The Plant Press

From The Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 2022.

William (Bill) Louis Stern (1926-2021)

William (Bill) Stern joined the Smithsonian’s Department of Botany in 1960 as the first Curator in the Division of Woods, a newly formed division that soon merged with the Division of Plant Anatomy. He was recruited by the Smithsonian from Yale University where he had been an instructor in the School of Forestry. “Instructor” may be a misnomer since it does not adequately convey the full breadth of his activities at Yale. He taught courses in wood anatomy and identification, tropical forestry, and plant microtechnique; edited the journal Tropical Woods; curated what was at the time the world’s largest collection of wood (the Samuel J. Record Memorial Collection); and conducted research in wood anatomy as it related to angiosperm phylogeny. Also, while at Yale, he made two field trips to the Darien of Panama in 1957 and 1959.

A significant consequence of Stern coming to the Smithsonian was the concomitant acquisition of "The Archie F. Wilson Wood Collection." While studying for his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, Stern had become acquainted with Wilson (1903-1960), a businessman, research associate of the Field Museum, and principal in the International Wood Collectors Society (IWCS). Wilson’s collection of 4637 wood specimens and its supporting library were arguably the finest private collection of wood and associated library in the world. The friendship and overlapping interests of Stern and Wilson resulted in Wilson's gift to the Smithsonian, at his death in 1960, of his extensive collection. This gift made the Department of Botany’s wood collection the second largest in the U.S.A. and vastly improved its supporting library, now intercalated into the Botany and Horticulture Library. The Wilson wood collection remains the largest single donation from a private collector to our wood collection, which now holds more than 43,000 specimens and ranks among the largest and most significant such resources in the world.

In early 1963, Stern visited Panama with Richard (Dick) Eyde, a newly appointed fellow Curator, and Edward (Eddie) Ayensu, who would join the curatorial staff several years later in 1966. They collected herbarium and wood samples and investigated “mid-Tertiary” petrified fossil wood deposits in Herrera Province in the Azuero Peninsula. Later that same year, Stern took a leave of absence from the Smithsonian to work at the Forest Products Research and Development Institute in Los Baños, Philippines. His stay there was under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Once Stern returned to Washington, he became Acting Chair and then Chair of the Department of Botany from 1965 to 1967. The greatest challenge in this period was managing the department’s move from the Smithsonian Castle to its present location in what was then the newly completed west wing of the Natural History Building.

Stern left the Smithsonian in 1967, but remained in metropolitan Washington, D.C. Initially, he was a Professor of Botany at the University of Maryland, College Park. While there, not only did he teach and continue his research, but he also was the founding editor of Biotropica, the journal of the Association for Tropical Biology. Leaving the University of Maryland, Stern moved back to D.C. and was a program officer for systematic biology at the National Science Foundation from 1978 to 1979. His next career move took him much further away from the nation’s capital. From 1979 to 1985, he was Professor and Chair of the Botany Department at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and after relinquishing administrative obligations continued teaching and research until his retirement in 2002. In Florida, Stern shifted his focus from wood to orchid anatomy. The latter research culminated in 2014 with the publication of a volume on Orchidaceae for the multi-volume Metcalfe and Chalk Anatomy of the Monocotyledons. In retirement, Stern lived for a period in Hallandale Beach, Florida and at that time had an affiliation with Florida International University in Miami.

Stern authored numerous scientific papers as well as two books. In addition to the book on orchid anatomy, he coauthored a textbook with Oswald Tippo (1911-1999) of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Humanistic Botany (1977) was written for non-science undergraduates and illustrated by Alice Tangerini.

Stern was born in New Jersey on 10 September 1926. He died in Florida on 1 November 2021. 

– Laurence J. Dorr.

A remembrance of Bill Stern

My first acquaintance with Bill Stern came through Edward Ayensu, the Chairman of Botany back in the 1970s. Dr. Stern was looking for an illustrator for his book, Humanistic Botany, which he co-authored with Oswald Tippo. Dr. Ayensu introduced us. In 1975 I had only been a Botany staff member for 3 years, but Bill arranged for me to take on the job as illustrator for the book although I was a complete novice at academic university books. Bill would joke around about topics in botany, and he showed his sense of humor when he allowed me to illustrate the “Names and Naming Chapter” of the book with a horse wallowing among Equisetum culms. It was a learning experience which ended up improving my drawing skills as I had deadlines to meet. Bill always demonstrated his patience with me and encouraged me when I was questioning my ability to finish. We had the most fun going up to New York one weekend to meet the publishers, stopping at the Howard Johnson’s, and going to Carnegie Deli. I will always remember Bill as having a hidden humorous side behind the occasional serious exterior.

- Alice Tangerini