During 39 years as professor of botany at Grinnell College, Henry Shoemaker Conard earned international recognition as an authority on mosses and water lilies. His comprehensive knowledge of Iowa's natural history led to numerous publications, including Plants of Iowa, now in its seventh edition. A charter member of the Iowa Conservation Hall of Fame, he was honored by the Botanical Society of America on its 50th anniversary as a "taxonomist, morphologist, mycologist, ecologist, bryologist...and above all a beloved teacher."

A native of Pennsylvania, Henry Conard completed B.S. and M.A. degrees at Haverford College and a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. He taught at several other institutions before joining the Grinnell faculty in 1906. He retired to Florida in 1944, where he continued his research and publishing until his death in 1971 at 97. In his extraordinary lifetime, he combined boundless enthusiasm and energy with keen awareness of the natural environment. He was a source of inspiration to his students and a substantial contributor to botanical knowledge.