| Louis Cutter Wheeler | |
| Birth Date: | 2 August 1910 |
| Birth Place: | La Verne, California |
| Nationality: | American |
| Fields: | Botany |
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| Author Abbrev Bot: | L.C.Wheeler |
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Louis Cutter Wheeler (1910–1980) was an American botanist and professor of botany with an international reputation for his research on Euphorbiaceae.[1]
Louis Cutter Wheeler's father was a citrus farmer in California, where the summer appearance of the "intricate inflorescence" of Euphorbia albomarginata (rattlesnake weed) aroused Louis's interest in botany.[2] After attending La Verne Junior College, he studied botany from 1931 to 1933 at UCLA under Carl Epling and from 1933 to 1934 at Claremont University College under Philip A. Munz. After graduating in 1934 with a master's degree, Wheeler worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the Siskiyou Mountains and in the Angeles National Forest within the San Gabriel Mountains. From 1936 to 1939 he was a graduate student at Harvard University. He was a co-collector with Bernice Giduz Schubert.[1]
From 1939 to 1945 Wheeler was a botany instructor and research assistant at several different universities. At the University of Southern California, he became an assistant professor in 1945 and was eventually promoted to associate professor and then full professor, retiring as professor emeritus in 1975.[1]
The Flora of Ceylon Project was supported by the Smithsonian Institution, the Ceylon Department of Agriculture, and the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya.[3] Funded by the Project, Wheeler collected in the Puttalam District (1969), Anuradhapura District (1971), and Kandy District (1977).[4]
Louis Cutter Wheeler an older brother, Willis Hayes (1906–1996), and 4 sisters, Hazel Ruth (1908–2013), Florence Elizabeth (1914–1920), Muriel Flora (1917–2006), and Janet Lucile (1919–2016). Their father was born in Kansas and arrived in California around 1903 from Colorado. Their mother was born in Massachusetts and belonged to New England's Cutter family,[2] whose history was written by William Richard Cutter. Louis Cutter Wheeler married Leota May Brice (1909–1995) in 1935. They had two daughters.[1] Willis Hayes Wheeler became a plant pathologist and botanist, working for the USDA.[5]