By Ethan Harry, Cecilia Zumajo-Cardona

Oct 27 2025

Bassett Maguire, born in 1904 in Alabama, rose from a curious young student to a world renowned botanist. After earning his doctorate from Cornell, he taught at Utah State and founded the Intermountain Herbarium. His life's work took a new direction when he joined the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) in 1943. A few years later, he met Celia Kramer, a brilliant and fearless partner who became not just his wife, but his closest partner in all of life.

Together, Bassett and Celia spent decades exploring the wildest corners of the Americas—from the Amazon to the Andes, and the rainforests of Central America. They mapped, photographed, pressed, and cataloged thousands of plant species. Celia once wrote in her journal, “We laid the leaves out every night, afraid mold would take them before morning” (Bassett Maguire records). Bassett was equally poetic, recalling their first night in Cerro de la Neblina, Venezuela: “A moment when science met the soul of the earth” (Bassett Maguire records). Their expeditions brought hundreds of new species to science and helped shape what we know today about tropical ecosystems.

Building NYBG's Legacy

Bassett became a world authority on the tropical tree family Clusiaceae, extensively collecting and researching this group. Throughout his career he expanded the Steere Herbarium holdings by collecting over 100,00 South American specimens. Bassett didn’t just collect plants, he built systems. At NYBG, he became Director of Botany and he launched major expeditions, secured national grants, and helped transform NYBG into a leading center for tropical research. His fieldwork shaped the garden for generations. As one colleague put it: “Bassett believed exploration [was the Garden’s mission]...his energy was limitless, and his results extraordinary” (Fraser & Sinon, 2019).