Some of Wisconsin's Historical Botanists

Professor of physical and biological science, Northwestern College, Naperville, Illinois; an avid collector in the vicinity of that town, in Montana, Michigan, Ontario, and especially in the dune area of Northern Indiana and Illinois, in vast numbers and huge sets. His private herbarium, numbering some 50,000 mounted sheets by many collectors, and an equal or larger number of unmounted duplicates, was purchased in 1927, through efforts of Drs. Fassett and Davis, for the University of Wisconsin - Madison Herbarium.

Better known on his labels as L.S. Cheney, he was an enthusiastic collector of the Wisconsin River Valley and Lake Superior shores. He paddled around the state in a canoe while making  extensive collections of Wiscosin's flora. He was in charge of the herbarium from 1891-1903 

J.J. Davis was an authority on parasitic fungi and vascular flora of Wisconsin. He was the curator of the  University of Wisconsin - Madison Herbarium from 1911-1937. For several years he was a medical doctor, especially in Racine, Wisconsin.
 

I.A. Lapham was one of  the earliest collectors of Wisconsin plants especially from the Milwaukee area. He was also widely known as an author and naturalists. His plant collections now reside at the University of Wisconsin - Madison