Oakes Ames (botanist)

Oakes Ames (September 26, 1874 – April 28, 1950) was an American orchidologist and professor of botany at Harvard University. He is known for creating an extensive orchid herbarium, which was eventually incorporated into the Harvard University Herbaria.

Quotes

• In southern Florida the orchid flora is more or less confined to the peculiar hammock formations in the Everglades and in the pine woods. In these the species are found on the trees and on the ground, not infrequently around or withing the openings of lime-sinks. Each hammock is apt to have a distinctive flora, and when an orchid is common in one hammock, it may be rare in, or absent from, the next.
  • A Contribution to Our Knowledge of the Orchid Flora of Southern Florida. E. W. Wheeler. 1904. pp. 3–4. 

• The orchid flora of the Philippine Archipelago is closely allied to that of Celebs, Java, and the Malay Peninsula. There are no endemic genera. The number of endemic species, on the contrary, is very large, at least six-sevenths of the known ones having been found nowhere else. It is safe to say that approximately ninety per cent of the orchid flora is endemic.
  • "Preface". Orchidaceæ: The genera and species of Philippine orchids. Houghton, Mifflin. 1915. p. xii. 

Quotes about Ames

• Professor Ames' lineage was one of power and wealth.
  • Donovan S. Correll in: (1980). "Reviewed work: Oakes Ames. Jottings of a Harvard Botanist., Pauline Ames Plimpton, George Plimpton". Brittonia 32 (2): 276–278. DOI:10.2307/2806802.

• He provides fascinating inside glimpses of Harvard biology in the age of the Olympians—East, Wheeler, Jeffrey, Sargent, Thaxter, Farlow, Weston, Bailey, and "Chinese" Wilson.
  • Oswald Tippo: (1982). "Reviewed work: Oakes Ames, Jottings of a Harvard Botanist, 1874-1950, Pauline Ames Plimpton". Economic Botany 36 (4): 447–449. DOI:10.1007/BF02862705.