Dennis Eugene Breedlove (September 14, 1939, Oakland, California – June 4, 2012) was an American botanist, herbarium curator, and plant collector.
In 1968 he graduated from Stanford University with a Ph.D.[1] His doctoral dissertation, entitled "The systematics of Fuchsia section Encliandra (Onagraceae)", was written under the supervision of Peter H.
[1]In 1960, he began working with ethnographer, anthropologist, and linguist Robert M. Laughlin to compile a comprehensive ethnobotanical inventory of the plants known to the Tzotzils living in the municipality of Zinacantán in the highlands Chiapas.
He collected seeds of plants from higher elevations in Chiapas and Oaxaca that led to the establishment of the New World Cloud Forest at the San Francisco Botanical Garden.
Some of the species that he brought back from Chiapas for cultivation (e.g., Deppea splendens, Magnolia sharpii, Symplocos hartwegii, and S. tacanensis) are now either very rare or presumed extinct in the wild.