Geraldine Watson

Warren | Botanist

Mrs. Watson was a self-trained botanist who lived near Silsbee, in southeast Texas. She made many contributions to protecting the Big Thicket, from her efforts in identifying and collecting plants for the University of Texas and the National Park Service, which went far to document the great biodiversity of the Thicket, to her political efforts with the Big Thicket Association to advocate for a federal preserve, to her work restoring a portion of the Thicket on her own land, near Warren. She was also an author: the University of North Texas Press published her books, Reflections on the Neches: A Naturalist’s Odyssey Along the Big Thicket’s Snow River (2003) and Big Thicket Plant Ecology: An Introduction (2006).