Organisation(s)
ARIZ (main), US (main), A, B, BM, CU (currently BH), F, GH, K, MICH, MIN, MO, MSC, NY, OS, P, POM, SI, TENN, UC
Associate(s)
Collins, Guy N. (1872-1938) (co-collector)
Coville, Frederick Vernon (1867-1937) (co-collector)
Harriman, Edward Henry (1848-1909) (co-collector)
Harrison, George John (1894-) (co-collector)
Kearny, T.H. (error)
Kempton, James Harry (1891-) (co-collector)
Maxon, William Ralph (1877-1948) (co-collector)
Peebles, Robert Hibbs (1900-1955) (co-collector)
Phillips, T.K. (fl. 1950) (co-collector)
Phillips, Walter Sargeant (1905-1975) (co-collector)
Shantz, Homer LeRoy (1876-1958) (co-collector)
Biography
American agronomist for the US Department of Agriculture. Thomas Kearney was interested in the cultivation of North African cotton in Arizona and became quite an expert on the native flora of that state. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he moved in 1884 to Knoxville, Tennessee, with his family and five years later entered the University of Tennessee. In 1893 his interest in botany began when he spent several weeks collecting plants in Kentucky, followed by taking a course in the subject at Columbia University, where he also worked as a herbarium assistant under Dr. N.L. Britton. From 1894 Kearney worked in Washington DC for the US Department of Agriculture, first as assistant agrostologist (1894-1897), then as assistant botanist (1898-1900) and later as assistant physiologist, physiologist and finally principal physiologist for its Bureau of Plant Industry (1900-1944).
After studying alkaline soils in Arizona and California in 1901, Kearney first went to North Africa the following year under the US Bureau of Soils, to study alkaline systems in Algeria and cotton cultivation in Egypt. Following his return Kearney spent the rest of his working life cultivating Egyptian-type cotton in Arizona, developing two important varieties which were used in the manufacture of military fabrics during World War II. Other projects included the study of date cultivation in Tunisia as well as the flora of Arizona, which occupied his weekends for many years and culminated in the publication of Flowering Plants and Ferns of Arizona with Robert H. Peebles in 1942.
On retiring in 1944 Kearney moved to San Francisco where his two sisters resided, and at the invitation of Alice Eastwood (a venerable botanist of the California Academy of Sciences) settled at the academy to continue his studies as a research associate. In 1952 he and Peebles published their Arizona Flora and also conducted taxonomic work on his favourite family, the Malvaceae. While based at the academy Kearney was appointed honorary curator of its Department of Botany and served as president of the California Botanical Society. In 1956 he was awarded The Certificate of Merit by the Botanical Society of America for his achievements in the field of botanical science. Responsible for some 85 scientific papers, Kearney has published works on the flora of Arizona, Tennessee and Virginia, keys to some South American plant groups, many taxonomic works on the Malvaceae and yet more on cotton and alkaline tolerant plants.
Sources:
T.H. Kearney Jr., 1958, "Autobiographical notes", Leaflets of Western Botany, 8(12): 273-275
T.H. Kearney Jr., 1958, "Botanists I have known", Leaflets of Western Botany, 8(12): 275-280
W.A. Wentz, 1974, "The Herbarium and Type Specimens of Thomas Henry Kearney, Jr. from 1890-1901", Taxon, 23 (2/3): 357-363.
References
Brummitt, R.K. & Powell, C.E., Authors Pl. Names (1992): 319; Chaudhri, M.N., Vegter, H.I. & de Bary, H.A., Index Herb. Coll. I-L (1972): 346; Knobloch, I.W., Phytologia Mem. 6 (1983): 47; Vegter, H.I., Index Herb. Coll. M (1976): 518; Vegter, H.I., Index Herb. Coll. N-R (1983): 661;
