Edward Johnston Alexander (July 31, 1901 – August 18, 1985) was an American botanist who discovered three species and one genus, but only named one of them, although he is the author or one of the authors of 205 entries in the International Plant Names Index. He was born in Asheville, North Carolina and studied at North Carolina State University from 1919 to 1923, though he failed to graduate. He was a longtime assistant and curator at New York Botanical Garden, originally under the guidance of John Kunkel Small. While at the Botanic Garden, he served as an editor of the Garden's botanical journal Addisonia for about thirty years, until the journal ceased publication in 1964.