Howard Samuel Irwin Jr. (March 28, 1928 – January 23, 2019) was an American botanist and taxonomist who specialized in the genus Cassia and worked as an administrator at the New York Botanical Garden, Long Island University, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Early life and education Irwin was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1928. He began his education at Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, after which point he entered Hofstra College to pursue a career in music. He then transferred to the College of Puget Sound where he earned an undergraduate degree in biology with minors in music and history in 1950, and a subsequent degree in education. Irwin was then a Fulbright teacher of botany and zoology at Queen's College in British Guiana from 1952 until 1956. During that time he was a correspondent for Time magazine. In 1956 he began work on his PhD in taxonomic botany at the University of Texas, earning his degree in 1960. The New York Botanical Garden Irwin first began his association with the New York Botanical Garden while a graduate student at the University of Texas, Austin. During his time as a PhD student, Irwin traveled to Brazil and collected botanical specimens on behalf of NYBG, with the bulk of his collecting as a student taking place in 1958. Irwin's field notebooks from his time in Brazil (in total eight expeditions between the 1950s and the 1970s) are held by the Archives of the New York Botanical Garden, along with earlier notebooks documenting his time in Guyana and notebooks for an expedition to Suriname between 1960 and 1972. Irwin's vouchers were also deposited at NYBG and many can be viewed through the C. V. Starr Virtual Herbarium. Irwin was hired as a research associate at NYBG in 1960, promoted to associate curator in 1963, curator and administrator of the herbarium in 1966, head curator in 1968, executive director in 1971, and president in 1973, a position that he held until 1979 to embark on a sabbatical to pursue scientific research and writing projects. The tenure of his administration is remembered as the most difficult financial period for NYBG, and Irwin is credited with leading the organization during a very challenging time. Donald J. Bruckmann, chairman of the board of managers of the New York Botanical Garden, wrote of Irwin upon his departure: "Under his stewardship he brought the Garden to new eminence