John Maurice Tucker (January 7, 1916, Yamhill County, Oregon – July 5, 2008) was an American botanist, herbarium director, and leading expert on oak taxonomy.
[4][5][1] His Ph.D dissertation, entitled "Interrelationships within the Quercus dumosa complex",[3] was written under the guidance of Herbert L. Mason, Ledyard Stebbins, and Adriance Foster.
[1] He initiated an active exchange program which, by the time he retired, increased the UC Davis Botany Department Herbarium's holdings to about 150,000 specimens.
[2] He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1955–1956,[7] which he spent on sabbatical leave studying variation in hybrid oak populations in the region of the southern Rocky Mountains.
[8] Dr. Tucker contributed taxonomic treatments of Quercus to several publications, including the current flora for California, The Jepson Manual, and he published widely on hybridization in oaks.