Charles Vancouver Piper was born in Victoria, British Columbia, and raised in Seattle Washington. He attended the Territorial University of Washington until 1892. He achieved prominence as a botanist, on staff at the Washington Agricultural College and School of Science (later WSU), and as a researcher with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Piper is credited with discovering Sudan grass, an African plant that was introduced to North America as a forage plant. He was greatly involved in the re-discovery of Meriwether Lewis' lost herbarium and encouraged the publications of journals of earlier plant explorers of the Northwest, such as Archibald Menzies and David Douglas.