Raymond Eugene Stotler (1940–2013) - Remembering an American hepaticologist

Abstract

Since the late 1970’s, the standard authority for North American liverwort and hornwort names and authors has been the ‘Checklist of North American Liverworts and Hornworts,’ compiled by Raymond Stotler and Barbara Crandall-Stotler and published in The Bryologist in 1977 (Stotler & Crandall-Stotler 1977). This checklist not only updated the classification scheme and list of taxa reported from North America in the list published by Evans in 1940, but for the first time included a list of synonyms and nomenclatural annotations. Ray loved puzzles and some of the great puzzles are to be found in the application of correct plant names. His thorough research into the nomenclature of liverwort and hornwort taxa, which included personal study of original descriptions and specimens to identify types, as well as an in depth knowledge of the ICBN, was a significant part of Ray’s professional life. He was a systematist in the broadest sense of the word, complementing his morphology-based taxonomic studies whenever possible with field observations, experimental manipulations of cultured plants, and insights gleaned from published molecular sequence analyses. Raymond Stotler was born on March 30, 1940 in Peoria, Illinois and passed away at his home in rural Makanda, Illinois on December 4, 2013 after a two-year battle with esophageal cancer, a battle that even his doctors in St. Louis thought he was winning. His father (Charles Raymond) was a machinist while his mother (Margie Juanita) raised him and his two sisters. Ray attended elementary and high school in Peoria, IL and spent his undergraduate days at Western Illinois University in Macomb, IL. It was actually there that his fascination with liverworts and research began when he conducted his senior project on the ecological differences between two field populations of Reboulia hemispherica, under the direction of Dr. R. D. Henry. In 1962, he graduated from Western with a degree in Biology Education and began his botanical studies at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. While at Carbondale, he spent one summer working for ecologist Dr. W. Clark Ashby at the LaRue-Pine Hills Research Station (currently a federal Research Natural Area), where he lived in a small cabin and made round-the-clock collections of Rhus radicans for analysis. Fortunately, he was not allergic to its toxins and this was an excellent introduction to the requirements for field work in southern Illinois, including snake-leggings, high boots, and a full-brimmed hat. His M.S. thesis research on the Characeae of Illinois was done under the direction of Dr. Robert H. Mohlenbrock, a respected authority of the Illinois flora and his mentor for nomenclature and systematics. As part of his study, Ray collected and processed specimens from pits left from former coalmines and lakes throughout the state and worked in various herbaria in Illinois and Indiana. Although his thesis work was on an algal group, he was still most interested in studying liverworts and often accompanied fellow students into the many canyons of southern Illinois, where liverworts were both abundant and diverse. While at SIU, he had the opportunity to meet Dr. Raymond E. Hatcher, an alumnus of SIUC and former Ph.D. student of Dr. Margaret Fulford, an authority on liverworts. Dr. Hatcher encouraged Ray to apply to do doctoral studies with Dr. Fulford, which he did after being awarded his Master’s degree in Botany in May of 1964. Ray was accepted into the doctoral program of the Botany Department of the University of Cincinnati to begin work with Dr. Fulford in the Fall of 1964, but first in the summer of 1964 he took field courses in bryophytes and lichens with Dr. Aaron J. Sharp at the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) in Pellston, MI. Beginning a Ph.D. program is always momentous for a person, but 1964 was more noteworthy for Ray for another reason. During the summer at UMBS he met Barbara Crandall—the beginning of a lifelong relationship. Ray and Barbara both completed their doctoral degrees at the University of Cincinnati in 1968. 1 Corresponding author’s e-mail: dvitt@siu.edu DOI: 10.1639/0007-2745-117.4.405