The University of North Carolina Herbarium
(NCU) has databased approximately 1500 specimens collected by Ross Clark.
Most were collected in the 1960s and 1970s. No doubt many more of Clark's
specimens will be catalogued in coming years as databasing continues.
Clark received his Master of Arts in the
Department of Botany at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in
1966; the title of his thesis was "The Vascular Flora of the Fiery
Gizzard Gorges in South-central Tennessee." The vouchers for this study
are in NCU's collection. Clark's Ph.D. thesis dating from 1969, also
completed at UNC-CH, is entitled "A Distributional Study of the Woody
Plants of Alabama" and the vouchers for this study are also at NCU.
Besides NCU, other herbaria that hold
substantial numbers of Clark's specimens include:
MOR Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, U.S.A
EKY Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky,
U.S.A.
CONV Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina U.S.A.
The following information, written by
Ross Clark, is from his website
at Eastern Kentucky University:
I'm from Virginia and finished high school in
Oak Ridge, Tennessee. I received a B.A. in biology from the University of the
South and an M.A. and Ph.D. in plant systematics and general ecology from the
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where my advisor was Albert E.
Radford. My undergraduate mentor in botany was George S. Ramseur, Jr. In the
picture below, Ramseur, Radford and I are pictured from left to right. My
master's thesis was The Flora of the Fiery Gizzard Gorges in South-Central
Tennessee. The publication title of my Ph.D. dissertation was The Woody
Plants of Alabama.
I taught at the University of South Carolina at Spartanburg and Erskine
College before serving as Curator of Education at the Morton Arboretum for
over 12 years. In 1992, I came to EKU as Chair of the Department of
Biological Sciences, and shifted into full-time teaching in 1998. At EKU,
I've received two outstanding teaching awards: the National Alumni
Association Outstanding Teaching Award (2002), and a Student Government
Distinguished Educational Leader Award for Exceptional Classroom Performance
(2004). In the early 1970s, I won a similar award at the University of South
Carolina at Spartanburg.
Among my 50+ publications are a treatment of the woody plants of Alabama and
a book on the trees of the Chicago region.
PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS
Taxonomy of temperate woody plants; vascular plant biodiversity (an esoteric
way of saying floristics, which is an esoteric way of saying I'm always
curious about what's growing where and why); descriptive plant community
ecology.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Studies of temperate Aquifoliaceae (that's hollies); flora of Kentucky.
Specifically, I'm working on floras of Cumberland County, the Red River
Gorge, and a statewide, comprehensive study of Kentucky woody plants.. There
are plenty of opportunities for students to get involved with me in these or
other projects.
SELECTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Clark, R.C. 1998. Encouraging new biologists. Trans. Kentucky Acad. Sci.
59(1): 44-46.
Clark, R.C. & R.M. Bauer. 2001. Woody plants of six northern Kentucky
counties. Jour. Kentucky Acad. Sci. 62(1): 39-51.
Clark, R. C. 2002. Intrinsic and overlooked factors favoring the
establishment and spread of woody weeds. Invited paper presented at Fourth
Annual Symposium, Southeast Exotic Pest Plant Council.
Clark, R. C. 2002. Aquifoliaceae. In Wofford, B. E. & E. W. Chester.
Guide to the Trees, Shrubs and Woody Vines of Tennessee. pp. 97-98.
Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press.
PERSONAL INTERESTS
I'm a low-powered woody plant fanatic; our one-acre lot includes about 120
species of trees, shrubs and woody vines. At times, I've been big into gandy
dancing, beekeeping, tuba playing, bicycling, goat breeding and bonsai
culture. I'm for everything that Republicans detest. That should be enough to
scare you off . . ..
