Adolph Daniel Edward Elmer

Who was Adolph Daniel Edward Elmer?

Adolph Daniel Edward Elmer was an American botanist and plant collector.

Elmer was born in 1870 in Van Dyne, Wisconsin, United States. He was educated at the Washington Agricultural College, and earned a M.Sc. from Stanford University in 1903. He made extensive plant collections in the Philippines from 1904 to 1927, and also in California, Borneo, and New Guinea. He was editor of Leaflets of Philippine Botany, where he published more than 1,500 new species.

Despite the urging of family members, Elmer and his wife, Emma Osterman Elmer, refused to leave American-controlled Manila after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Elmer was killed on April 17, 1942 in the Philippines after being taken captive by Japanese forces in the Battle of Bataan. Emma Osterman Elmer survived the battle and the Bataan Death March and returned to the United States after the war.