Blomquist, Hugo Leander, 1885-1964.

Hugo Leander Blomquist was professor and chair of the Botany Department at Duke University from 1921-1957.

From the description of Hugo Leander Blomquist papers, 1927-1961. (Duke University Library). WorldCat record id: 163586840

Hugo Leander Blomquist was born in Sorsele, Sweden in 1888 and moved with his parents to Kulm, North Dakota in 1892. He grew up on the family farm and attended public schools in North Dakota before attending the University of Chicago, where he received his B.S. in 1916. He took two years off in the middle of his undergraduate career to serve as principal of a high school in Deering, ND. From 1917 to 1919 he served as musician first class in the U.S. Army overseas; after the war, he stayed in Paris to study biological chemistry at the Pasteur Institute. When he returned to the U.S., he enrolled in the graduate program in botany at the University of Chicago, and earned his Ph.D. in 1921.

Blomquist joined the faculty at Trinity College in 1921 in the Department of Biology, specializing in fungi, algae, vascular plants and bacteriology. In 1935, when the Biology Department split into divisions of zoology and botany, Blomquist became Chair of the Botany Department. He retired in 1957.

Among Blomquist's publications include A Guide to the Spring and Early Summer Flora of the Piedmont, North Carolina, Flowers of the South, Native and Exotic, The Grasses of North Carolina, Hepaticae of North Carolina, Ferns of North Carolina and Vascular Anatomy of Angiopteris Evecta .

From the guide to the Hugo Leander Blomquist papers, 1927-1961, (University Archives, Duke University)