Kentucky botanist, physician and teacher of medical botany at Transylvania College. Collected extensively throughout Kentucky and financially supported botanical expeditions to different parts of the world for a return in specimens. Elected corresponding member of the Academy in 1831. Accumulated a large herbarium which was willed to the Smithsonian Institution, but not accepted by them. On the advice of Asa Gray, Short's heirs gave the collection to the Academy with the expressed wish to have it kept separate as the “Shortian Herbarium” but the letter of transmittal mentions only one condition namely “that it be ever open to the study and inspection of those in pursuit of botanical knowledge”. This letter was signed by Short's son William for himself and his sisters dated at Louisville, Kentucky, November 20, 1863. The papers include illustrations, checklists, memoranda and a catalog of plants of Kentucky (with annotations about his own herbarium and those of Gray, Torrey, Bachman, Darlington, Lebanworth and Curtis).