Wilfred Borden Schofield

Wilfred "Wilf" Borden Schofield (Botanist) (19 July 1927 – 5 November 2008) was a Canadian botanist, specializing in mosses and liverworts. He was considered by many "the foremost bryologist in Canada".

Biography Wilfred B. Schofield, who had two brothers and a sister, was born in Brooklyn Corner, Kings County, Nova Scotia and grew up in Nova Scotia. He received in 1950 a B.A. from Acadia University, where he was influenced by E. Chalmers Smith (1912–1992) and John S. Erskine (1900–1981). In 1951 Schofield obtained a Class A teacher's license from Nova Scotia Normal College. From 1951 to 1954 he was a high school geology teacher in Nova Scotia. He became in 1954 a graduate student at Stanford University, where he met Margaret "Peggy" Irene Bledsoe (1931–2005). In 1956 they both received their M.A.s (he in botany and she in music) and married in the autumn of that year. After their honeymoon, the newlyweds moved to Nova Scotia, where Wilfred Schofield spent the winter teaching high school. The couple spent the summer of 1957 doing field work in the Yukon and then in the autumn moved to North Carolina.

From 1967 to 1969 he was the president of the Sullivant Moss Society, which was renamed in 1970 the American Bryological and Lichenological Society. For his textbook Introduction to Bryology (Macmillan, 1985), the Canadian Botanical Association awarded him the George Lawson Medal for 1986.

He collected plants not only in Canada and the mainland USA, but also in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Japan, and Taiwan. In the last 15 years of his life, he spent summers collecting in the Aleutian Islands. Upon his death he was survived by three daughters, and four grandchildren.

Eponymy Genera (Cephaloziaceae) Schofieldia (Hylocomiaceae) Schofieldiella

Species (Andreaeaceae) Andreaea schofieldiana B.M.Murray (Symphyodontaceae) Chaetomitrium schofieldii B.Tan & H.Rob. (Hypnaceae) Ctenidium schofieldii H.Nishim. (Cladoniaceae) Cladonia schofieldii Ahti & Brodo (Plagiochilaceae) Plagiochila schofieldiana Inoue (Sphagnaceae) Sphagnum wilfii H.A.Crum (Plagiotheciaceae) Plagiothecium schofieldii G.J.Wolski & W.R.Buck (Verrucariaceae) Verrucaria schofieldii

Selected publications Articles

2004

Books (1st edition, 1969)