The University of North Carolina Herbarium has
catalogued more than 100 specimens collected by Harley Harris Bartlett. As only about 10% of the collection is
currently databased, no doubt many more will be
found. Most
of Bartlett’s specimens at NCU were collected in the southeastern United
States and date from 1907-1951.
The University of Michigan houses not only
Bartlett’s herbarium, but also his papers & diaries (Bentley Historical Library) and his batak texts and
other anthropological items (Museum of
Anthropology).
H.H. Bartlett
Photograph courtesy of the University of Michigan.
“The life of Harley H. Bartlett, which came to
its conclusion February 21, 1960, was one of those few in the annals of
American botany which even a book-length biography would be hopelessly
inadequate to cover,” wrote Edward Voss, a botanical colleague at the
University of Michigan. “The
extraordinary diversity of his interests, accomplishment, travels, and
collections has already given to them a legendary quality.” 1
Bartlett received an A.B. degree in chemistry
from Harvard University in 1908. As an
undergraduate he worked in the herbarium at Harvard. “He might have continued for graduate work
in botany at Harvard, had not formal requirements become more rigid. The prospect of having to fulfil [sic] certain prerequisites before going on in
botany irritated him. (He ever
maintained an impatience with strict and specific
educational requirements, and he seemed to enjoy the fact that he never
earned nor accepted an honorary or an advanced degree – although he took
great pride in his students who had done so.)1
After working for the United States Department
of Agriculture, he joined the botany department of the University of Michigan
in 1915 as an acting assistant professor.
He became Director of the Michigan Botanical Gardens in 1919, and full
professor in 1921. 1
In 1921 he traveled with C.D. La Rue to
Sumatra for the United States Rubber Company. “[Bartlett] cultivated an
intense interest in the people and language of the Batak
of Asahan on the east coast of Sumatra, on which he
became a leading authority. An
“adopted chief” of the tribe and fluent in their language, he accumulated
invaluable collections and data on both anthropological and botanical
subjects. His interests in native uses
of plant materials, in the native names of plants, and in the variations of
both, particularly in Indonesia and the Philippines, led him into many
fascinating studies in ethnobotany and
linguistics. Altogether, his botanical
and agricultural field work and research took him to Sumatra, Formosa,
Mexico, Guatemala and British Honduras, the Philippines, Panama, Haiti,
Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile… In his honor, his students and friends
established (1955) in the Department of Botany the Harley Harris Bartlett
Plant Exploration Fund – an appropriate recognition of the man who always had
managed to find a way to finance a field trip in times when support from
other sources was less easy than now to obtain.”1
SOURCES:
1.
Voss, Edward G. (1961) Harley Harris Bartlett. Bull. Torrey Botanical Club 88(1): 47-62.
