Standley was born on March 21, 1884, in
Avalon, Missouri. He attended
Drury College in
Springfield, Missouri, and
New Mexico State College, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1907, and received a master's degree from New Mexico State College in 1908. He remained at New Mexico State College as an assistant from 1908 to 1909. He was the assistant curator of the Division of Plants at the
United States National Museum from 1909 to 1922. He wrote "Flora of Barro Colorado Island, Panama" in May 1927. In the spring of 1928, he took a position at the
Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where worked until 1950. While at the Field Museum he did fieldwork in
Guatemala between 1938 and 1941. After his retirement in 1950, he moved to the
Escuela Agricola Panamericana in Honduras, where he worked in the library and
herbarium and did field work until 1956, when he stopped doing botanical work. In 1957 he moved to
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where he died on June 2, 1963. He contributed to the
Trees and Shrubs of Mexico, Flora of Guatemala, and
Flora of Costa Rica. == Family ==