Robert Folger Thorne

After serving in the armed forces, he earned his Ph.D. in economic botany at Cornell University in 1949, studying under professors Walter Muenscher and Arthur Eames. While at Cornell, he met and married Mae Zukel in 1947. Bob Thorne died on Tuesday, March 24, 2015, at the age of 94.

Thorne gained an international reputation through "his contributions to our understanding of the evolution of flowering plants... and that has culminated recently in two... publications, one outlining his classifications of monocots (Thorne 2000) and the other on the dicotyledons (Thorne 2001)." Thorne was a guide and teacher for the many staff, students, researchers, and visitors of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden through the years. Among his projects was completing "floristic works on both the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains," a study of the flora of Sierra San Pedro Martir, and a checklist for the entire Baja peninsula.

Among Thorne's many accomplishments was a system of plant taxonomy known as the Thorne system, first issued in 1968, and periodically revised from 1976 onwards (1977, 1983, 1992, 1999, 2007).

Thorne became a Fulbright Research Scholar in 1959 and spent his time as a National Science Foundation senior postdoctoral fellow at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and studying the plant communities of New Caledonia, Australia, and New Guinea. When he moved to California in 1962, he quickly learned the flora of California, which led him to write the essay entitled "The vascular plant communities of California" in 1976. According to Systematic Botany, Thorne has advocated for "the conservation of California's endangered natural environments; his advocacy and leadership helped result in the conservation of Santa Catalina Island’s biota."

Thorne was the assistant professor of botany at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, from 1949 to 1953, associate professor from 1954 to 1960, and professor from 1961 to 1962. He was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota, Lake Itasca Biological Station in the summer of 1962 before moving to California, where he became taxonomist and curator for Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and professor for Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University) in Claremont, California. He became taxonomist and curator emeritus as well as professor emeritus at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and Claremont Graduate School in 1987. He also became curator emeritus of the Pomona College Herbarium in Claremont, California, from 1990 to the present.

Other appointments include: Field Botanist, U.S. Public Health Service, Georgia, Summer 1946. Botany Assistant, 1945–1947; Instructor in Botany, 1948–1949; Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Visiting Associate Professor, University of Virginia, Mountain Lake Biological Station, Summer 1956.

Robert F. Thorne (July 13, 1920 – March 24, 2015) was an American botanist. He was taxonomist and curator emeritus at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and professor emeritus at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. His research has contributed to the understanding of the evolution of flowering plants.

Thorne was born on July 13, 1920, at Spring Lake, New Jersey. He was educated through high school in Gulfport and St. Petersburg, Florida. He graduated summa cum laude in 1941 with a major in botany from Dartmouth College and earned his M.S. degree in economic botany in 1942 at Cornell University. He spent about three years serving in the armed forces during World War II, first at Hondo Navigation School, Texas, graduating as a second lieutenant in aerial navigation in 1943. Then, after 7 months in Italy in 1944 as a B-24 bomber navigator with 40 missions over eastern and southern Europe, he served as an instructor and as an examinations officer at Ellington Field, Texas, from 1944 to 1945.