Isabel Shipley Cunningham Collection on Howard Scott Gentry

Howard Scott Gentry (1903-1993) earned a bachelor's degree in vertebrate zoology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1931. In 1933, Gentry started plant expeditions in Sonora and Chihuahua states in Mexico. He published his first book, titled Rio Mayo Plants of Sonora-Chihuahua, in 1942. Gentry worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rubber Office from 1942 until 1945. During the next four years, he was a research botanist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1947, he completed his Ph.D. in botany from the University of Michigan. From 1950 to 1971, Gentry was a plant collector for the New Crops Research Branch, USDA, and led expeditions into Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Iran, and Mexico. In 1970, Gentry opened the Gentry Experimental Farm in Murrieta, California, and became a research botanist at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona, two years later. He became research director for the Desert Botanical Garden in 1985.