H.D. Harrington (1903–1981)

[excerpted from Colorado State University website]
Harrington was offered a botany position at Colorado State University (CSU) to teach taxonomy courses. Harrington left Fort Collins a few years later to teach botany and zoology at Chicago Teacher's College but returned to CSU in 1943 having been offered the position of curator of the herbarium and professor of botany. Harrington dutifully served as the curator of the herbarium for the next 25 years.

When Harrington returned to CSU, he was commissioned to produce a modern flora for the state of Colorado. He spent many years piecing it together and collecting specimens from all over the state. Discovering many new species to include in the flora and several new species known to science, he made over 10,000 collections from every corner of Colorado. The CSU Herbarium currently houses approximately 6,200 specimens collected by Harrington.

Harrington published the Manual of the Plants of Colorado in 1954 after many years of study. This work is still highly regarded as an authority on the flora of Colorado, and at the time of publication approximately 1 out of every 30 species listed in the Manual constituted a new record for the state.