Biography

Forbes was born in Boylston, Massachusetts

Boylston, Massachusetts

Boylston is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 4,355 at the 2010 census.-History:Boylston was first settled by Europeans around 1706 in the north part of the present-day town, most notably by the Sawyer family...

 on 24 September 1883. When he was at the University of California

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 he worked as a cadet for the emergency service

Emergency service

Emergency services are organizations which ensure public safety and health by addressing different emergencies. Some agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies whilst others deal with ad hoc emergencies as part of their normal responsibilities...

 during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

1906 San Francisco earthquake

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...

. From 1908 to 1920 he was curator of Botany at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu. During that time he made several expeditions to the bogs, cliffs, mountain ranges and valleys in the Hawaiian islands and collected many plant taxa which were new to science. In 1919 he was the first botanist who explored the flora of the Haleakalā

Haleakala

Haleakalā , or the East Maui Volcano, is a massive shield volcano that forms more than 75% of the Hawaiian Island of Maui. The western 25% of the island is formed by the West Maui Mountains.- History :...

 bog in eastern Maui

Maui

The island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is part of the state of Hawaii and is the largest of Maui County's four islands, bigger than Lānai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai. In 2010, Maui had a population of 144,444,...

. Among the plants which were scientifically described by Forbes are several which are either very rare or even extinct, including Cyanea parvifolia, Hibiscadelphus bombycinus

Hibiscadelphus bombycinus

The Kawaihae Hibiscadelphus was a species of flowering plant in the Malvaceae family. It was found only in Hawaii. It has not been collected since 1868.-Source:...

and Clermontia tuberculata. Species such as Pipturus forbesii and Cheirodendron forbesii were named in his honour. Charles Noyes Forbes died at age 36 on 10 August 1920 in Honolulu.