Harold F. Loomis

Harold Frederick Loomis (1896 to 1976) was an American botanist and myriapodologist known for his contributions to agronomy, plant pathology and millipede taxonomy. Born at Farmington, New York, he worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 44 years, from 1914 to 1958, and directed the U.S. Plant Introduction Station at Chapman Field from 1931 to 1958. He was mainly involved in the production of natural rubber and also worked on diseases of corn and cotton. A charter member of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, he collected plants and lichens in the American southwest and in 1939 described the palm Astrocaryum alatum. With Orator F. Cook he went to China in 1919 to study crops and collect millipedes, and in 1928 they described Illacme plenipes of California, the millipede with the most legs known. He named over 500 millipede species, at least 127 new genera and 9 new families.