The Reid Moran Collection consists of botanical research material including field notes, manuscripts, and reprints. In addition, the collection includes biographical information on Moran and one oral history interview (audio tape).

Reid Venable Moran (1916–2010) was the curator of botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum from 1957 to 1982. Born in Los Angeles, California on June 30, 1916, he attended Stanford University (B.A. 1939) and Cornell University (M.S. 1942), before wartime service as a navigator in the Army Air Corps (1942-1946). Moran completed his Ph.D. in Botany at the University of California, Berkeley in 1951. He returned to Cornell and worked at the Bailey Hortorium before joining the San Diego Natural History Museum in 1957. Moran specialized in the systematics of the Crassulaceae (the stonecrop family) and was a well-known expert on succulents and especially the genus Dudleya. His published works include The Flora of Guadalupe Island, the treatment of the Crassulaceae for the Flora of North America (Vol. 8, published in 2009), The Grasses of Baja California, Mexico (1981, with Frank W. Gould), and The Vascular Flora of Isla Socorro, Mexico (1989, with Geoffrey A. Levin) in addition to a large number of technical research papers on the floristics of the Baja California peninsula. Moran died on January 21, 2010 in Lake County, California.

11.0 Linear Feet

Copyright may be reserved. Consult the San Diego Natural History Museum Research Library Director for more information.

The collection is open to researchers by appointment. Contact the Research Library Director, San Diego Natural History Museum.