Edward Johnston Alexander

{{short description|American botanist (1901-1985)}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Edward Johnston Alexander

| image =

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1901|07|31}}

| birth_place = Asheville, North Carolina

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1985|08|18|1901|07|31}}

| death_place =

| resting_place =

| resting_place_coordinates =

| residence =

| citizenship =

| nationality =

| fields = Botany

| workplaces = New York Botanical Garden

| alma_mater =

| doctoral_advisor =

| academic_advisors =

| doctoral_students =

| notable_students =

| known_for =

| author_abbrev_bot = Alexander

| author_abbrev_zoo =

| influences =

| influenced =

| awards =

| signature =

| signature_alt =

| footnotes =

| spouse =

}}

Edward Johnston Alexander (July 31, 1901 – August 18, 1985) was an American botanist{{cite web | author = Database | date = n.d. | url=http://kiki.huh.harvard.edu/databases/botanist_search.php?botanistid=8737 |title= Index of Botanists – Alexander, Edward Johnston | publisher = Harvard University Herbaria |access-date=February 14, 2012}} who discovered three species and one genus.{{cite web | author = Database | date = n.d. | url=http://kiki.huh.harvard.edu/databases/specimen_search.php?start=1&cltr=E.%20J.%20Alexander |title= Index of Botanical Specimens – E. J. Alexander | publisher = Harvard University Herbaria |access-date=February 14, 2012}} He is the author or one of the authors of 205 entries in the International Plant Names Index.{{Citation |mode=cs1 |title=Search for "Alexander" |website=International Plant Names Index |url=https://www.ipni.org/?q=name%20author%3AAlexander |access-date=March 11, 2021 }} He was born in Asheville, North Carolina and studied at North Carolina State University from 1919 to 1923.{{Citation

| last = Barneby | first = Rupert C. | title = Deaths: Edward Johnston Alexander | journal = Taxon | volume = 35 | issue = 4 | pages = 934 | date = November 1986 }} He was a longtime assistant and curator at New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), originally under the guidance of Small.{{cite web | author = Taxonomic Literature II Online | date = n.d. | url=http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/tl-2/browse.cfm?vol=8#page/78 |title= Edward Johnston Alexander | publisher = Smithsonian Institution Libraries |access-date=October 28, 2012}} While at the NYBG, he served as an editor of the Garden's botanical journal Addisonia for about thirty years, until the journal ceased publication in 1964.{{Citation needed|date=October 2022}}

Alexander undertook several botanical expeditions in his lifetime, including to Pecos, Texas with John Kunkel Small and to the southern Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains with Thomas H. Everett. His most successful expedition was to southern Mexico from 1944 to 1945. On that trip, he collected around 1,600 specimens and 1,000 seeds and roots for the herbarium and propagation houses at the New York Botanical Garden.

Alexander never married. He died in 1985.