Nathaniel Lyon Gardner

Gardner was born in Keokuk, Iowa on February 26, 1864,[1] and began his career as an Iowa schoolteacher.[2] After earning a teaching degree at the Washington State Normal School in Ellensburg (now Central Washington University), he went on to teach for a time in that state. He also began collecting plants, which led him to write to the University of California for help with identification and preservation of specimens.[2] This put him in contact with William Albert Setchell, who headed the botany department at UC Berkeley (UCB) and later worked closely with Gardner as a colleague and coauthor via correspondence. Gardner enrolled at the University of Washington to complete at Bachelor of Science degree in 1900.[3] Gardner subsequently enrolled at UCB to study marine algae and other cryptogams, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in 1900.,[2] a Master of Science degree in 1903, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1906.[4]

After receiving his Bachelor degree, Gardner was hired as an assistant in botany by UCB, where he worked with W. J. V. Osterhout.[5] Upon completion of his doctoral studies in 1906, he began teaching at the Los Angeles Polytechnic High School, where he was head of biology.[5] He took a year's leave from this job to serve as an acting assistant professor of botany at UCB (1909–10) and then was hired full-time by UCB as an assistant professor in 1913.[2][5] He rose to associate professor in 1923 and retired from UCB in 1934.[2] He was also the curator of the University Herbarium.[5]

Gardner became known for his expertise in Pacific Coast seaweeds, as well as for his work with freshwater algae and fungi.[2] He published extensively on the morphology and taxonomy of blue-green algae (on which he was recognized as a world authority) as well as red and brown algae.[2][5] In addition to plant collecting and other kinds of field work, he developed special methods for cultivating algae in the lab.[2] Although he often coauthored papers with Setchell, he also published some 30 solo-authored papers.[5]

An important contribution to American botany was the multi-volume reference work Algae of Northwestern America, on which he collaborated with Setchell.[6] Issued by the University of California Press, the first volume came out in 1903 and the last in 1925.[6]

• Cytological studies in Cyanophyceae. (Berkeley: University Press, 1906).
• Variations in Nuclear Extrusion Among the Facaceae. (Berkeley: University Press, 1910).
• Leuvenia, a New Genus of Flagellates. (Berkeley: University Press, 1910).
• The genus Fucus on the Pacific Coast of North America. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1922).
• Algae of Northwestern America. Coauthored with William Albert Setchell. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1903–25).
• The Marine Algae of the Pacific Coast of North America. Coauthored with William Albert Setchell. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1919–25).
• New Pacific Coast Marine Algae, I-IV.
• Phycological Contributions, I-VII. Coauthored with William Albert Setchell. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1920–24).

The standard author abbreviation N.L.Gardner is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[7]

In 1915, Gardner married the educator Edith Jordan.[8] They had met when they were both working at the Los Angeles Polytechnic High School, he as head of the biology department and she as head of the history department.[9] Gardner died in his home in Berkeley on August 15, 1937.[3]

• Humphrey, H. B. The Makers of North American Botany, 1961, pp. 92–93.

• Photo of Gardner at the Smithsonian Institution Archives