Student Days with Edgar Anderson or How I Came to Study Sunflowers

Abstract

When Dr. Porter invited me to give this address in a symposium honoring Dr. Edgar Anderson, I was, of course, delighted to accept. In my reply to him I suggested several possible topics-the origin of Solanum quitoense, the current status of introgression, variation in the bottle gourd, why did man plant seeds, and the title that he selected. I really didn't expect him to choose the one he did, for at the time I suggested it I thought it a rather clever title, but I did not have the vaguest idea as to what I would say' whereas for most of the others I did have some hard data. In a sense it is a most appropriate title, and Dr. Anderson would have enjoyed seeing that I still get into the kind of predicaments I did 30 years ago. It is also appropriate, for after a day of data and hypotheses, something different is called for, and I promise you that this will be different-if nothing else. I hesitate to give this talk for two reasons. First, I do not feel that I am old enough to give a talk of reminiscences. But the other day my son said to me, Dad, do you realize that you are a half century old. Somehow when put this way it makes me seem old enough. Secondly, I hesitate giving this talk since it involves talking a lot about myself and exposing a brash young student still wet behind the ears, and it becomes necessary to say a lot about him to develop the theme that the title implies. By way of background I should say that I was a student at Washington University and that sunflowers have been my principal research interest for a number of years. In a sense the story began in a room in Rebstock Hall in 1939 when I took Bob Woodson's Botany 101 course. I took it as my science requirement, for at the time I had listed myself as an English major. Before the course was over I had changed my mind. However at Bob's suggestion I took no botany the next year, for he thought that I shouldn't change my major too rapidly. So I didn't really become acquainted with Edgar Anderson until my senior year and that was somewhat of an accident. That year I had planned to take an advanced taxonomy course with Woodson, but that was all changed when he was asked to give a geography course for students the Army had sent to campus. Anderson volunteered to give Woodson's course. That in itself now appears unusual to me. How many of you have colleagues who will volunteer to give your courses? There were two students in Botany 550 that year-myself and another botany major, Dorothy Gaebler (I wonder what became of her?). We soon found that this