Bassett Maguire (August 4, 1904 – February 6, 1991) was an American botanist, head curator of the New York Botanical Garden, and a leader of scientific expeditions to the Guyana Highlands in Brazil and Venezuela.
[1] In 1931, he was appointed assistant professor of botany at Utah State University, where he started the Intermountain Herbarium and served as its principal collector and curator until 1942.
[2] He led several expeditions to the Guyana Highlands, bringing back thousands of samples.
In 1954 he discovered the botanically rich Cerro de la Neblina ("Mountain of the Clouds").
In 1990, when he was 85, New York Botanical Garden published a Festschrift in his honour: The Bassett Maguire Festschrift: A Tribute to the Man and His Deeds, edited by William R. Buck, Brian M. Boom, and Richard A. Howard (Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden Vol.