Wendell Holmes Camp papers

Wendell Holmes (Red) Camp, botanical explorer, taxonomist, nomenclature theorist, experimental botanist, educator, landscape photographer was born Feb. 22, 1904 in Dayton, Ohio. He received his B.Sc. in geology from Otterbein College in 1925 and his Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1932. He took his first field trip that year—following the snow melt at the timberline in the far-western mountains from the Mexican Border into British Columbia. Along with collecting, he preserved his memories with an extraordinary series of landscape photographs which he saved in two scrapbooks.

In 1936, following an extended collection and photography field trip through the Southern Appalachians (Virginia and Kentucky), especially the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, he joined the staff of the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) as Assistant Curator, a position he held until 1946, when after his war work with the Societé Haitiano Americain de Developpment Agricola (1943) and the Mision de Cinchona in Ecuador (1944-1945), he was Associate Curator until 1949.

H. W. Rickett remembers Camp’s presence as a period of “pure intellectual ferment” that has ”been seldom equaled and never surpassed.” While at the NYBG Camp was engaged in issues of taxonomy. His specialty was the Ericaceae, especially Vaccinium, but Rickett states that “ he was always looking for the generalizations, the answers to the larger questions in relationship and evolution”. During his time at NYBG Camp initiated and edited the Taxonomic Index (1939-1949) for members of the newly formed American Society of Plant Taxonomists. His major theoretical work, “Structure and Origin of the Species”, written in collaboration with C. L. Gilly, argued that there were many forms of species and many ways in which species developed. Eventually, Camp would come to doubt the concept of species entirely, focusing on the unique elements of every specimen.

Camp bridged the worlds of botany and horticulture. As President of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (1949) and President of the American Horticultural Council (1952), Camp took on the challenge of bringing horticultural nomenclature into line with botanical nomenclature. While at NYBG he collaborated with H. W. Rickett and C. A. Weatherby to produce the “Brittonia edition” of the International Rules which were enacted by the International Botanical Congress in Stockholm, 1950. He then moderated the collaboration between the Stockholm Congress and the International Horticultural Congress in London, 1952 to produce the “International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants.” His taxonomic work on the Vaccinium led him to extensive experiments in blueberry hybridization. His taxonomic work on Fagus developed into a study on the treatment and prevention of beech bark disease when he was at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.

But it is for his field work that Camp is most renowned. Immediately upon his arrival at NYBG, Camp was sent on a collecting expedition to Oaxaca with Thomas Baillie MacDougall (Winter 1936-1937). He took many photographs and purchased or exchanged work with native photographers. Working with Carol Woodward, Camp secured a contract to write a popular book on his experiences to be titled, “Winter in Oaxaca.” This was never completed. However, one of his final publications was a popular book published by the National Geographic Society in 1957. Titled “The World in Your Garden”, it contains theories of plant migrations and many anecdotes from his collecting expeditions.

Camp’s adventurous spirit and history joined in World War II. In 1942 he was given leave from the NYBG to work with the Societé Haitiano Americain de Developpment Agricola , a joint venture between the U. S. and Haitian governments to produce cryptostegia and vital drug crops for the war effort. Camp’s participation in this venture was short-lived. He resigned in a dispute over the way land was being appropriated for the war crops.

Following this, he became an agent for the American Sponge and Chamois Company in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, charged with purchasing loofahs which were being used by the Navy as oil filters. By 1944 the Foreign Economic Administration (F. E. A.) had established the U. S. Commercial Co., as a purchasing agent of the U. S. Government. This agency engaged William Steere of the NYBG to analyze Cinchona bark purchased from Ecuador for its Quinine content. Steere discovered that second growth specimens were weaker that that of materials from forests that had never been harvested. It was determined that Camp be engaged by the Misión de Cinchona de Ecuador in order to harvest Cinchona from the ‘cloud forests’ at higher altitudes. After working with Steere during the Spring and Summer of 1944, Camp and his assistants Francisco Prieto, Manuel Giler and Henning Jorgensen, set off on an expedition into the mountains which lasted about 9 months. Camp kept careful records of their itinerary through previously unmapped areas controlled by Jivaro Indians. During the month of August, he was accompanied by William Steere.

The project was termed complete by the F. E. A. in April, 1945. At that time the NYBG, at the urging of then Director William J. Robbins, fowarded funds to Camp to collect “medicinal plants”. In all he collected 5,828 numbers (26,000 duplicates). John J. Wurdack organized the distribution of specimens to authorities on each taxon. 3% of the material was designated as new taxa. In his field book Camp recorded ethnobotanical data on 335 collections.

Shortly after his return to the U.S. Camp left the NYBG for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for a position created for him, Curator of Experimental Botany and Horticulture. This position involved industrial contracts for research on Vaccinium, Veratrum, Hedera and forest conditions in Quebec. He designed the Taylor Arboretum which opened in 1951. In 1953 he accepted the Chair of the Department of Botany at the University of Connecticut.

He returned to the NYBG in 1962 to receive its Distinguished Service Award. Some months later, on Feb. 4, 1963, he was dead. Rickett summarized his influence as that of “a stimulant, a catalyst, a purveyor of ideas, a challenger of the established order". He predicted that it would live for a long time.

In 1978, Elaine Joyal was curator of NYBG’s neotropical collections. She began sorting through his Ecuadorian collections and was so impressed that she published two articles on his work, one of which reproduced his field collection notes in their entirety-- including the ethnobotanical data. “Plant Collectors in Ecuador: Camp, Prieto, Jorgensen and Giler” (Brittonia 32 (4), 1980) details their itinerary. “Ethnobotanical Field Notes from Ecuador: Camp, Prieto, Jorgensen and Giler” (Economic Botany 41(2), 1987) is the reproduction of his field notes.