Lucy Braun

Lucy Braun (1889-1971), American botanist and ecologist, whose commitment to conservation led to the eventual preservation of over 10,000 acres in Ohio. Much of this land was carefully studied by Braun and her students, and the plant life cataloged for posterity. Braun’s devotion to land preservation was one of the pivotal influences in the developing field of ecology. Her extensive research on plants was a major impetus in establishing plant ecology as an academic discipline.

Braun was born in Cincinnati. As a child, Braun and her sister, Annette, were encouraged to learn the names of wildflowers in the woods around the city. This early exposure to the study of plants inspired both Braun sisters to pursue careers in nature. Annette Braun became an entomologist specializing in moths, while Lucy studied botany. She attended the University of Cincinnati, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1910, a master’s degree in geology in 1912, and a Ph.D. degree in botany in 1914.

Lucy Braun spent her entire academic career at the University of Cincinnati, starting as an assistant in geology (1910-1913) and progressing to associate professor in botany (1927-1946). She was made a full professor in plant ecology in 1946. She held the latter position for only two years, retiring early so she could devote the remainder of her career to research involving field studies. After 1925, in fact, Braun logged about 105,000 km (about 65,000 mi) exploring the deciduous forests of the Eastern United States. Her sister accompanied Lucy on her travels; Annette studied moths while Lucy observed plants.

Braun produced over 180 works. An early study compared the plant life of the Cincinnati area in the 1920s and 1930s to plant life in the same area 100 years earlier. This work provided a model for analyzing the changes in a plant system over a specific time period, and was one of the first such studies in the United States. From 1943 to 1967 Braun published several noteworthy books. An Annotated Catalog of the Spermatophytes of Kentucky appeared in 1943, and Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America was published in 1950. The latter work described in detail the trees and shrubs in the deciduous forests of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. It is still used for reference today. The Woody Plants of Ohio: Trees, Shrubs, and Weedy Climbers, Native, Naturalized, and Escaped; A Contribution Toward the Vascular Flora of Ohio (1961) and The Monocotyledoneae: Cat-tails to Orchids (1967) were published toward the end of her career. They were written as part of a project, undertaken by the Ohio Flora Committee of the Ohio Academy of Science, to do a comprehensive study of the vascular flora of Ohio. Braun also edited Wildflower, the journal of the Cincinnati chapter of the Wildflower Preservation Society, which she founded.

In 1933 the Ohio Academy of Science elected Braun its first woman president. The Ecological Society of America repeated the honor in 1950, making Braun its first woman president. Many other awards followed. The state of Ohio continues to add to the land trust first encouraged by Braun, thanks to money from the Dr. Lucy Braun Memorial Fund, which was established by the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History. Nine plant species from Kentucky are also named after Braun.