Charles Christopher Parry
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
botanist and mountaineer
Mountaineering
Mountaineering or mountain climbing is the sport, hobby or profession of hiking, skiing, and climbing mountains. While mountaineering began as attempts to reach the highest point of unclimbed mountains it has branched into specialisations that address different aspects of the mountain and consists...
.
Parry was born in Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, but moved to the United States with his parents in 1832, settling first in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. He studied medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and botany under John Torrey, Asa Gray
Asa Gray
-References:*Asa Gray. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.*Asa Gray. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.*Asa Gray. Plant Sciences. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2001....
and George Engelmann
George Engelmann
George Engelmann, also known as Georg Engelmann, was a German-American botanist. He was instrumental in describing the flora of the west of North America, then very poorly-known; he was particularly active in the Rocky Mountains and northern Mexico.-Origins:George Engelmann was born in Frankfurt...
.
He moved to Davenport, Iowa
Davenport, Iowa
Davenport is a city located along the Mississippi River in Scott County, Iowa, United States. Davenport is the county seat of and largest city in Scott County. Davenport was founded on May 14, 1836 by Antoine LeClaire and was named for his friend, George Davenport, a colonel during the Black Hawk...
in 1846 where he practiced as a doctor for a short time before joining the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey
United States and Mexican Boundary Survey
The United States and Mexican Boundary Survey set the boundary between the United States and Mexico according to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War. The results of the survey were published in a three-volume work, Report on the United States and Mexican boundary...
(1848–1855) as surgeon
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
and botanist. He made extensive plant collections along the U.S.-Mexico border in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, and later in Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
and other western states, many of which proved to be new species.
Important plants he discovered include the Torrey Pine
Torrey Pine
The Torrey Pine, Pinus torreyana, is the rarest pine species in the United States, an endangered species growing only in San Diego County and on one of the Channel Islands, endemic to the coastal sage and chaparral ecoregion in the U.S...
and Engelmann Spruce
Engelmann Spruce
Picea engelmannii is a species of spruce native to western North America, from central British Columbia and southwest Alberta, southwest to northern California and southeast to Arizona and New Mexico; there are also two isolated populations in northern Mexico...
, which he named in honour of his mentors. Several plants are also named after him, including the Parry Pinyon
Parry Pinyon
Pinus quadrifolia, the Parry Pinyon, is a pine in the pinyon pine group, native to southernmost California in the United States and northern Baja California in Mexico, from 33° 30' N south to 30° 30' N. It occurs at moderate altitudes from to , rarely as low as and as high as...
, Parry's Lily
Lilium parryi
Lilium parryi is a rare species of lily known by the common names lemon lily and Parry's lily. It is native to the south-western United States and northern Mexico where it is a rare sighting in moist areas in mountain habitat. In California it is currently known from the San Bernardino and San...
and Parry's Penstemon.
Parry made the first barometric measurements of the heights of many of Colorado's mountains. Although he did not reach the summit, he estimated the height of Longs Peak
Longs Peak
Longs Peak is one of the 53 mountains with summits over 14,000 feet in Colorado. It can be prominently seen from Longmont, Colorado, as well as from the rest of the Colorado Front Range. It is named after Major Stephen Long, who explored the area in the 1820s...
, and he was the first to climb and measure Grays Peak
Grays Peak
Grays Peak is the highest mountain in the Front Range of the Southern Rocky Mountains in the U.S. State of Colorado. It is one of 54 fourteeners in Colorado. Its nearest major city is Denver. The first man to ascend Grays Peak, botanist Charles C. Parry, named the peak for his botanist...
. Parry Peak
Parry Peak
Parry Peak is a mountain in the Rocky Mountains, about west of Denver, Colorado. The name honors Charles Christopher Parry, a botanist who made extensive studies of the Colorado mountain flora in the 1860s...
(4,082 m / 13,391 feet) in Colorado is also named after him.
His archive is held at Iowa State University
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
.
External links
- Iowa State University: Parry archives
- Eastern Sierra Native Plants biography
- Charles Christopher Parry - King of Colorado Botany (ISBN 0-87081-431-1 University Press of Colorado)
- Torrey Pines Reserve bio
- Parry Peak