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- Botanical Electronic News
31 August 2000
Ivan John Bassett (1921-2000)
Ivan John Bassett was born in Lethbridge, Alberta on 27th September 1921 but spent much of his early life at Cannington, near Toronto, Ontario. After service with the Royal Canadian Air Force as a radar technician during the years 1941-1945 (much of which was spent at Gibraltar), he returned to Ontario and received a B.A. degree from the University of Toronto in 1948. He joined the Weed Unit of the Botany and Plant Pathology Division, Canadian Department of Agriculture (Ottawa) in 1948. His studies of Canadian weeds have taken him from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to British Columbia. His major taxonomic interests have been in the families Plantaginaceae, Chenopodiacease, and Urticaceae wherein many weedy species are to be found. In 1964 John had an opportunity to conduct pollen morphological studies with Richard West and Harry Godwin at Cambridge University in England. His pollen morphological studies have been in such families as Caprifoliaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Tamaricaceae, Plantaginaceae, Polygonaceae, and Leguminosae (Trifolium). Studies of airborne pollen across Canada resulted in the annual publication Canadian Havens from Hay Fever and in the book An Atlas of Airborne Pollen Grains and Common Spores in Canada. He was an author of many other taxonomic monographs on important weedy plant groups.
John continued a productive career in spite of a long and hard battle with multiple sclerosis. He died at the Perley Rideau Veterans Health Centre (Ottawa) in 7th August 2000.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1921 - 2000 (78 years)