FWD: A Great Loss For Botany

I am forwarding this email to the Medit Plants list - I got it from my
CA Native plant list, and, we all know that they are Medit Plants as
well.  I believe this to be an appropriate use of the list.  I know I
feel indebted to his work...

David King


ROBERT ORNDUFF (1932-2000)

Botanist  Robert  Ornduff,  an  expert  on California plants and former
director
of  the  University  of  California,  Berkeley's Botanical  Garden, died
Sept.
22 at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley from complications of
metastatic
melanoma.  Ornduff,  a professor  emeritus  of integrative biology  at
UC
Berkeley, was 68.

Ornduff was a field biologist  who  concentrated  on  California native
plants
as  well as plants that grow in similar Mediterranean climates, such as
in South
Africa and Western  Australia. His  book,  "_Introduction to California
Plant
Life_" (UC Press, 1974), is still in print and is a popular layman's
field
guide to  one  of  the  most varied floras in the world. He also was a
longtime
member of  the  California  Native  Plant  Society  and served  as
editorial
advisor for its publication, _Fremontia_, for 27 years.

"Bob was a very, very caring person and a great teacher who deeply loved
and
appreciated  plants,"  said Peter Raven, his friend for the past 45
years and
director of the Missouri Botanical  Garden,  an  organization dedicated
to the
study and conservation of the floras of the New World. "This came
through in
one of his biggest contributions, which was turning the UC Botanical
Garden into
a world-class garden and a  leading  place for studying and displaying
the
unique variety of California plants."

Ornduff directed the garden from 1973 until 1991, expanding  its plant
collection to include specimens from areas like South Africa and Chile
that have
similar  Mediterranean  climates.  He was particularly proud of the
docent
program he instituted while there, said Phyllis Faber, co-editor with
Ornduff of
the Natural History Series at University of California Press.

During  his  48-year  career, Ornduff wrote more than 100 scientific
papers and
50 other papers on  horticultural  and  related topics.  His  interests
ranged
from  the giant sequoias of the Sierra Nevada to  the  small but showy
yellow
flower called goldfields that carpet California's Central Valley in the
spring.

"Bob was one of the treasures  of  the  botanical  world,"  said Arthur
Kruckeberg,  professor emeritus of botany at the University of
Washington,
Seattle, and one of Ornduff's  mentors.  "He was a green-thumb botanist
who
delighted in growing plants and disseminating his interest to the
general
public."

Among his abiding interests, however, were the unusual reproductive
strategies
of plants and how they evolved. After encountering early in his  career
a
peculiar  fall-blooming  California plant  called  _Jepsonia_,  he  got
interested in heterostyly, a peculiarity of some plants where a single
species
develops  two or  three  different types of flowers that encourage
outcrossing
and discourage self-pollination.

He also was fascinated by the plants  that  evolved  to  inhabit small
islands
- essentially rocks frequented by birds - that he referred to as guano
islands, Kruckeberg said.

Born in Portland, Oregon, on June  13,  1932,  Ornduff  attended Reed
College,
graduating  in  1953  with a BA in biology. As a Fulbright Scholar, he
spent the
next year in New Zealand,  where he  collected  material  for his
thesis. He
completed his MSc at the University of Washington in 1956 and his PhD at
UC
Berkeley in 1961.

After a year teaching biology at Reed College and a year at Duke
University,  he
returned  to  UC Berkeley in 1963 to assume the faculty position of his
retiring
major professor, Herbert Mason. Ornduff retired in 1993.

As a  botany  professor,  he  instituted  a  popular  course  on
California
flora  that  he  taught  for 30 years. The notes and experiences
teaching  this
course  resulted  in  his  book  on California's plant life. He also
wrote two
chapters for a recent book,  "_California's Wild Gardens: A Living
Legacy_,"
edited by Faber and published by the California Native Plant Society.

His other positions while at UC  Berkeley  included  curator  of seed
plants
and, eventually, director from 1967 to 1982 of the University
Herbarium;
director  of  the  Jepson  Herbarium,  a repository  for  California
plants,
from 1968 to 1982; chair of the Department of Botany from 1986 until
1989, when
the  department was reorganized into the Department of Integrative
Biology; and
executive  director  of the Miller Institute at UC Berkeley from 1984 to
1987.

Ornduff was involved with  many  plant  and  plant  conservation
organizations.
In  addition to being a fellow of the California Native Plant Society,
at the
time of his death he was  a  member of  the board of councilors of the
Save-the-Redwoods League, the board of directors of the Pacific
Horticultural
Foundation  and the  board  of  trustees of the Center for Plant
Conservation, a
national organization dedicated to preserving  rare  and  endangered
plants  of
the United States. He also served as president of the California
Botanical
Society in 1981-82, and was a  long-time trustee of UC Berkeley's Jepson

Herbarium.

For  the past eight years, he was grants director of The Stanley Smith
Horticultural Trust, which funds research and education in horticulture.
Ornduff
redirected  the  trust's  grants  towards small gardens and publication
projects
both in the United States and abroad.

He  also  served  as  president of the American Society of Plant
Taxonomists in
1975 and chaired the editorial  committee  of  UC Press from 1975 to
1989.

Among  his  honors  were an Award of Merit from the American Association
of
Botanical Gardens  and  Arboreta  (1993),  a  Merit Award  from  the
Botanical
Society of America (1993) and the F. Owen Pearce Award of Horticulture
from the
Strybing Arboretum in San Francisco (1994).

Ornduff, a resident of Berkeley, is survived by a  sister,  Anne Vial,
of Lake
Oswego, Oregon.

   Bob Sanders, Senior Science Writer
   Media Relations, Public Affairs
   University of California
   Berkeley, CA  94720-4204
   email: rls@pa.urel.berkeley.edu
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