Harold N. Moldenke papers

Harold Norman Moldenke (1909-1996) was a taxonomist whose expertise was in the fields of Verbenaceae, Avicenniaceae, Stilbaceae, Dicrastylidaceae, Symphoremaceae, Nyctanthaceae and Eriocaulaceae of the world. He published botanical handbooks on those families. He wrote the volume on Eriocaulaceae, Avicenniaceae and Verbenaceae for Flora of Texas (Vol. 3, pt. 1).

Moldenke began his career at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) as a Research Fellow and part-time assistant in 1929. He was Assistant Curator (1932-1937) and Associate Curator (1937-1948) under Henry A. Gleason. In 1949 he was named Curator and Administrator of the Herbarium. He was a member of Graduate Faculty, Dept. of Botany, Columbia University from 1936-1942 and from 1946-1952. He also taught a course at NYBG in Systematic Botany for gardeners.

He was born in Watchung, N.J., son of Charles E. and Sophia (Heins) Moldenke. He received his bachelor's degree from Susquehanna University in 1929 and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Taxonomic Botany from Colombia University in 1934.

The Moldenkes of Wachtung, N.J. were an extraordinary family. His grandfather, Edouard Friedrich Moldehnke was sent to Wisconsin as a Lutheran Missionary from East Prussia. Eventually he became Pastor of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in New York City. His father, Charles Edward Moldenke (1860-1935), was a renowned Egyptologist. In 1935 Harold republished Charles' "The New York Obelisk", a translation of the hieroglyphics on Cleopatra's Needle, the obelisk behind the Metropolitan Museum, NYC. The family home in Wachtung, built in 1901 was named Villa Elsinore. Across the road was the home of Charles Moldenke's brother Richard George Gottlub Moldenke (1864-1930) who was a renowned metallurgist and mining engineer, specializing in iron smelting. Richard Moldenke's home was called Castle Elsinore and popularly, Moldenke's Castle. It was torn down in 1969.

During the war years Moldenke served in the Civilian Public Service with the Soil Conservation Service and as a hospital attendant in Warren, Pa. He wrote a series of papers on "Plants Strategic to the War Effort" and on curare producing plants of Amazonia with B.A. Krukoff.

His collections ranged through every state except Alaska, Europe, Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa, Malaysia and Japan. They numbered 31, 279 in 1977. His bibliography that year numbered 2584 titles including journal articles, lectures, pamphlets and monographs.

A library reference question directed to Moldenke, regarding whether the "crown of thorns" plant sold by florists was actually the same plant mentioned in the bible, led to twelve years of research and the publication in 1941 of the ground-breaking "Plants of the Bible", still in print in 1999.

In 1941 Moldenke supervised illustrations for this work, made by artists employed at NYBG through the Federal Arts Project. Another WPA project he provided was the enumeration of his collection numbers at the time.

His collaborator on "Plants of the Bible" was his wife, Alma Lance Ericson Moldenke. Mrs. Moldenke attended graduate courses in Botany and Education at Columbia University from 1931-1938. She taught Biology at Hunter College High School and Evander Childs High School in New York City. In 1980 Mrs. Moldenke assumed the Co-Editorship of the journal Phytologia which had been initiated by Harold Moldenke and Henry A. Gleason in 1933. The journal was transferred from the Moldenkes to B.L. Turner and Michael Warnock in 1989.

Moldenke resigned from NYBG in 1952. He returned to Wachtung to undertake a career in botanical and ecological education as Director of the Trailside Museum, later the Trailside Nature and Science Center in Mountainside, Union County, N.J. Concurrent with these duties, he was professor of Botany at Newark State College (now Keane State College), Union, N.J. He also taught enrichment courses at Westfield and Livingston Adult Schools, both in N.J. During his stewardship, the Trailside Center developed into a year-round facility and visitation grew from 60,000 in 1952 to 290,000 in 1966. He resigned from Trailside in 1967 to accept a professorship at Paterson State College (now William Paterson College), Wayne, N.J.

In 1955 Moldenke advised Beth Israel Memorial Park, a cemetery in Woodbridge, N.J., on the construction of the "Bible Gardens of Israel" which contained plants and shrubs and rocks selected by him and imported from Israel.

Moldenke created and marketed a series of 30 slide lectures which were delivered to civic and youth groups, either by himself or by sending slides and audio-tapes to the group.

Moldenke maintained a close relationship with NYBG. He donated educational materials from Trailside to the NYBG Library. In 1969, he was named an Honorary Life Member of the Torrey Botanical Club . He was made Honorary Curator of NYBG in 1970. In the late 1980's both Harold and Alma Moldenke were stricken with heart attacks. They moved to Corvallis, Oregon to be close to their son Andrew R. Moldenke, now an entomologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz (1999).

In 1984 Moldenke sold the major portion of his herbarium, papers and books to the University of Texas. His herbarium is housed in the Moldenke Room at the Plant Resources Center, UT, Austin. An inventory of his unprocessed papers is located at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center on that campus.

Harold N. Moldenke died at Corvallis, Oregon on January 7, 1996.