Charlotte M. Taylor Explained

Charlotte M. Taylor
Honorific Suffix:PhD
Birth Date:1955[1]
Birth Place:Michigan
Other Names:Charlotte Morley Taylor
Nationality:American
Fields:Botany, Systematics, Floristics, Taxonomy
Workplaces:Missouri Botanical Garden, University of Missouri–St. Louis, National Tropical Botanical Garden, University of Puerto Rico in San Juan
Education:University of Michigan, Duke University
Academic Advisors:Robert Lynch Wilbur
Thesis1 Title:Ph.D.: "Revision of Palicourea (Rubiaceae) in Mexico and Central America"[2]
Thesis2 Title:M.S.: "A revision of the genus Monnina (Polygalaceae) in Central America"[3]
Author Abbrev Bot:C.M. Taylor

Dr. Charlotte M. Taylor is a botanist and professor specialising in taxonomy and conservation. She works with the large plant family Rubiaceae, particularly found in the American tropics and in the tribes Palicoureeae and Psychotrieae. This plant family is an economically important group, as it includes plant species used to make coffee and quinine. Taylor also conducts work related to the floristics of Rubiaceae and morphological radiations of the group. Taylor has collected plant samples from many countries across the globe, including Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, and the United States of America, and has named many new species known to science from these regions. As of 2023, Taylor has authored 500 land plant species' names, the third-highest number of such names authored by any female scientist.[4] [5]

Education

Taylor holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan (1978), and an M.S. (1982) and Ph.D. (1987) from Duke University.

Career

In addition to the work mentioned below, Taylor has identified many herbarium specimens at the Missouri Botanical Garden and at other institutions throughout the world.

Floras

Taylor has spent much of her career authoring floras (full treatments and catalogues), and she has contributed to several large regional floras, including:

Overview of taxonomic work

Taylor is an active and prolific scholar. She is one of the top 10 women to have described or named land plant species. Within the Rubiaceae group, her main focuses are the species in the neotropical genera Palicourea, Notopleura, Carapichea, Faramea, and Coussarea, the species of the pantropical genus Psychotria, and the species of the Madagascar genus Gaertnera.[6] In addition to the numerous plants that she has named, Taylor has also conducted taxonomic work and transferred species names between different genera. For this reason, she is linked as an author to 1,091 plant species name citation records through the International Plant Names Index (IPNI). A full list of all 1,091 records can be viewed here.

Rubiaceae projects

In addition to her taxonomic work with this family, Taylor maintains two websites related Rubiaceae to the Missouri Botanical Garden website. The Selected Rubiaceae Tribes and Genera website includes taxonomic parts of previously published works related to the family. The content of the website is also incorporated in Tropicos, the online database of taxonomic information about plants maintained and populated by the Missouri Botanical Garden and its scientific staff.

Personal life

Taylor attributes her interest in plants to her parents, who were "serious bird watchers." However, she opted to study plants instead of birds because it afforded her more freedom to keep to her own research schedule.

Taylor is married to Roy E. Gereau,[7] an Assistant Curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Gereau's research interests include plant nomenclature, floristics and phytogeography of eastern Africa, plant conservation assessment in eastern Africa and in Africa generally, classification and identification of East African flowering plant genera, and taxonomy and systematics of African Sapindaceae.[8] Taylor and Gereau have published together on botanical topics.

New species described

As of 2015, Taylor had named 278 plant taxa new to science and authored a total of 771 names. This number has increased to 500 by 2023. She has also assigned new names to existing taxa and created new name combinations. The first species that Taylor described was Palicourea spathacea. A combination is a previously published name that is transferred to another name, for example a species transferred to a different genus, or a variety raised to a species, or a subgenus changed to a section, but it keeps the same name. A full list of Taylor's authored names can be viewed through the Tropicos database.[9]

Works

Selected publications on Palicourea taxonomy

Selected Publications on Genera of Palicoureeae and Psychotrieae

Selected flora treatments

Selected floristic catalogues

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries. kiki.huh.harvard.edu. 3 November 2017. en.
  2. Book: Taylor . Charlotte M. (Charlotte Morley) . Revision of Palicourea (Rubiaceae) in Mexico and Central America . 1989 . American Society of Plant Taxonomists . 978-0912861265 . 10 October 2018.
  3. Book: Taylor . Charlotte M. (Charlotte Morley) . A revision of the genus Monnina (Polygalaceae) in Central America . 1981 . 10 October 2018.
  4. Lindon. Heather L.. Gardiner. Lauren M.. Brady. Abigail. Vorontsova. Maria S.. Maria Vorontsova (botanist). Fewer than three percent of land plant species named by women: Author gender over 260 years. Taxon. 5 May 2015. 64. 2. 209–215. 10.12705/642.4.
  5. Web site: mbgadmin . 2023-12-18 . Living Legend: Garden Scientist Charlotte Taylor has described more new plant species than any woman alive . 2023-12-21 . Discover + Share . en-US.
  6. Web site: Taylor, Charlotte M. . Missouri Botanical Garden . 10 October 2018.
  7. Web site: A Conversation with Dr. Charlotte Taylor . Missouri Botanical Garden . 10 October 2018.
  8. Web site: Gereau, Roy E. . Missouri Botanical Garden . 10 October 2018.
  9. Web site: Tropicos - Name Search. tropicos.org. 8 November 2017.

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