Keck, David D(aniels) (1903–1995)

US botanist. He served as taxonomist in a long-term study of the climatology, morphology, physiology, genetics, and hybridization of western US plants of various elevations. His methods of experimental botanical systematics revised many genera of western US flowering plants.

He was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He was on the staff of the Carnegie Institution of Washington 1926–50 and a member of that institution's division of plant biology at Stanford University 1929–50. He studied at the New York Botanical Garden 1951–58, and was programme director of systematic biology at the National Science Foundation (NSF), Washington, DC 1958–62. He became division director of biological and medical sciences at NSF in 1962.