Talk:Wilmatte P. Cockerell

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Smithsonian Institution Archives

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Alternate spelling

Note: Cockerell's first name also appears on the internet as "Wilmette" , e.g. Cockerell, Wilmette Porter 1869-1957. Incorrect or not, searching for this and other variants are likely to increase results, especially from uncorrected scanned texts. --Animalparty-- (talk) 00:03, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Plants

Not sure this article should remain in WikiProject Plants, which is why I'm here, or if I should remove it: this person was not a botanist in any normal sense, doesn't seem to have published anything on botany except for a short mail-in letter with a major, cringe-worthy mistake in it, which smells a bit like an aborted get-rich-quick scheme. On the other hand, notably, she collected a type or two, and found a mutant sunflower, and two plants were named after her, neither valid, one a very obscure hybrid by her husband... bit thin. It makes more sense to call her an entomologist. She is credited for catching numerous bugs during the couple's field trips, but with regards to plants, her collecting is very minimal. Here's a website with the most comprehensive online access to the databases of herbaria in the SW USA, I only went through the first 100 sheets collected by a 'Cockerell', only two are hers (1 in conjunction with her husband), the rest he collected. Searching on 'Porter', there's nothing from her.

Ah-ha! The qualifier 'botanist' comes from the caption of this picture. The source (Smithsonian Institution Archives) wasn't credited, but it is also the origin of a timeline mistake... just not a great source.

And entomologist ... one of the most reliable sources calls her an amateur collector, but she did publish some stuff, so 'amateur entomologist' seems fair to me. There were other (commercial) collectors operating in the area at the time that were much more prolific, but must remember W. Cockerell had a full time job as teacher. Leo Breman (talk) 13:13, 22 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As whether this article should remain within the WikiProject Plants, I'd argue yes, not least because she's listed in the Harvard Index of Botanists, has collected botanical specimens (not all her collections may yet be databased or digitised), and discovered and cultivated red sunflowers. As regards her entomology work, she published scientific papers on entomology and collected extensively. She also collected commercially, that is selling her specimens. As she obtained income from her entomological work I don't believe describing her as an "amateur" is accurate. Ambrosia10 (talk) 03:20, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]