The University of North Carolina Herbarium
has only a few specimens collected by Joseph H. Pyron. Most of
the collections made by McVaugh and Pyron from the granite flatrocks
in Georgia are held by the University of Georgia Herbarium (GA).
He attended the University of Georgia in Athens, earning an A.B.
degree in 1928 and a M.S. in 1931.
A remembrance of Joseph H. Pyron by his
colleague, Rogers McVaugh.
Informal interview conducted August, 2005, by Carol Ann
McCormick:
Joe Pyron was an ‘ole boy from south Georgia who was an
instructor, just a few years older than me, at the University
of Georgia. When we decided to do a flora of Georgia, he had a
car, and we traveled a good many miles in it. He was rather fat,
and had a difficult time climbing around all the steep places
and rocks, but he stuck with it.
His mother lived in Reynolds, near Fort
Valley, in a large house with a pond. I remember one morning for
breakfast we wanted fish, so they opened the gate in the pond
dam, and just waited for the fish to come through. That was mighty
good – fresh fish for breakfast.
His Aunt Kate, sister of his mother, was
some sort of administrator at University of Georgia.
Joe was working on his Ph.D. at Duke, but
never finished. I don’t know why.
Joe was a wonderful illustrator –
he never had any formal training in it that I know of –
but he was very talented. I did the text for the Ferns of
Georgia [published in 1951 by the University of Georgia Press],
and Joe did the illustrations, and they are just wonderful.
I don’t know why he left the University
of Georgia, but after that he was very involved the American
Camellia Society.
Publications:
McVaugh, R. and Joseph H. Pyron (1937).
The distribution of Amphianthus in Georgia. Castanea
2: 104-105.
McVaugh, R. (1951) Ferns of Georgia. Univ.
of Georgia Press, Athens. Illus. by Joseph H. Pyron.
