Henry Ashby Rankin Papers, 1920-1949

ArchivalResource

Henry Ashby Rankin Papers, 1920-1949

Henry Ashby Rankin Papers, 1920-1949

http://www2.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/r/Rankin,Henry_Ashby.html

Henry Ashby Rankin was born in Fayetteville, N.C., and spent most of his life as the owner of a sawmill and plywood business in Cumberland County, N.C. After retirement, he ran a nursery that specialized in native plants of North Carolina. He was an avid amateur botanist and corresponded regularly with members of the botanical community, with whom he exchanged specimens. Two of his botanical achievements were the discovery of a new species of and the re-discovery of a plant first collected and described by the French botanist Andre Michaux and then lost for 125 years. He was a long-time member of the Gray Memorial Botanical Association. He died in 1947. Gelsemium The collection contains correspondence, Rankin's writings and notes on plants, papers pertaining to Rankin's plant nursery, printed materials pertaining to flora, clippings of garden columns and other articles, and copies of the , 1933-1944. Correspondence is chiefly between Rankin and fellow botanists such as W. C. Coker, John K. Small, and William Lanier Hunt; his children; nursery owners with whom he did business; and others. Gray Memorial Botanical Association Bulletin

2000; 3.5

eng,

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection