Phyllis Draper

Phyllis Draper, born on August 22, 1907, was a paleoecologist most notable for developing the first pollen diagram in North America in 1928. She began her career as a graduate student under Paul Sears, the chair of the botany department at the University of Oklahoma. Sears gave his students the freedom to explore unique topics in order to design their own theses. Draper took advantage of this, and during her time working and studying under Sears, she published two major papers entitled, "A Demonstration of the Technique of Pollen Analysis" and "A Comparison of Pollen Spectra of Old and Young Bogs in the Erie Basin." She believed that the fossil pollen could be used to make inferences about the climates of specific regions. Her first pollen graph showed the pollen in New Haven Bog, which included pteridophyte spores, grasses, pines, oak, and larch, and unknown pollen. She later updated this pollen diagram and developed another one for the Curtis Bog. Draper graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1929 with an M.S. in botany. She died on August 8, 2000. The goal of this study was to understand the origins of both locations based on the pollen collected in the peat samples. The methods of this study were more descriptive, but had many parallels with her previous paper, including the separation of the peat and the boiling of the pollen samples in potassium hydroxide. The samples were collected by Paul Sears. With more extensive data, Phyllis Draper was able to expand her previous pollen diagram of New Haven Bog. The methods section of the paper explained that depth went as deep as 10 feet subsurface. The y-axis depicts this depth with 1 at the top and 10 at the bottom, indicating that top to bottom was read as the "newest to oldest" sedimentation. This is the typical layout for pollen diagrams today. Across the x-axis was the percentage of each pollen type. Draper now had data for more species and was able to find a forest succession pattern present in the New Haven Bog via the observed disappearance and reappearance of trees with a dominance of conifer species.

Later life After Draper graduated from the University of Oklahoma with an M.S. in botany, she was featured in an alumni news magazine and was recognized for becoming a teacher. She became a botany instructor at the University of Tennessee where she studied atmospheric pollen and advised students.