Anderson, Edgar S.

Anderson, Edgar S. (Shannon) (1897–1969) botanist, geneticist; born in Forestville, N.Y. He was a research assistant at Harvard (1920–22), then became a geneticist at the Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) (1922–30) and a professor at Washington University, St. Louis (1922–31). He then joined Harvard's Arnold Arboretum and lectured at Harvard (1931–35) before returning to Washington University (1935–69) and the MBG (1952–69). He made major contributions to studies of the cytology, crossbreeding, evolution, and classification of flowering plants, especially maize, American irises, and tobacco. He coined the term "introgressive hybridization" (1938) to describe the gradual introduction of genetic material of one species into another due to repeated backcrossing.