Sherwin Carlquist (1930–2021)—A Botanical Luminary

Sherwin Carlquist (1930–2021) was an internationally respected and distinguished botanist who held faculty positions in botany at California Botanic Garden, Claremont Graduate University and Pomona College between 1956 and 1992. His legacy includes major scholarly contributions to plant systematics, plant anatomy, especially wood anatomy, island biogeography, evolutionary and ecological reasoning, and a prolific publication record. A loose collection of paragraphs by those who interacted with him addresses Carlquist’s tremendous botanical output, teaching, mentorship, scientific scholarship, and his roles as a colleague and friend.

introduction Sherwin Carlquist, an internationally respected and distinguished botanist, passed away on December 1st, 2021 at the age of 91.Carlquist received his Ph.D. at the University of California Berkeley in 1956, followed by postdoctoral study at Harvard University.He held professorship positions in botany at Claremont Graduate University and Pomona College from 1956 to 1992, and as Plant Anatomist at California Botanic Garden (formerly Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden) from 1984 to 1992.Upon retirement, he served as Adjunct Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1993 to 1998 and continued to be a productive researcher and author.Many of his articles were published in Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany.
Carlquist is best known for significant contributions in plant systematics, wood anatomy, and island plant diversity.Over the course of his distinguished career, Carlquist published prolifically, with numerous books and well over 300 research papers covering such topics as anatomy and systematics in many plant families, evolutionary and ecological theories in plant anatomy and structure, floral development, morphology, and island biogeography (e.g., Carlquist 1962Carlquist , 1967Carlquist , 1996Carlquist , 2012)).He also made significant contributions to taxonomy, authoring many plant taxa including species in the Western Australian genus Stylidium (Carlquist 1969(Carlquist , 1976a;;Lowrie and Carlquist 1991), Drosera (Lowrie andCarlquist 1990, 1992), Grubbia (Carlquist 1977), and Alexgeorgea, known to be the only wind-pollinated plant bearing underground flowers (Carlquist 1976b).Carlquist viewed himself as a botanist observing nature through an ecological lens.As a researcher, he considered biological elements within an environment as comprising a dynamic network.This network concept in turn informed his method for studying and collecting plants and the rich array of materials and records he © 2022, The Author(s), CC-BY.This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author(s) and source are credited.Articles can be downloaded at http://scholarship.claremont.edu/aliso/.generated through that practice.A sample of this networked approach is shown in Fig. 1-9.
Carlquist will be remembered for being among the notable "shoulders of giants" on which present-day botanists and plant systematists stand.Lesser known are his day-to-day interactions with colleagues, fellow botanists and students (Fig. 10-12).The contributions below provide snapshots and memories documenting some of these interactions.

teaching and mentorship
Everyone has one or two exceptional teachers over the years.Sherwin was one of those teachers.He had extensive first-hand knowledge of all the subjects he taught, highlighted by exquisite images and samples, as might be expected.However, his keen interest in each of his students, supporting their interests, fostering their sense of self-reliance, instilling a sense of curiosity and showing them how to acquire and use the skills to follow that curiosity set him apart as a teacher of people, not just an instructor of subjects.Time with students was one of the few things other than his research that Sherwin enjoyed and focused on in his professional life.I enjoyed our field trips together and learned first-hand the art and value of observation of natural history in understanding the ecology of a species when interpreting the anatomy of that species.It would seem, in these times of changing climate, that this approach should be emphasized more than ever.He was a mentor, counselor, friend, and an exceptional teacher.
Gary Wallace, Research Associate, California Botanic Garden memories of a colleague Immediately after my arrival in Claremont in early spring 1984, I met individually with each senior staff member and with the grounds crew as a group to learn about their concerns and vision for the garden.As this process continued in the succeeding weeks and months, I found a great range of opinions from the staff.This led me to the conclusion that Sherwin Carlquist was the clearest thinker about what was needed to improve the research graduate education forward, and how to Sherwin had a low tolerance for activities that he considered frivolous or a waste of his time.This included staff meetings when people veered off-topic.He generally avoided social occasions in the garden.This included the tradition of having cake and soft drinks in the herbarium work room whenever a specimen of a new family or subfamily was added to the collection.But he would make himself available for a discussion of a topic relating to research, facilities, library, and interactions with the colleges.Over time, this developed into one-on-one discussions at my home or at his home over dinner.We would occasionally meet in the evening during my 9.5 years as director.These meetings countered the "can't do" attitude that resulted from meetings with some others.I learned from dinners at his home that he usually sat on the floor and typed his papers on a manual typewriter.He had the ability to complete a manuscript on one of his wood anatomy studies on the first draft.I don't know if editors were used to working with his manuscripts or if the manuscripts were in good shape.I began encouraging him to transition to a personal computer.There was some resistance at first because he was accustomed to doing things the way that was familiar to him.In the end, he made a transition.
We worked together to prepare a grant to the National Science Foundation [NSF] for funds to purchase a quality scanning electron microscope.NSF awarded a grant for $51,000 for this purchase in 1986.While graduate students used this new piece of equipment, Sherwin was the primary user.The addition of new staff and the construction of two laboratories helped Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden keep pace with advances in botanical research in the USA.Sherwin provided great moral support for these efforts and was always encouraging.
Sherwin was a sensitive individual who carefully separated his private life from his professional career.He was an excellent photographer and used the finest photographic equipment available-Hasselblad.I kept in contact with Sherwin after he moved to Santa Barbara, and after I left the garden in November 1993.We exchanged letters from that time until late 2021 when I didn't hear back from him.He should be remembered as one of the great wood anatomists and teachers in the USA.
Thomas Elias, Director Emeritus, California Botanic Garden an accomplished author During my time as Editor-in-Chief of Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany, Sherwin was a frequent, gracious and proactive contributor to the journal.His writing style was distinctive but always clear and concise.He was willing to honor suggested edits and comments from reviewers if he deemed them to be valid but did not tolerate reviews that were formulaic or lacked scientific merit.His submissions were always meticulous, the topics and questions fresh, and the figures depicting photographs of wood anatomy-whether taken by light microscope or scanning electron microscope-were of exceptional quality.