Olga Lakela

Olga Korhonen Lakela (1890-1980) was a Finnish-American botanist and educator born in Finland who emigrated to the United States in 1906 and settled in northeastern Minnesota as a child.[1][2][3] She worked as a schoolteacher in North Dakota and Minnesota, founded the Olga Lakela Herbarium at the University of Minnesota Duluth, served as the first head of its Biology Department, and specialized in plants like Heuchera and Tiarella.[1][2][5] Lakela authored 'A Flora of Northeastern Minnesota' in 1965, a definitive reference on the region's flora.[4][5]