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Sidney was born on August 31, 1892, in Stoughton, Massachusetts. In 1910, at the age of 18, he had three botanical papers published. He graduated from Harvard University with an AB degree in 1912 and an AM degree in 1913. He went to Europe on a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, 1913-14, and got a PhD degree in 1917 from Harvard. He was appointed assistant botanist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1918 ($1,800 per year) and traveled in Guatemala and Honduras. He was famous for his work with the family Asteraceae and, more particularly, his Geographical Guide to the Floras of the World (1942 and 1960). He was recording secretary of the Biological Society of Washington from the year he was elected (1923) to his death. He died of a heart attack on December 31, 1959, at the age 67 in his office at Beltsville, Maryland. Sidney was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1924 and served as president from 1931 to 1934.