Biography

American botanist interested in plant pathology and genetics. From Lawton in Michigan, Herbert John Webber studied at the University of Nebraska and graduated with a BA in 1889. After receiving his master's degree the following year, he moved to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and was awarded a PhD from this institution in 1901 with a thesis on spermatogenesis in Zamia L. Webber went on to teach botany as an instructor at Nebraska University (1889-1891) and the Shaw School of Botany in St. Louis (1891-1892), before joining the US Department of Agriculture to begin his career as a plant pathologist and geneticist. First posted in Eustis, Florida he studied the pathology of oranges and in 1897 moved to Washington DC where he worked for the same institution in their plant breeding laboratory.

In 1907 Webber was named botany professor at Cornell University but five years later returned to the study of citrus fruit and took up directorship of the Citrus Experiment Station and the Graduate School of Tropical Agriculture at the University of California. Alongside Walter T. Swingle, Webber worked to produce cold resistant Citrus L. varieties and travelled to South Africa in 1924-1925 to study the citrus industry there. Webber made many contributions to agricultural genetics and was married in 1890 to Lucene Anna Hardin with whom he had two sons and two daughters.

Sources:
H.B. Humphrey, 1961, The Makers of North American Botany: 260-262
F.A. Stafleu and R.S. Cowan, 1976-1998, Taxonomic Literature, 2nd edition (TL-2).