Theodore Christian Frye

Born on a farm near Washington, Illinois, Theodore C. Frye was the eldest of five boys in a family of ten children. He embarked on a teaching career even before he had completed his own high school degree. By age 22, he had completed all the entrance requirements for his matriculation at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.[2] There he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1894. From 1894 to 1896 he was a teacher and high school principal in Monticello, Illinois. From 1896 to 1897 he was a graduate student in botany at the University of Chicago. From 1897 to 1900 was superintendent of schools in Batavia, Illinois. From 1900 to 1902 he was a graduate student and an assistant in plant histology at the University of Chicago. There he graduated in 1902 with a Ph.D. in botany.[3] His doctoral dissertation, supervised by John Merle Coulter, is entitled A Morphological Study of Certain Asclepiadaceae.[2][4] From 1902 to 1903 Frye was a professor of biology at Morningside College in Iowa.[3] In 1903 he was appointed professor and head of the botany department at the University of Washington, Seattle, where for his first five years he was the only botanist on the faculty.[2]

Frye became a prolific plant collector in the Pacific Northwest region.[2] In June 1908 in Seattle he married Else Marie Anthon.[3] They collected plants together and she became an expert on alpine rock plants. Theodore C. Frye also collected plants with Robert Fiske Griggs and published, with George Burton Rigg, a flora of the Northwest in 1912.[2] From 1914 to 1930 Frye was the director of the University of Washington's marine station at Friday Harbor (which was called "Puget Sound Biological Station" from about 1917/1918 until 1930 and "Puget Sound Marine Station" before the U.S.A. entered WW I).[5] When he was the director he was also on the editorial board of The Puget Sound Marine Station Publications from 1915 to 1917[6] and The Puget Sound Biological Station Publications from 1918 to 1930.

Several species of kelp are edible seaweeds eaten in China, Korea, and Japan since prehistoric times. Frye and Charles Edward Magnusson experimented with a process of candying kelp bulbs[2] for which they were granted a patent in July 1910.[7] They 'came up with a product that looked and tasted like citron (which they called "Seatron") but the two scientists never carried the project beyond the patent stage.'[2] In 1913 the U. S. Department of Agriculture appointed Frye and George Burton Rigg to make surveys of Alaskan kelp beds as an alternative source of potash.[2][8] Frye's "bryophyte herbarium was one of the largest and best known collections in the American West."[2]

For 30 years he conducted weekly Saturday field trips for botany majors and local high school teachers, and in the 1930s introduced six-week summer field trips. Each summer from 1932 to 1937 he led a group of about 30 people on a car journey of several thousand miles, from Canada to Mexico, along the Pacific Coast and as far east as the Rockies.[2]

With a former student, Lois Clark, he published The Liverworts of the Northwest in 1928 and, later, the multivolume Hepaticae of North America (1937-1947). After his retirement from teaching, he, Clark, and Ruth Svilha undertook a revision of Frullania species from South America and the United States, which they published one-by-one in botanical journals, the last in 1955. Frye worked right to the end of his life and is reported to have been in the herbarium the day before he died, at the age of 92.[2]

Frye and his wife spent the summers of 1939, 1940, and 1941 collecting in Mexico.[2] They had several children.

• 1908–1909 — President of the Sullivant Moss Society (now called the American Bryological and Lichenological Society)
• 1909 — Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science[9]

• Frye, Theodore C. (1903). "The embryo sac of Casuarina stricta". Botanical Gazette. 36 (2): 101–113. doi:10.1086/328383. S2CID 83781749.
• Frye, Theodore C.; Blodgett, Eleanor B. (1905). "A contribution to the life history of Apocynum androsaemifolium". Botanical Gazette. 40 (1): 49–53. doi:10.1086/328645. S2CID 84908475.
• Frye, T. C. (1908). A Key to the Families of Washington Plants. University of Washington.
• Frye, T. C. (1910). "The Polytrichaceæ of Western North America". Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences. 12: 271–328. JSTOR 24525378.
• Frye, T. C. (1910). "Height and dominance of the Douglas fir". Journal of Forestry. 8 (4): 465–470.
• Frye, Theodore C.; Jackson, Mabel McMurray (1914). The Ferns of Washington; reprinted from American Fern Journal, vols. 3 & 4, 1913 & 1914
• Frye, Theodore Christian; Rigg, George Burton (1914). Elementary Flora of the Northwest.[14]
• Frye, T. C.; Rigg, G. B.; Crandall, W. C. (1915). "The Size of Kelps on the Pacific Coast of North America". Botanical Gazette. 60 (6): 473–482. doi:10.1086/331689. S2CID 83826118.
• Frye, T. C. (1928). "Observations on the Age of a Few Bryophytes". The Bryologist. 31 (2): 25–29. doi:10.1639/0007-2745(1928)31[25:OOTAOA]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 3238820.
• Frye, Theodore C. (1934). Ferns of the Northwest.[15]
• Clark, Lois; Frye, T. C. (1936). "Some Hepaticae from California". The Bryologist. 39 (4): 91–94. doi:10.1639/0007-2745(1936)39[91:SHFC]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 3239307.
• Clark, Lois; Frye, T. C. (1937). "Extension of Ranges among Northwestern Hepaticae". The Bryologist. 40 (1): 13–16. doi:10.1639/0007-2745(1937)40[13:EORANH]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 3239066.
• Frye, Theodore C.; Clark, Lois. Hepaticae of North America. 5 volumes, 1937–1947.
• Clark, Lois; Frye, T. C. (1942). "Some Hepaticae of Alaska". The Bryologist. 45 (3): 63–71. doi:10.1639/0007-2745(1942)45[63:SHOA]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 3239570.
• Frye, T. C.; Clark, Lois (1946). "Attu Island Bryophytes Collected by Hardy". The Bryologist. 49 (2): 59–65. doi:10.1639/0007-2745(1946)49[59:AIBCBH]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 3239693.
• Mullen, Doris; Frye, T. C. (1947). "Middle and South American Species of Oligotrichum". The Bryologist. 50 (1): 67–79. doi:10.2307/3239587. JSTOR 3239587.
• Clark, Lois; Frye, T. C. (1948). "Attu Island Hepaticae Collected by Howard". The Bryologist. 51 (4): 252–255. doi:10.1639/0007-2745(1948)51[252:AIHCBH]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 3239169.
• Clark, Lois; Frye, T. C. (1949). "A Small Collection of Alaskan Hepaticae". The Bryologist. 52 (2): 58–61. doi:10.1639/0007-2745(1949)52[58:ASCOAH]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 3239703.

• Data related to Theodore Christian Frye at Wikispecies
• "Frye, Theodore Christian". Index of Botanists, Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries.