WASHINGTON (AP) – Robert W. Read, a former curator in the botany department of the National Museum of Natural History, has died.

Read, 71, who worked at the Smithsonian museum from 1973 to 1989, died of heart failure July 15 in Hollywood, Fla., the museum said Tuesday.

Read had been active in land preservation projects in Collier County, Fla., following his retirement. He was founding chairman of the Naples Botanical Garden and did research at the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Coral Gables.

An expert on tropical plants, Read was a native of Woodbury, N.J., and held degrees from the University of Miami, Cornell University and the University of the West Indies.