Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists and Ecologists:
Chrono-Biographical Sketches

Spalding, Volney Morgan (United States 1849-1918)
botany

Spalding's life proceeded in two phases. In the first he was a highly successful educator: his research focused on forests, but he was also an effective teacher and advocate for conservation efforts by the government. But then his health failed, and he was forced to move to Arizona, where he became involved in phytogeographical studies of desert plants. Distribution and Movements of Desert Plants is a classic, but he was unfortunately unable to continue this line of work when at the age of sixty his rheumatism condition became so severe that he had to be institutionalized.

--born in East Bloomfield, New York, on 29 January 1849.
--1873: B.A., University of Michigan
--1873-1876: high school principal in Battle Creek and Flint, Michigan
--1876-1879: instructor in zoology and biology, University of Michigan
--1879-1881: assistant professor of botany, University of Michigan
--1881-1886: acting professor of botany, University of Michigan
--1886-1904: professor of botany, University of Michigan
--1894: Ph.D, Botanical Institute of Leipzig
--1897-1898: president, Michigan Academy of Sciences
--1905: joins the staff of the Desert Botanical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
--1909: publishes his Distribution and Movements of Desert Plants; retires
--dies at Loma Linda, California, on 12 November 1918.

--National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 10 (1909).
--Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 17 (1935).
--Taxonomic Literature, Vol. 5 (1985).
--Plant World, Vol. 22 (1919): 14-18.