Sherwin Carlquist

Sherwin Carlquist (1930–2021) was a pioneering American botanist renowned for his groundbreaking contributions to plant anatomy, wood evolution, island biogeography, and plant systematics. He held faculty positions at institutions including Pomona College, Claremont Graduate University, California Botanic Garden, and UCSB, publishing over 340 peer-reviewed papers and seminal books on island biology and botany during a career spanning more than six decades. An avid field researcher, artist, and Guggenheim Fellow, he described 51 new taxa and traveled worldwide on NSF grants.