Robert Folger Thorne

Robert F. Thorne (July 13, 1920 – March 24, 2015) was an American botanist. He was taxonomist and curator emeritus at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and professor emeritus at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. His research has contributed to the understanding of the evolution of flowering plants.

Life Thorne was born on July 13, 1920, in Spring Lake, New Jersey. He was educated through high school in Gulfport and St. Petersburg, Florida. He graduated summa cum laude in 1941 with a major in botany from Dartmouth College and earned a M.S. degree in economic botany in 1942 at Cornell University. He spent about three years serving in the armed forces during World War II, first at Hondo Navigation School, Texas, graduating as a second lieutenant in aerial navigation in 1943. Then, after 7 months in Italy in 1944 as a B-24 bomber navigator with 40 missions over eastern and southern Europe, he served as an instructor and as an examinations officer at Ellington Field, Texas, from 1944 to 1945.

After serving in the armed forces, he earned his Ph.D. in economic botany at Cornell University in 1949, studying under professors Walter Muenscher and Arthur Eames.

Work

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden Thorne was the assistant professor of botany at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, from 1949 to 1953, associate professor from 1954 to 1960, and professor from 1961 to 1962. He was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota, Lake Itasca Biological Station in the summer of 1962 before moving to California, where he became taxonomist and curator for Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and professor for Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University) in Claremont, California. He became taxonomist and curator emeritus as well as professor emeritus at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and Claremont Graduate School in 1987. He also became curator emeritus of the Pomona College Herbarium in Claremont, California, from 1990 to the present.

1994. Krantz, T. P. and R. F. Thorne. An annotated flora of the vascular plants of the San Bernardino Mountains. (Appendix I: Krantz. A phytogeography of the San Bernardino Mountains, San Bernardino County, California. Ph.D. Thesis, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley. 1994) 1995. Thorne, R. F. Vascular plants of Fort DeSoto Park, Pinellas County, Florida. Selbyana 16(1): 100–109. 1999. Thorne, R. F. Eastern Asia as a living museum for archaic angiosperms and other seed plants. Taiwania 44(4): 413–422. 2000. Thorne, R. F. The classification and geography of the monocotyledon subclasses Alismatidae, Liliidae and Commelinidae, pp. 75–124. In B. Nordenstam, G. E-Ghazaly, and M. Kassas [eds.], Plant Systematics for the 21st Century. Portland Press, London, UK. 2001. Thorne, R. F. The classification and geography of the flowering plants: dicotyledons of the class Angiospermae (subclasses Magnoliidae, Ranunculidae, Caryophyllidae, Dilleniidae, Rosidae, Asteridae, and Lamiidae). Botanical Revue 66(4): 44l–647. 2002. Thorne, R. F. How many species of seed plants are there? Taxon 51: 511–512. 2006. Thorne, R. F. A bibliography of floristics in southern California: addendum number 2A. Crossosoma 31(2), Fall–Winter 2005 (issued 2006).

2007. Thorne, R. F. et al. Transmontane coniferous vegetation, pp. 575–586. In M. G. Barbour. T. Keeler.-Wolf and A. A. Schoenherr [eds.], Terrestrial Vegetation of California, 3rd ed., University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. 2010. Thorne, R. F, R. V. Moran and R. A. Minnich. 2010. Vascular plants of the high Sierra San Pedro Mártir, Baja California, Mexico: an annotated checklist. Aliso (28): 1–57.