Charlotte Nichols Saunders Horner, trailblazing botanist

Abstract

While little known within today’s botanical community, Charlotte Nichols Saunders Horner (July 5, 1823 - July 18, 1906) was among the most highly accomplished American botanists of her time. Active during a fertile period for botany, this adventurous woman rose to become an expert on the plants of the Northeast United States and Colorado. She was one of only a handful of women in the Northeast United States to publish in scientific journals during this period, the first woman to give a scientific talk for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society which had been active for more than 50 years, and the first person to be awarded its silver medal for native plants. An active collector for longer than 30 years, more than 1300 of Horner’s herbarium specimens still exist and add value to more than a dozen scientific collections. Unusually for a woman of her time, she was paid for her expertise through her highly successful academic botanical supply business. Charlotte Horner’s contributions continue to influence science at an international scale.