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Collectors of the UNC Herbarium
William Willard Ashe
(1872-1932)
William Willard
Ashe was born in Raleigh, North
Carolina on June 4, 1872. His family inhabited a
rambling antebellum estate named Elmwood which provided Ashe,
described by one biographer as a "congenital naturalist,"
with abundant woods and fields to explore for curiosities.
It is reported that Willard
and his brother Samuel
together published a small tract called "The West
End Sun" with woodcuts carved by Willard. A copy of this
work was placed in the cornerstone of the State Agricultural College
Building in Raleigh.
Much of the young man's spare time was spent collecting specimens
and his collections required a two-story building by the time
he entered college. Ashe clearly had the eye of a scientist and
was known for being able to readily discern differences between
very similar plants.
At the age of fifteen,
Ashe entered the University of North Carolina, matriculating in
1891. The ollowing year he received his M.S. from Cornell, where
he specialized in botany and geology. |
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From 1892 to 1905, he was employed as
a forester by the North Carolina Geological Survey, but also
worked on special projects with the recently-formed United States
Forest Service. Ashe remained a professional forester all of
his life, conducting his work on floristics and systematic botany
in his spare time or as a minor sideline to his forestry labors.
Realizing this makes a look at a list of Ashe's publications
that much more amazing.
Magnolia ashei Weatherby
Photo by Kenneth J. Wurdack
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In 1905 Ashe
joined the U.S. Forest Service full time and was employed there
until his death in 1932. During this time he served as Secretary
of the National Forest Reservation Commission (1918-1924), vice-president
of the Society of American Foresters (1919), and chairman of the
Forest Service Tree Name Committee (1930-1932).
In 1906 he married Margaret
Henry Wilcox, for whom he named Crataegus margaretta and
Quercus margaretta. His botanical works centered around
woody plants, especially the genus Crataegus, although
he also published on such herbaceous genera as Asarum and
Panicum.
His keen eye for detail
led him to create many new taxa, publishing 510 plant names during
his career. Many of these have gone into synonomy.
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Reliquiae
Below are a specimen collected by Ashe
and the cover and some pages from one of his field notebooks.
These materials are from the archives of the UNC Herbarium, and
are used with permission. Additional materials can
be found in the Southern Historical Collection
at UNC's Wilson Library.
Bibliography
Ashe was an amazingly prolific writer on
a wide variety of subjects. Topics of his publications include
the terracing of farm lands, forest management, light requirements
of trees, optimizing profit through selective harvesting of timber,
land acquisition policy for the federal government, and systematic
papers on a number of woody genera, including Quercus, Rhus,
Robinia, Pinus, Crataegus, and Carya.
Major Works by Ashe
Forest fires: Their destructive
work, causes and prevention.
North Carolina Geological Survey Bulletin no. 7. Raleigh, North
Carolina: J. Daniels, 1895.
Timber trees and forests
of North Carolina. (With Gifford Pinchot.) North Carolina
Geological Survey Bulletin no. 6. Raleigh: Winston & Stewart,
1897.
Loblolly, or North Carolina
pine. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1915.
Shade trees for North Carolina.
North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey Bulletin no. 16.
Raleigh: E.M. Uzell, 1908.
Major Biographical Sources
Coker, W.C., J.S. Holmes,
and C.F. Korstian. 1932. William Willard Ashe. Journal of the
Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society 48(1): 40-47.
Dayton, W.A. 1936?. William
Willard Ashe (1872-1932). [No publication information given.]
The latter reference includes a complete
bibliography of Ashe's works organized by subject and may be found
at the UNC North
Carolina Collection.
This page was constructed by Ron Gilmour with the
assistance of Mr. Bill Burk, Mrs. Mary Felton,
Dr. Jim Massey, and Mr. Jim Murphy. Additional information and corrections
are welcome.
  
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: 7 June
2004
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