Britton, Elizabeth Gertrude Knight

▪ American botanist

née  Elizabeth Gertrude Knight  

born Jan. 9, 1858, New York, N.Y., U.S.

died Feb. 25, 1934, New York City

      American botanist known for her lasting contributions to the study of mosses (moss).

      Elizabeth Knight grew up for the most part in Cuba, where her family owned a sugar plantation. She attended schools in Cuba and New York and in 1875 graduated from Normal (now Hunter) College, New York City. For 10 years she worked on the staff there, and during that time she laid the foundation of her reputation as a leading amateur botanist. By 1883 she had specialized in bryology, the study of mosses, and had published her first scientific paper in the field.

      In August 1885 she married Nathaniel L. Britton, a geologist at Columbia College (now Columbia University) in New York City. He soon turned to botany, and over the next several years the two made numerous field trips together to the West Indies. She was given charge, on an unofficial basis, of the moss collection of the Columbia botany department, and gradually she built an impressive collection, notably with the purchase of the collection of August Jaeger of Switzerland in 1893. In 1886–88 she was editor of the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, of which she had been a member since 1879. Supported by the Torrey Botanical Club and other interested persons, the Brittons took the lead in urging the establishment of a botanical garden in New York. The New York Botanical Garden was incorporated in 1891, and in 1896 Nathaniel Britton became first director of the 250-acre (100-hectare; from 1915, nearly 400-acre [160-hectare]) establishment in Bronx Park. The Columbia College herbarium was transferred there in 1899, and Elizabeth Britton became unofficial curator of mosses. In 1912 she received appointment as honorary curator of mosses.

      In 1902 Britton was a founder and in 1902–16 and 1918–27 secretary and treasurer of the Wild Flower Preservation Society of America. Through the society and various publications she led movements that succeeded in saving numerous endangered wildflower species around the country. From 1916 to 1919 she was president of the Sullivant Moss Society, which she had helped found in 1898 and which in 1949 became the American Bryological Society. She published more than 340 signed scientific papers during her career and had 15 species and 1 moss genus (Bryobrittonia) named for her.

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