J. Marion Shull

James Marion Shull (1872–1948) was an American botanist known for his iris and daylily cultivars and botanical illustrations.

J. Marion Shull began his career gone the running as a dendrological illustrator for the U.S. Forest Service (1907–1909). He moved upon to do something for over three decades as a botanist and botanical illustrator for the Bureau of Plant Industry at the U. S. Department of Agriculture, first as a botanical artist (1909–1925) and later as an link botanist (1925–1942). He painted over 750 watercolors of nuts, fruits, and further botanical specimens, including walnuts, pineapples, figs, and especially citrus and apples for the USDA. He was a fruit sickness investigator for the department, and many of his illustrations pretend specimens affected by disease. At the USDA, he formed share of a select group of illustrators—including Deborah Griscom Passmore, Amanda Newton, Royal Charles Steadman, Ellen Isham Schutt, and Elsie Lower—whose paintings form the core of the USDA's Pomological Watercolor Collection.

Shull plus painted a number of at the forefront iris hybrids developed by the breeder Bruce Williamson, an experience that prompted him to become a forest breeder himself similar to his younger brother George Harrison Shull. He in the same way as achieved admission as an iris and daylily (genus Hemerocallis) breeder, producing some two dozen interchange iris cultivars in the midst of 1920 and 1937. His tall yellow iris cultivar named Virginia Moore established a first Honorable Mention from the American Iris Society on its inauguration in 1920, and a stock of irises including Morning Splendor, Maori Princess, and Nimbus standard an Award of Merit from the Takoma Horticultural Club in 1922, with Morning Splendor brute singled out for special recognition. A deep red-purple cultivar that was one of the first open-minded irises bred out of Iris trojana, Morning Splendor went on to win both the Gold and Silver Medals of the Garden Club of America in 1926 and to become the ancestor of other booming varieties. Shull furthermore served an accredited decide for the AIS and won the society's Distinguished Service Medal.

Shull's 1931 book Rainbow Fragments: A Garden Book of the Iris covers the history of iris breeding, cultivation tips, and hybridization techniques in Shull's characteristically "flowery and poetic" prose. It is one of the antiquated books to improve color plates of irises (along with black-and-white photos showing interchange aspects of iris cultivation), and Shull himself painted the eight color plates, which are placed previously the title page. These plates bill a total of 18 alternating iris cultivars by various breeders (including Shull's Maori Princess, Julia Marlowe, Elaine, Sequoiah, and Morning Splendor), most placed adjoining a plain black or lackluster background. Although out of print, it continues to be of value to breeders for its true descriptions of irises grown in the first third of the 20th century, and it is next sought after for Shull's elegant color illustrations. Shull plus produced some illustrations for publications such as Country Life and Ladies' Home Journal.

Following World War I, Shull trembling for a good relations carillon, or set of bells, to be created from melted-down cannons to commemorate the halt of the war. In an article entitled "The Peace Carillon" he wrote:

He died at home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on Sept. 1, 1948.