in botany at Washington University. Between 1934 and 1938 he worked predominantly on Tradescantia. He was the first to introduce the term introgressive hybridization. In 1941 Anderson was invited to present the Jesup Lectures at Columbia University with Ernst Mayr, discussing the role of genetics on plant systematics. However, unlike the other presenters of the Jesup Lectures, whose writings would be regarded as the foundation of the modern evolutionary synthesis, Anderson never completed his accompanying manuscript for Systematics and the origin of species. Instead he turned his attention to Zea mays emphasizing the need to study both wild and cultivated plants. Anderson published Introgressive Hybridization in 1949, describing gene transfer between hybridizing forms, and the role of introgression in speciation. He also wrote the popular science book Plants, Man, and Life (1952), described by one reviewer as "a book every botanist and anthropologist should read". Anderson was briefly director of the Missouri Gardens in 1954, but returned to teaching in 1957. He retired officially in 1967. Anderson was a close colleague and friend of Esther Lederberg. They frequented the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory symposia. Anderson was a close friend of many other colleagues, such as J. B. S. Haldane and G. Ledyard Stebbins. References Further reading 20th-century American botanists American geneticists American Quakers 1897 births 1969 deaths Washington University in St. Louis faculty Michigan State University alumni Bussey Institution alumni Arnold Arboretum Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Missouri Botanical Garden directors Modern synthesis (20th century) American nonprofit executives People from Forestville, New York Scientists from New York (state)