Frederick Orpen BowerBorn 4 Nov 1855; died 11 Apr 1948 at age 92.English botanist whose study of primitive land plants, especially the ferns, contributed greatly to a modern emphasis on the study of the origins and evolutionary development of these plants. He is best known for his interpolation theory of the evolutionary development of the vegetative, or asexual, sporophyte. From his many years studying liverworts, mosses, and ferns Bower concluded that they had evolved from algal ancestors. He authored Origin of a Land Flora (1908), Ferns (1923-28), Primitive Land Plants (1935). |