Information
compiled by Carol Ann McCormick,
November 2005, and updated December 2010.
The University of North Carolina Herbarium has
catalogued approximately 30 specimens collected by J. E. Adams. As
cataloguing of the collection continues, more will be found. Specimens
collected by J.E. Adams are mostly from California, probably collected during
his days as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. To
date we have catalogued few specimens collected by Adams in North Carolina –
most of these were collected with UNC-CH students in Battle Park on campus.
Adams’ involvement in the Flora of the
Carolinas project was to identify plants collected by others. He determined many specimens collected in
the Theaceae, Cornaceae, Annonaceae, Lauraceae, and Styracaceae families. The "Flora of the Carolinas"
project culminated in the publication of the Manual of the Vascular Flora
of the Carolinas in 1968.
Anonymous (1982) Joseph Edison Adams.
Castanea 47(1): 117-118.
JOSEPH EDISON ADAMS, a UNC [University of
North Carolina] professor emeritus of botany, died Sunday, June 7, 1981, at
North Carolina Memorial Hospital following a heart attack. He was
seventy-seven years old and taught at UNC from 1925-1969.
A specialist in the taxonomy of vascular
plants, he was nationally known as co-author of the textbook, Plants: An
Introduction to Modern Botany. The text, co-authored with V. A. Greulach, is
widely used in the United States and has been translated into several foreign
languages. He also wrote extensively on plant anatomy and plant morphology.
His lifelong research and graduate teaching
interest was in the classification and phylogeny of flowering plants. His
research and that of all his doctoral students was directed to that effort.
He was a challenging and stimulating, as well as congenial, graduate adviser
and seminar leader, an outstanding lecturer, superbly organized, articulate,
a master of language and an excellent writer. He was a provocative, pithy,
professional scientist, who played a large role in the development and
excellence of this department in the 40’s and 50’s.
He was a member of the N.C. Academy of
Science, the Association of Southeastern Biologists, the Botanical Society of
America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Born in Middletown, N.Y., Adams received his bachelor’s
degree from the University of Michigan and his masters from Columbia
University. He received his doctorate from the University of California at
Berkeley.
Adams is survived by his wife, Katherine Smith
Adams; a son, John Evi Adams of Gainesville, Florida; a daughter, Martha
Adams Galli of Rome, Italy; a brother, W. Leigh Adams of Pompano Beach,
Florida; and two grandsons.
Publications:
J. E. Adams (1935) A Systematic study of the
genus Arctostaphylos Adans. Berkeley: Berkeley Press. (Ph.D. thesis,
University of California, Berkeley)
J. E. Adams (1940) A systematic study of the
genus Arctostaphylos Adans. Journal of the Elisha Mitchell
Scientific Society 56(1): 1-62.
V.A. Greulach and Adams, J. E. (1967) Plants:
an introduction to modern botany, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley.
