Sereno Watson

Sereno Watson FAAAS, NAS (December 1, 1826 – March 9, 1892) was an American botanist.

Sereno Watson FAAAS, NAS
Born	December 1, 1826 East Windsor Hill, Connecticut
Died	March 9, 1892(1892-03-09) (aged 65) Cambridge, Massachusetts
Alma mater	Yale University
Occupation	Botanist
Known for	Gray Herbarium curator
Botanist author abbreviation	S.Watson

Life

Watson was born on December 1, 1826, in East Windsor Hill, Connecticut.

Graduating from Yale in 1847 in biology, he drifted through various occupations until, in California, he joined the Clarence King Expedition and eventually became its expedition botanist.

Appointed by Asa Gray as assistant in the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University in 1873, he later became its curator, a position he maintained until his death.^[1] Watson was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1874,^[2] and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1889.^[3]

He died on March 9, 1892, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The standard author abbreviation S.Watson is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.^[4]

Works

• Botany, in Report of the geological exploration of the 40th parallel made ... by Clarence King, 1871
• Watson, Sereno (1879). "Revision of the North American Liliaceae: Descriptions of Some New Species of North American Plants". Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. XIV: 213–312. doi:10.2307/25138538. JSTOR 25138538. Retrieved January 6, 2014.
• Watson, Sereno, ed. (1880). Botany of California, Vol. 2. Geological Survey of California. Vol. v.2. Cambridge, Mass: John Wilson and Son. Retrieved February 10, 2025.
• Publications by and about S. Watson on WorldCat