John Merle Coulter

John Merle Coulter, Ph. D. (20 November 1851-1928) was an American botanist and educator, brother of Stanley Coulter, born at Ningpo, China. He received his education at Hanover College in Indiana. He served in the Rocky Mountains for two years (1872-73) as botanist to the United States Geological Survey. He became professor of natural science at Hanover College, professor of biology at Wabash College (1879), president of Indiana University from 1891 to 1893, and from 1893 to 1896 he presided over Lake Forest University. In 1896 he became head of the department of botany at the University of Chicago. In 1875 he founded Botanical Gazette and thereafter continued to be its editor.

His works include:

• Manual of Rocky Mountain Botany (1885; revised, 1909)
• Manual of Texan Botany (1892-93)
• Plant Relations (1899; third revision, 1910)
• Plant Structures (1899; second edition, 1904)
• Morphology of Spermatophytes (1901)
• Morphology of Angiosperms (1903), with C. J. Chamberlain
• Plant Studies (1902; revised 1905)
• A Text-Book of Botany for Colleges and Universities(two volumes, 1910-11)
• Elementary Studies in Botany (1913)
• Plant Breeding (1914)