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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: herbarium@bio.unc.edu
Last Updated: 14 July
2005
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