Sargent, Charles Sprague

Founding director of the Arnold Arboretum, with which he was associated for 54 years and which by the time of his death had become one of the great plant-study resources in North America. He was a plant explorer as well as an authority on native trees (and his advocacy for the protection of forest land shaped federal policy at the end of the 19th century). Many plants are named in his honor, among them the Sargent crab apple, Malus sargentii; the Sargent cherry, Prunus sargentii; and the Sargent juniper, Juniperus sargentii.