Joseph Charles Arthur

Joseph Charles Arthur (1850 - 1942)

Image of Joseph Charles Arthur from Curtis Gates Lloyd (1898 - 1925) Mycological Notes

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Biography
Sources
Further Sources
Selected publications

Biography

1850 January 11, born in Lowville, NY

1856 family moved to mid-West

1872 completed undergraduate work at Iowa State College,
taught country school

1877 Master's degree, Iowa State College

1879 appointed instructor in botany, University of Wisconsin

1880 appointed fellow (for three months!) at Johns Hopkins University

1882 first paper on rust fungi

1884 appointed botanist, Geneva (NY) Agricultural Experiment Station

1886 PhD, Cornell University

1887 appointed professor in botany, Purdue University

1888 appointment changed to professor of vegetable physiology and pathology and botanist to the Indiana Experiment Station

1899 starts rust culture studies

1901 marries Emily Stiles Potter, of Lafayette, Indiana

1905 publishes new classification of Uredinales

1907 begins complete taxonomic presentation of North American rusts, for publication by NY Botanical Garden

1915 retires

1934 publishes Manual of the Rusts of the United States and Canada

Arthur decided to become a botanist after taking a course with Charles Edwin Bessey in his sophomore year in college.
The fellowship at Johns Hopkins, although short, allowed him to meet William Gilson Farlow and attend his lectures. Thereafter, Arthur started to spend his summer vacations at Harvard studying with Farlow, where he also met Asa Gray, John Merle Coulter and Charles Reid Barnes.

His appointment at the Geneva Station allowed him to do the research for which he was awarded the PhD by Cornell.
His rust-culture studies made use of ca. 2400 collections and required 3750 greenhouse cultures. They went on for 19 years, and determined the life histories and host relationships of ca. 100 species.
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Sources

Harry Baker Humphrey (1961) Makers of North American Botany

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Further Sources

F. D. Kern (1942) "Joseph Charles Arthur" in Phytopathology

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Selected Publications

Joseph Charles Arthur & F. D. Kern (1906) "North American species of Peridermium" in Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 33:8 pp. 403 - 438

Joseph Charles Arthur, F. D. Fromme, Edwin B. Mains, F. D. Kern, Herbert S. Jackson & C. R. Orton (1907 - 1931) "The Plant Rusts (Uredinales)" in North American Flora 7:2 pp. 83 - 969

Volume 7, issues 2-13, to be precise. H. B. Humphrey cites this with the dates 1929-1937, and no Journal.
Pp. 83-648 include the three familes of rusts; 649-848 are errata; 849-969 are the host index

Joseph Charles Arthur (1934) Manual of the rusts in United States and Canada 438 pp.

Illustrated by George B. Cummins

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