Margaret Hannah Fulford was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 14 June 1904, and died on 28 November 1999. She was an American botanist, bryologist whose research focused primarily on the taxonomy and systematics of liverworts, particularly those of Central and South America.
Margaret Fulford studied at the University of Cincinnati, where she obtained degrees in botany and education, followed by a master’s degree in botany. During her studies, she worked with botanist Emma Lucy Braun, with whom she participated in the establishment of the university’s herbarium in 1927. She subsequently pursued doctoral studies at Yale University under the supervision of hepaticologist A. W. Evans, receiving her Ph.D. in 1935. She returned to the University of Cincinnati, where she taught botany and continued her research. She served as curator of the university’s herbarium from 1927 until her retirement in 1974. The herbarium now bears her name.
Her research concentrated on the taxonomy of liverworts, especially leafy liverworts from tropical America. Her early publications included taxonomic revisions of several genera, notably Thysananthus (1941), Symbiezidium (1942) and Ceratolejeunea (1945). In 1946, she published a monograph of Bazzania in Central and South America, followed by additional studies of this genus and other groups of Neotropical liverworts.
Margaret Fulford’s principal publication was the Manual of the Leafy Hepaticae of Latin America, issued in four parts between 1963 and 1976 in the Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden. This extensive taxonomic treatment, comprising 535 pages and numerous illustrations prepared by M. Fulford herself. She also published floristic studies, including an account of the leafy liverworts of Pico del Oeste in Puerto Rico (1970). In collaboration with Aaron J. Sharp, she later published The Leafy Hepatics of Mexico: One Hundred and Twenty-Seven Years after C. M. Gottsche (1990).
Throughout her career, Fulford assembled a substantial collection of liverworts specimens. According to the University of Cincinnati herbarium, she collected more than 8,000 liverwort specimens and described approximately 130 species new to science. She also contributed to the training of bryologists, including Raymond E. Stotler and Barbara Crandall-Stotler, who subsequently pursued careers in hepaticology.
In 1958, M. Fulford became the first woman to be elected a Fellow of the Graduate School at the University of Cincinnati. She retired in 1974 after several decades of teaching, taxonomic research and herbarium management. Her scientific collections, illustrations and publications remain associated with the Margaret H. Fulford Herbarium at the University of Cincinnati.
University of Cincinnati. Dr. Margaret H. Fulford. Margaret H. Fulford Herbarium. Biographical notice.
Fulford, M. H. (1946). The Genus Bazzania in Central and South America. Annales Cryptogamici et Phytopathologici 3: 1–175.
Fulford, M. H. (1963–1976). Manual of the Leafy Hepaticae of Latin America. Parts I–IV. Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden 11: 1–535. Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Stotler, R. E. (1987). Margaret H. Fulford: A Tribute. The Bryologist 90(4): 285–286. JSTOR.
