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Collectors of the UNC Herbarium
Margaret Munch Kendall
The following information was
provided to
the University of North Carolina Herbarium by Margaret Kendall.
Margaret Munch Kendall grew up in Chapel Hill
where her father, Howard Frederick Munch, was a distinguished professor in
the University mathematics department. Margaret holds two degrees from UNC, a
BA in art and botany, 1938, and an MA in art history, 1940 (The landscape in
Giovanni Bellini's work : a catalogued study). After
teaching for several years and further study at the Philadelphia Academy of
Art and the Art Students League, New York, in 1951 she married Harry H.
Kendall, a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. Information Service, and
accompanied him to posts in Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and, in
retirement to Berkeley, California. They have three daughters and three grandchildren.
Herbarium Memories
by Margaret Munch Kendall
I grew up in Chapel Hill where my father was a
UNC math professor. At that time attendance at the University was primarily
male, but as a “townie” I was allowed to attend classes there. In my junior year,
having completed my required courses and fulfilled language priorities, my
love of plants led me to Davy Hall to study botany.
After initial classes under Dr. Henry Van Peters Wilson, who had a reputation
of intimidating his students, I was directed to the laboratory and told to
dissect a frog. It had been soaked in formaldehyde, and I had to take it
apart and make a drawing of the bone structure. The bones had a lovely curve
to them, and I made my drawing rather painlessly. Lane Barksdale, the lab instructor,
was impressed with my line drawing and complimented me on my artistic skills.
This and subsequent conversations led to the question of my choice of a
major. Since I loved both art and botany I decided to major in both.
The Herbarium story would be incomplete without giving special credit to Lane
Barksdale. A wiry, strong man who maintained close connections with an orchid
nursery near Sanford, N.C. While working in the Appalachian Mountains with
the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps, initiated by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt), he gathered an outstanding number of seed plants that he
contributed to the Herbarium collection. He was an impoverished instructor,
but occasionally he invited me to eat at “Swain Hall,” the most refined meal
he could afford.
Dr. Henry Roland Totten and his wife also made a
significant contribution to the Botanical Garden with their descriptions of
native seed plants of North Carolina and well deserve the honors bestowed
upon them.
In my botanical studies, Dr. Coker’s Arboretum became a serious focus for me
to identify North Carolina’s native plants, and the wisteria arbor added to
my enjoyment of them. Very soon after my decision to concentrate on botany I
was introduced to the original Herbarium where Laurie Stewart, a PhD. student
at the time, was the attendant. It was there that I first experienced working
with real plant material and collecting data about its sources. Under the
authoritative guidance of Dr. Henry van Peters Wilson I began collecting
plant specimens. These I got in places familiar to me from my rambles. These
were the woods across from Pittsboro Road, or Laurel Hill, a woodsy area with
a lovely stream running through it where boy scouts would go on hikes. I
remember bloodroot, May apple and Rhododendron there.
As my work at Davie Hall progressed I was privileged to work with a
microscope under the supervision of Dr. John N. Couch in his study of fungi.
He alerted me to the unlimited discoveries in the plant world, and it was
during this time that I collected several plants that were added to the
developing Herbarium. Dr. Couch was a great scholar, who related everything
to fungi. Even after he entered a retirement home, he’d take the bus to the
lab, where he could work with a microscope. My memories of working with Dr.
Couch persist to this date, and I still rate him as my favorite UNC
professor.
   Curriculum North Carolina UNC
In Ecology Botanical Garden Biology Department
University
of North Carolina Herbarium
CB# 3280, Coker Hall
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3280
phone: (919) 962-6931
fax: (919) 962-6930
email: mccormickATSIGNunc.edu
Last
Updated: 14 July 2005
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