Alice F. Tryon

Alice Faber Tryon (1920–2009) was an American botanist who specialized in the systematics of ferns and other spore-dispersed plants (pteridology).[1] She had two general areas of interest in her work, first incorporating the use of spore surface patterns into the understanding of fern diversity and systematics, and second the fern family Pteridaceae.

Biography

Alice Faber Tryon was born Alice Elizabeth Faber in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 2, 1920 to Arthur and Laura Bindrich Faber.[2]

Alice Tryon completed her bachelor’s degree in 1941 at Milwaukee State Teacher’s College (now the University of Wisconsin).[2] She completed her master’s thesis on the taxonomic utility of spore characters in the spikemoss genus Selaginella at the University of Wisconsin in 1945. Her doctoral degree she received at Washington University in 1952, where her PhD dissertation was on the diversity and taxonomy of the New World species of Pellaea, a genus of xerically adapted ferns in the Pteridaceae.[3] She first began working with Rolla Milton Tryon Jr. in 1945 as a student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1946, she became a member of the American Fern Society and became an honorary member in 1978.[2] The Tryons moved to Harvard in 1958, where they spent the majority of their professional careers.[4] At Harvard, they organized and offered an annual New England Fern Conference, which brought students and professors together in an informal and productive setting.[5] In 1987, Rolla Tryon retired from Harvard, going on to become an adjunct professor at the University of South Florida where Alice helped him to found the Institute for Systematic Botany and endowed the Tryon Lecture Series.[6]

Throughout her career she worked closely with her husband, traveling internationally and frequently publishing together—including their systematic survey of the ferns, with emphasis on tropical America[3][6][7] Her work on spore surface patterns was enhanced by her incorporation of scanning electron microscope images. With Bernard Lugardon, an authority on the interior structure of fern spores using transmission electron microscope images, she published a complete survey of fern spore diversity in 1991.[8] Tryon also made significant contributions to the study of fern reproductive biology with her studies of apomixis in Pellaea.[9][10]

In 2002, her collection was donated to the Alice and Rolla Tryon Pteridophyte Library at the University of Vermont.[2]

In 2014, Tryonia was described as a new taenitidoid fern genus segregated from Jamesonia and Eriosorus (Pteridaceae). The name honored Tryon for her fern systematics and published taxonomic revisions of both Jamesonia sensu stricto and Eriosorus.[11]

Alice Tryon in Brazil

The standard author abbreviation A.F.Tryon is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.[12]

References

  1. ↑ Gastony, G. J.; Barrington, D.S.; Conant, D.S. (2009). "Obituary: Alice Faber Tryon (1920–2009)". American Fern Journal 99 (4): 231–235. doi:10.1640/0002-8444-99.4.231.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Gastony, Gerald J.; Barrington, David S.; Conant, David S. (2009-10-01). "Obituary: Alice Faber Tryon (1920–2009)". American Fern Journal 99 (4): 231–235. doi:10.1640/0002-8444-99.4.231. ISSN 0002-8444.
  3. 1 2 "Rolla Milton Tryon Jr.". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 2015-12-17.
  4. ↑ Gastony, Gerald J.; Barrington, David S.; Conant, David S. (2002). "Obituary: Rolla Milton Tryon, Jr. (1916–2001)". American Fern Journal 92 (1): 1–9. doi:10.1640/0002-8444(2002)092[0001:ormtj]2.0.co;2.
  5. ↑ Fernández, Helena; Kumar, Ashwani; Revilla, Angeles (2010-11-11). Working with Ferns: Issues and Applications. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 9781441971623.
  6. 1 2 "Obituary: Rolla Milton Tryon Jr. (1916-2001)". American Fern Journal. March 2002. Retrieved 2015-12-17.
  7. ↑ Tryon, R.M.; Tryon, A.F. (1982). Ferns and Allied Plants with Special Reference to Tropical America. New York: Springer-Verlag.
  8. ↑ Tryon, A.F.; Lugardon, B. (1991). Spores of the Pteridophyta. New York: Springer-Verlag.
  9. ↑ Tryon, A.F. (1968). "Comparisons of sexual and apogamous races in the fern genus Pellaea". Rhodora 70: 1–24.
  10. ↑ Tryon, A.F. (1972). "Spores, chromosomes and relations of the fern Pellaea atropurpurea". Rhodora 74: 220–241.
  11. ↑ Cochran, Alyssa T.; Prado, Jefferson; Schuettpelz, Eric (2014-02-26). "Tryonia, a new taenitidoid fern genus segregated from Jamesonia and Eriosorus (Pteridaceae)". PhytoKeys (35): 23–43. doi:10.3897/phytokeys.35.6886. ISSN 1314-2011. PMC 4023336. PMID 24843287.
  12. ↑ "Author Query for 'A.F.Tryon'". International Plant Names Index.
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