The papers of California Academy of Sciences President Ira L. Wiggins, who was also a distinguished professor of botany at Stanford University and a prolific specimen collector. Includes correspondence, photos, slides, glass negatives, film reels, and audio cassettes.

Ira L. Wiggins was born in Madison, Wisconsin on January 1, 1899. At the age of nine, he moved with his family to California. Originally intending to be a Presbyterian minister, he attended and graduated in 1922 from Occidental College in Southern California, with a major in Philosophy and minors in Greek and English. After marrying Dorothy Bruce in 1923, Dr. Wiggins spent some time as a teacher at Durham High School. Soon Dr. Wiggins himself returned to school at Stanford University. Here he began his Masters work in Botany (his thesis was on the Malvaceae of California), graduating in 1925. Resolving to obtain a Ph.D., also from Stanford, Dr. Wiggins was forced to take a private loan from a Miss Gamble, of Procter-Gamble. He paid back the generous loan in installments after completing his dissertation on the Flora of San Diego County, a massive undertaking, in 1930. He was promptly offered the position of Assistant Professor at Stanford, where he continued to work for thirty-five years. Much of his field work during this time was done in Baja California and the province of Sonora where he spent long periods in Mexico collecting, not only flora, but also lichens, bryophytes, fungi, algae, birds, mammals, reptiles, fish and amphibians. Dr. Wiggins was an able taxonomist and botanist. He wasted no time in ascending through the academic ranks of Stanford, becoming an Associate Professor in 1936, and Professor in 1940. With the distinction of Professor came the responsibility of directing the Natural History Museum and the Dudley Herbarium, which more than doubled in size under Dr. Wiggins. In 1944, Dr. Wiggins found himself searching the jungles of Ecuador for Chinchonas, the “fever bark tree”, which is the source of quinine. Quinine was an essential part of the war effort since it was the chief treatment for the malaria that is rampant in the area that was the Pacific Theater. In 1950 through 1952, and a part of 1956, he served as the Director of the Pt. Barrow Arctic Research Laboratory in Alaska. As Dr. Wiggins would find out, this post had extra benefits--while en-route to Guadaloupe Island for a collecting trip, Dr. Wiggins was struck with appendicitis and had to be air lifted to a Coast Guard Air Sea Rescue Station and ambulanced to a Naval hospital. An orderly soon discovered Dr. Wiggins’ Navy Security Clearance Card, which was marked one of one and signed by Secretary Forrestal. (This clearance was necessary during his directorship of the Arctic Research Laboratory in order to have access to all the projects) The duty officer immediately had Dr. Wiggins transferred to the Admiral’s Suite from the Seaman’s Ward. Constantly busy, Dr. Wiggins served as the President of the California Academy of Sciences, of which he became a member in 1943, from 1954-59. He traveled to the Galapagos Islands twice as a member of the Academy, once in 1964 as a member of the International Science Project, and once in 1967 for field research and collecting. An excellent collector, Dr. Wiggins gathered over 50,000 plant specimens. He was also an accomplished botanical artist and did many of the illustrations for his over 200 papers and his many books. Dr. Wiggins died on November 28, 1987.

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