Harold Harrington

Harold David Harrington (March 14, 1903 – January 22, 1981) was an American botanist who specialized in flora of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. He worked on the faculty of Colorado State University (CSU) and collected over 10,000 botanical specimens from across the state. His 1954 book, Manual of the Plants of Colorado, was the first comprehensive flora of Colorado in nearly 50 years and remains an authoritative work.

With his wife and fellow botanist Edith, he traveled around the United States, Europe, and Pacific, bringing back botanical photographs for use in teaching. He published 17 books while at CSU, where the majority of his collection of specimens are kept as part of the university's herbarium that he had previously curated. He is the namesake of two species of flowering plants endemic to Colorado: Oenothera harringtonii and Penstemon harringtonii.