Sereno Watson

Sereno Watson was born on December 1, 1826, and was raised on a farm in Connecticut. He graduated from Yale in 1847 and pursued a variety of occupations, including teaching school, studying medicine, working in his brother's insurance company, doing editorial work for Dr. Henry Barnard. He returned to Yale and studied chemistry and mineralogy at the Sheffield Scientific School from 1866 to 1867.

He went to California and, after a while, joined Clarence King's Expedition, which was carrying out a geological survey of the 40th parallel. Watson started working without salary and eventually came to be appointed the expedition botanist, after William Whitman Bailey left due to illness. Although he had no prior botanical training, Watson wrote the Botany of the King Expedition (published 1871), working at New Haven under Daniel Cady Eaton and at Harvard under Asa Gray. Watson's botanical report is considered among the best of the survey expedition reports, owing in part to the careful notes on habitat made by Watson in the field.

Asa Gray was much impressed with his work, and in 1873 appointed Watson an assistant in the Gray Herbarium. Watson's term as curator lasted until his death in 1892; he was also instructor in phytogeography from 1881 to 1884.

After getting settled at Harvard, Watson was invited by W. H Brewer to work on the Botany of California. The first volume, by Brewer, Gray and Watson, was published in 1876; the second volume, by Watson alone, was published in 1880. Watson spent much time preparing a Bibliographical Index to North American Botany, but only the first part -- Polypetalae -- was published, in 1878. Watson took on the completion of the Manual of the Mosses of North America, begun by Thomas Potts James and Leo Lesquereux, after James' death in 1882. The Manual appeared in 1884. With John M. Coulter, he published in 1889. At the time of his death, Watson was working on a continuation of Gray's Synoptical Flora of North America. Watson also wrote a number of contributions which were published in the proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Watson made three trips after the King Expedition. In 1880 he traveled to the Northwestern U.S. in connection with the Tenth Census forest survey. He began a botanical tour of Guatemala in 1885 but had to stop due to illness. In 1886 he traveled to Europe with George Goodale.

Watson was a shy person, known for his careful attention to detail. He is not considered a great botanical innovator.

--from the finding aid to Watson's papers at Harvard.