a BSc in agriculture in 1885. At this time an interest in medicine led him to began a degree at the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia, but he soon moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to work as private secretary to the cryptogamic botanist W.G. Farlow of Harvard University. In
1886 Pammel moved again to Washington University where he worked for several years as assistant botanist in the Shaw School of Botany and was later awarded a PhD by this university (1899). Finally he settled at Iowa State College in 1889 where he worked as a professor of botany and a researcher at the Iowa Agriculture Experiment Station for over 40 years. His work spanned the fields of taxonomic botany, pathology and floristics, although he was particularly interested in bacterial and fungal infections of plants, weed species and pollination. Pammel's most important works include his Weed flora of Iowa (1901), a Manual of Poisonous Plants (1910) and the Grasses of Iowa (1914).
A keen conservationist Pammel enjoyed outdoor recreation and was a prominent figure in the preservation of Iowa's natural parks. He served as president of the Iowa Park and Forestry Association (1905-1907) and of the Iowa State Board of Conservation (1918-1927), writing the Iowa Conservation Bill. Pammel is in part responsible for the designation of 36 state parks in Iowa and the "Pammel State Park" in Madison now bears testament to his dedication. Also an enthusiastic promoter of environmental education, he passed away while travelling to California where he and his wife of 43 years, Augusta Emmel, would spend the winter months. Leaving behind him five daughters and a son, his botanical legacy includes a herbarium of over 180,000 specimens which is housed in the herbarium of Iowa State College (ISC).
Sources:
A.T. Erwin, 1931, "Obituary: Louis H. Pammel", Science, 73: 604-605
H.B. Humphrey, 1961, The Makers of North American Botany: 195-196
B. Shimek, 1931, " Dr. Louis H. Pammel", Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Sciences, 38: 55-56.
