Cornell Botany Head

Dr. Harlan P. Banks '34, a member of the Cornell University faculty since 1949, was recently appointed the new head of the Botany Department to succeed Dr. Lewis Knudson, who retired last July.

Following his graduation from Dartmouth, Dr. Banks taught botany at the College before undertaking graduate study at Cornell. He received his doctorate from that University in 1940. From 1940 until 1947 he was instructor at Acadia University in Nova Scotia; then accepted a post as assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. There he organized an elementary botany course for 1,000 students and set up a laboratory of paleobotany. He has made extensive collections of fossil plants in New York State, Pennsylvania, and eastern Canada; and is noted for his research on Devonian plants, said to be the first plants evolved on the earth, some 375 million years ago.

Dr. Banks was awarded a Cramer Fellowship for advanced study by Dartmouth, and used the fellowship for graduate work at Cornell.