Plant Science Bulletin 59(2) 2013 read the wonderful preface by Rainer W. Bussmann, I was struck with the notion that I wished there had been a similar symposium honoring Schultes during his lifetime. I wished this not only because it was immediately clear that Schultes deserved such an honor while he was alive to enjoy it, but also because presumably more of his colleagues would have been alive and physically able to participate in the event. It is sad that there had not been an earlier symposium, and it is equally sad that some of the authors allude to Schultes’s important and impressive collections sitting “all but neglected in some attic at Harvard.” Alas.
This book is a wonderful first encounter for those people who, like me, did not know much about Schultes. An added delight of the book is reading the wonderful excerpts from letters written to Schultes by his mentor Dr. Oakes Ames. Not only is it interesting to read some of the fatherly advice that Ames offered, but reading his satirical description of how many students choose their topics and develop their theses or dissertations is a true delight. Less amusing are the frequent comments on the lack of concern for the preservation of the tropical forest in particular and biodiversity in general. Similarly, the unnecessary loss of Schultes’s rubber tree seed collection at a time when disease is once again threatening natural rubber production is a painful example of how the value of collections is ignored until those lost collections are truly needed. Similarly, there is an all too true reference to the loss of trained botanists despite the fact that the importance of plants to humankind remains undiminished from that day, long ago, when green algae conquered the land and gave rise to the land flora upon which we and kindred animals all depend! Despite these unpleasant truths duly reported in some of the papers, this is a wonderful little book because Richard Evans Shultes was a wonderful person. I strongly recommend it and am happy to report that it won a James A. Duke Excellence in Botanical Literature Award from the American Botanical Council in February 2013.
Jumping back to the topic, the real importance of this book is getting to know Richard Evans Shultes. All of the authors who discuss Schultes offer similar “pictures” of the man. Because Schultes was the focus of the symposium and this book, here are some examples (all taken from the book) of how he is described by those who knew him and worked with him: “one of the most important ethnobotanists of the 20th century”; “most iconic colleague”; “was the first ethnobotanist to step off the academic cloud and to respect and value the deep traditional knowledge his indigenous counterparts held”; “a most unusual person, a great thinker, and an individual who viewed life as an opportunity to carry out the dreams of his early youth”; “he could read, write, or speak 10 languages including two Amazonian languages”; “[a] great man, whose intelligence, courage, sense of humor, vision, and accomplishments were so inspiring”; “well known for insisting on the correct spelling and pronunciation of Latin, Greek, and any other language”; “perfectly groomed”; “always conservatively and correctly dressed, rather more like a Victorian professor”; “[he] propelled ethnobotany and economic botany to resolve concrete problems”; “lifelong mentor and continuing source of inspiration”; “highly supportive”; “a field botanist and a Harvard man through and through”; “one of the ‘last Victorian explorers’”; “a complex scientist”; “an ethnobotanist…plant taxonomist, an economic botanist, a conservation botanist, and an ethnopharmacologist”; “incredibly supportive of his students”; “the great man”; and “a walking encyclopedia.” His colleagues noted his “inspiration, discipline, and vision”; “humility, sense of humor, respect for indigenous peoples, love for Amazonia and Columbia”; and “his dry sense of humor.”
The wonderful preface by Rainer W. Bussmann (mentioned above) includes a poem in Spanish written for the symposium in spring 2011 by Isidoro Cabrera (who had been a field assistant for Schultes in the 1950s). I thought a translation might have been provided for those us who have not mastered as many foreign languages as did Schultes. My colleagues, Dr. Juan Manuel LopezBautista of the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and Dr. Joseph V. Ricapito of Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, and I offer our translation to close this review: TO RICHARD EVANS SCHULTES
IN MEMORIAM EXCELSIOR Indefatigable explorer Of the extensive Amazonia Who worked with passion Studying its harmony.
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