Charles Sprague Sargent

Arboriculturist, born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. A merchant's son, he studied at Harvard (1862), and served in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was on the faculty of Harvard (1872–1927) and became director of the college's newly founded Arnold Arboretum (in Boston) (1873), a position he held for the rest of his life. In addition to developing the arboretum's collections, he worked for conservation and national parks, and published important studies of North American trees. In 1888–97 he edited the weekly magazine Garden and Forest.

Charles Sprague Sargent (April 21, 1841-March 22, 1927) was an American botanist. He was the first director of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University, and the standard botanical author abbreviation Sarg. is applied to plants he described.

Sargent was the second son of Henrietta (Gray) and Ignatius Sargent, a Boston merchant and banker who grew wealthy on railroad investments. He grew up on his father's 130 acre (526,000 m²) estate in Brookline, Massachusetts, and attended Harvard College, where he graduated in the Class of 1862.

Having returned to his family's Brookline estate Holmlea, Sargent took over its management as a horticulturist, influenced by his cousin Henry and H.

When in 1872 Harvard University decided to establish an arboretum Prof. Francis Parkman at that time a professor of horticulture at Harvard's recently established Bussey Institution, probably suggested his young neighbor Sargent for the position. By the end of 1872, Sargent became the first Director of the Arnold Arboretum, a post he held until his death, and Director of the Botanic Garden in Cambridge (long since given up).

Even by the standards of Boston society of the 1900s, Charles Sprague Sargent was unusual. He was colder than even the surrounding, and notoriously chilly, Boston society, had nothing to do with local government, and cared little for the social ills of his era. In this career, Sargent came of age as a dendrologist and published extensively.

After Sargent's death, on an Arbor Day memorial, Governor Fuller planted a white spruce on the grounds of the Massachusetts State House in his memory, and noted that, "Professor Sargent knew more about trees than any other living person.