John D. Dwyer (1915–2005)

Abstract

The death of John Dwyer on December 6th, 2005 at age 90 has left a void in the academic community of St. Louis. Dwyer was Professor Emeritus at St. Louis University from the time of his retirement in 1985. His long tenure at St. Louis University began in 1953 where he served as Department Chairman from the time of his arrival until 1963. A botanist, Dwyer 's association with the Missouri Botanical Garden is equally protracted, beginning as a Research Associate in 1954. He trained a long succession of biologists during his tenure of 32 years at the university and he continued working with students at the Garden long after his retirement. His career began in New York at Fordham University near the New York Botanical Garden and not so far from Newark, New Jersey where he was born in 1915. At Fordham he completed his B.S. in 1936 and his Ph.D. in 1941 while beginning his research with tropical plants. He married Marie Rita Rozelle of New York in 1942 and after graduation, John worked at several col leges in New York State (St. Francis College in Brooklyn, Siena College in Loudonville and finally at Union College in Schenectady) and his children remem ber growing up in Albany, New York. John was a gifted systematist and a classics scholar, frequently helping others with Latin translations and giv ing classes in botanical Latin to staff and students at the university and at the Missouri Botanical Garden. His broad research interests included the Ochnaceae, Lecythidaceae, Apocynaceae, Nyctaginaceae, Legumin osae, Rubiaceae and many other families. John's research with Ochnaceae took up much of his earlier years followed by a concentration on Leguminosae and in his final years he worked mostly with Rubiaceae, part ly in conjunction with his student, Victoria Hayden, and with David Lorence. In the early years when the staff at the Missouri Botanical Garden was much smaller (pre Ron Liesner days), it was Dwyer who made general determinations, getting material sorted into families and genera to make the specimens available to other botanists. Tom Croat reports that it was John Dwyer who sat with him after any expedition to Barro Colorado Island to put names on plants. He said, I was amazed at how many plants he knew and it was impressive for a beginner like me. Even after his retirement years, after his legs would no longer carry him into the Garden's John D. Dwyer in 1966.