BERTRAM WHITTIER WELLS (1884–1978): A STUDY IN THE HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICAN PLANT ECOLOGY

Abstract

The botanist Bertram Whittier Wells belonged to the first generation of North American plant ecologists who worked in the period 1900–1950. As such he approached plant communities descriptively, with emphasis on their qualitative composition, distribution with respect to habitat factors, and successional relations. He pioneered in the study of the ecology of the vegetation of the southeastern United States, especially of the coastal plain. His principal contributions lay in establishing early foundations for understanding a number of problems: the role of pine communities, the interaction of pyric with topographic and edaphic factors, secondary succession in old fields, the origin and maintenance of mountain grassy balds, the salt‐spray factor in coastal ecology, and the origin and history of lakes of the Carolina bays. Wells worked essentially alone, apart from the ecological schools and doctrinal networks which characterized his time. He received little contemporary recognition from his fellow ecologists, and in later years even acquired a negative reputation. The work of Wells is examined both for itself and for the insight it and its reception afford into the history of the initial half‐century of North American plant ecology. A complete list of Wells' ecological publications is presented.