Áskell Löve was born 20 October 1916 in Reykjavik, Iceland. In June 1937 he earned a B.A. degree from Reykjavik College. He received an M.Sc. in 1941, a Ph.D. in 1942 and a D.Sc. in 1943, all from the University of Lund in Sweden.

During his career, Löve wrote over 400 articles and reviews on popular botany and cytogenetics in different periodicals. He concentrated his research and writing in the areas of the cytotaxonomy of higher plants, phytogeography, Pleistocene and continental drift. He received grants from the NATO Advanced Study Institute in 1962 and 1963 for biosystematic investigations on both sides of the North Atlantic. Further career highlights include a lectureship at the International Congress of Geneticists in The Hague in 1963 and a grant to study wheatgrasses in Yugoslavia in 1972. Löve served as chairman of the Department of Botany at the University of Colorado at Boulder until 1973 when he was forced to retire under dubious circumstances. He continued to research and write on the flora of North America from his home in San José until the onset of Alzheimer's disease in 1992. Löve died in 1994.