John Maurice Tucker

John Maurice Tucker (January 7, 1916, Yamhill County, Oregon – July 5, 2008) was an American botanist, herbarium director, and leading expert on oak taxonomy.

At the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), he graduated in botany in 1940 with a bachelor's degree and in 1950 with a Ph.D. As a graduate student he was the botanist on the University of California's El Salvador Expedition, which lasted from December 1941 to May 1942. The dissertation "dealt with the evolution and relationships of scrub oak (Quercus dumosa) and related species, including hybridization between scrub oak and grey oak (Quercus turbinella), and the parentage of Alvord’s oak (Quercus × alvordiana). which he spent on sabbatical leave studying variation in hybrid oak populations in the region of the southern Rocky Mountains.

Dr. Tucker contributed taxonomic treatments of Quercus to several publications, including the current flora for California, The Jepson Manual, and he published widely on hybridization in oaks. Upon his retirement in 1986, the Botany Department Herbarium was renamed the J.M. Tucker Herbarium. He continued to study oaks in retirement and completed the treatment of the genus for the 2012 edition of The Jepson Manual, shortly before his death in July 2008. He was a mentor and advisor for not only botany students, but also some entomology students.

In 1942 in California, he married Katrine June Petersen (1918–1987). They had two sons and a daughter. Upon his death in 2008, John Maurice Tucker was survived by a daughter, a son, and a grandson.

Eponyms Quercus john-tuckeri Nixon & C.H.Mull.

Selected publications