William R. Anderson—Recipient of the 2008 Asa Gray Award

1 William R. Anderson was awarded the 2008 Asa Gray Award at the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT) in Vancouver, British Columbia. Even a cursory glance at Bill’s accomplishments reveals a remarkable career spanning five decades. Bill’s contributions to our understanding of the Malpighiaceae, his mentoring of a large and outstanding group of graduate students, his many years as director of the University of Michigan Herbarium, his contributions as editor of a major flora of western Mexico, his cogent arguments for rational interpretation of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, and his work on behalf of the ASPT and other professional organizations exemplify the accomplishments of an individual of uncommon intellect and extraordinary generosity. Bill was born in 1942 in Tucson, Arizona, where he lived for nine years. During those early formative years, Bill developed a love for arid lands and the western United States, and probably encountered his first Malpighiaceae in Sabino Canyon. He was raised in Huntington, West Virginia, and formally began his career in systematics as an undergraduate at Duke University, where he was encouraged by Robert L. Wilbur. While at Duke he and fellow student Marshall Crosby spent two summers in the field, first in Jamaica (1963) collecting for the Duke Herbarium, and subsequently in Hawaii (1964) working on the fern genus Elaphoglossum —research that resulted in his first two publications on higher plants. As a graduate student at the University of Michigan Bill developed interests that have guided his entire career: research on the Malpighiaceae, and a focus on the flora of western Mexico. At Michigan Bill worked under the guidance of Rogers McVaugh, who had been immersed for many years in a study of the flora of western Mexico. Bill began his dissertation work studying Gaudichaudia , a large and complex genus of Malpighiaceae. It soon became apparent that the breeding system, possible hybridization, and high levels of polyploidy in that genus had produced an unusually problematic taxonomic situation that was better suited to postgraduate work. This encounter with malpighs piqued Bill’s interest in resolving some of their taxonomic and reproductive complexities. Although his eventual dissertation research on Crusea did not result in a lifelong dedication to the Rubiaceae, his publication of the resultant comprehensive monograph ( Anderson 1972 ) was awarded the Jesse R. Greenman Award for the best paper originating from a dissertation in plants systematics. That study included one of the early phylogenies based on explicit methodologies for a genus of plants. Some years later Bill revisited phylogeny of Crusea using a different set of cladistic methodologies ( Estabrook and Anderson 1979 ) and obtained a nearly identical result. While a graduate student, Bill met Christiane Seidenschnur, a fellow graduate student also working under the supervision of Rogers McVaugh. Bill and Chris were married in 1967. Numerous fun-filled evenings playing “Mensch ärgere dich nicht” ensued, along with several trips to Mexico to collect material of Trixis (Asteraceae) for Chris’s dissertation, and Oxalis for their friend and fellow student Melinda Denton. William R. Anderson—Recipient of the 2008 Asa Gray Award