Ihsan Ali Al-Shehbaz
botanist
Ihsan Ali Al-Shehbaz (born 1939 in Iraq) is an American botanist who works as adjunct professor at University of Missouri-St. Louis and Senior Curator at Missouri Botanical Garden. Al-Shehbaz's primary area of interest is Brassicaceae and The Durango Herald called him
"a world expert on taxonomy of the family". A 2008 publication of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service called him "the world's authority on species in the genus Lesquerella". The author abbreviation "Al-Shehbaz" is attached to the numerous botanical taxa he has identified.
Education
In 1962, Al-Shehbaz earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Baghdad University. He pursued graduate studies in the United States, gaining a Master of Science degree from Harvard University in 1969 and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1973.
Career
Prior to his current professorial and curatorial position, Al-Shehbaz was a professor and director of an herbarium at Baghdad University, a professor and director of a herbarium at Sulaymaniyah University in Iraq, and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum. In 1992, Al-Shehbaz edited all botanical entries for the third edition of the American Heritage Dictionary. He has worked on major projects about the Flora of North America and, with the help of the Chinese botanists, the Flora of China.
“Ihsan Ali Al-Shehbaz” enters the record as botanist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ihsan, Al-Shehbaz and botanist can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Ihsan Ali Al-Shehbaz” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ihsan, Al-Shehbaz and botanist provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q730643. VIAF identifies the subject as 49204861. The Library of Congress control number is nb2017003478. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 2008, 1962 and 1969.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Ihsan Ali Al-Shehbaz”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Ihsan Ali Al-Shehbaz primary sources, Ihsan Ali Al-Shehbaz archive and Ihsan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ihsan Ali Al-Shehbaz”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Ihsan Ali Al-Shehbaz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.