Dwight Munson Moore (1891-1985) was born in Zanesville, Ohio, and graduated from Denison University (Granville, Ohio) in 1914. In 1917 he joined the Army and served in France on hospital trains as a medical department sergeant during World War I.

After the war, Moore remained in France and studied at the University of Montpelier. In 1919 he returned to Ohio where he taught chemistry at Monroeville High School. In 1924 Moore received a doctorate in botany from Ohio State University. That year he and his wife, Elizabeth French (1897-1965), a native of Chicago, Illinois, moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Moore's teaching career in Arkansas began at the University of Arkansas where he taught botany between 1924 and 1957. He was active in building the state's primary research collection of herbarium species. Soon after arriving in Arkansas he began collecting botanical specimens and by the time of his retirement he was recognized nationally as an authority on Arkansas plants.

Upon retirement from the University of Arkansas in 1957, Moore taught forestry at Arkansas Agricultural and Mechanical University in Monticello. In 1958 and 1959 he was a visiting professor at universities in Saigon and Hue, South Vietnam. Between 1961 and 1967 he taught botany at Arkansas Technical College in Russellville where he met his second wife, Clemy (Winfrey) Kizer. Upon resigning from Arkansas Tech, Dr. and Mrs. Moore spent the next three years establishing a seventeen-acre arboretum on the grounds of El Dorado High School.

Moore was also active in professional organizations. Soon after he came to Arkansas he reorganized the Arkansas Academy of Sciences. Through 1974 he missed only two of its meetings, served three times as president, and for more than twelve years edited its newsletter, "The Historian."