Harlan P. Banks
Cornell University
September 1, 1913 - November 22, 1998
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Scientific Discipline: Plant Biology Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1980)
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Paleobotanist Harlan P. Banks’ studies initiated a resurgence of interest in Devonian and Siluro-Devonian plant life. He described the origins of vascular plants and the worldwide transition from aquatic to terrestrial plant life. Banks’ research focused primarily on how and why evolutionary processes in the plant world were delayed for hundreds of millions of years before definitive evidence of land flora appeared in fossil records. In 1968, Banks published “The Early History of Land Plants,” which organized the vastly disordered information from decades of studies on Devonian plants. The article included a synthesis of the classification of early land plants, laying the foundation for the work of paleobotanists that followed Banks. He conducted a study with his colleagues, Leclercq and Hueber, in 1975 that presented one of the most classic and detailed accounts of a primitive vascular plant ever published.
Banks received his BS degree from Dartmouth College in 1934 and his PhD from Cornell University in 1940. After earning his doctorate, he taught biology at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada from 1940 to 1947. He returned to America to become an assistant professor of botany at the University of Minnesota. In 1949, Banks returned to his alma mater as an associate professor of botany at its N.Y.S. College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. The following year he was promoted to full professor and he kept the position until his retirement in 1978. From 1952 to 1961, he served as the head of the Department of Botany. Banks was affiliated with several botanical organizations, including the Botanical Society of America (president in 1969), the International Society of Plant Morphologists, the International Organization of Paleobotany (president from 1969 to 1975), and the Paleontological Society. In 1987, the Paleontological Society awarded Banks the Gold Medal for advancing paleontological knowledge.
