Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Biographical Note

William Trelease (1857–1945), a taxonomist, served as a professor of botany at Washington University, St. Louis (1885–1913); director of the Missouri Botanical Garden (1889–1912); and professor of botany (1913–1926) and professor emeritus (1926–1945) at the University of Illinois. He was an authority on a number of plants, including Agave Linnaeus, American oaks and the tropical Piperaceae. After Trelease's death, these selected letters were sent to Truman George Yuncker (1891–1964) of DePauw University, who had done his thesis on Cuscuta Linnaeus under Trelease and had been asked by him to continue the latter's work on Piperaceae; Yuncker kept the letters for their autographs.

Scope and Contents Note

The letters in this collection relate mainly to Trelease's determinations of Piperaceae, particularly Piper Linnaeus and Peperomia Ruiz & Pavon, and occasionally of Loranthaceae; a few relate to specimens of Cuscuta, sent to Yuncker through Trelease. There is also a group of letters (ca.1929) relating to a biographical memoir of John Merle Coulter, a book Trelease was writing for the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. These letters are from Coulter's widow, Georgie; his son Stanley; and various persons from whom Trelease had requested information concerning Coulter's life and work. In addition, this collection contains letters concerning Trelease's work (ca.1928) on Piperaceae for the North American Flora (New York, New York Botanical Garden, 1954). There are a few letters relating to other publications by Trelease, including an article (ca.1929) in Contributions from the U.S. National Herbarium on "The Piperaceae of Costa Rica," and work by other botanists. There is essentially no material relevant to his work at St. Louis and Illinois, the Missouri Botanical Garden or his extensive botanical travels.

Correspondents include Joseph Charles Arthur (1850–1942); Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858–1954); John Hendley Barnhart (1871–1949); William James Beal (1833–1924); Charles Edwin Bessey (1845–1915); August Franz Friedrich Albert Bolle (1905–1999); Harold Edmund Box (1898–1973); Nina Floy Bracelin (1890–1973); Townshend Stith Brandegee (1843–1925); José J. Bravo (?–[1926]); John Isaac Briquet (1870–1931); Nathaniel Lord Britton (1859–1934); Otto August Buchtien (1859–1946); Benjamin Lincoln Bush (1858–1937); Wendell Holmes Camp (1905–1963); Aimée Antoinette Camus (1879–1965); Louise Frossard de Saugy de Candolle (1875–1973); James McKeen Cattell (1891–1944); Carl Frederick Albert Christensen (1872–1942); Mintin Asbury Chrysler (1871–1963); Edwin Grant Conklin (1863–1952); Georgie M. Coulter (1853–1934); John Merle Coulter (1851–1928); Stanley Coulter (1953–1943); Henry Chandler Cowles (1869–1939); Joseph M. Crevasse, Jr. (1915–2012); William Crocker (1876–1950); Karel Domin (1882–1953); A. T. Dorf; Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler (1844–1930); Arthur Thomas Erwin (1874–1970); Francis Eschauzier (1861–1924); William Gilson Farlow (1844–1919); Francis Raymond Fosberg (1844–1919); Simon Henry Gage (1851–1944); François Gagnepain (1866–1952); John Scott Lennox Gilmour (1906–1986); Henry Allan Gleason (1882–1975); Evelyn Graham Beaujon Gooding (1915–1987); Heinrich Raphael Eduard von Handel-Mazzetti (1882–1940); John William Harshberger (1869–1829); Wilhelm Gustav Herter (1884–1958); George Boole Hinton (1883–1943); Arthur William Hill (1875–1941); Albert Spear Hitchcock (1865–1935); Bénédict Pierre Georges Hochreutiner (1873–1959); Boris Lavrent'evich Issatchenko (1871–1948); John George Jack (1861–1949); William Linn Jepson (1867–1946); Ivan Murray Johnston (1898–1960); Lewis Ralph Jones (1864–1945); Ellsworth Paine Killip (1890–1968); Charles Herbert Lankester (1879–1969); Paul Henri Lecomte (1856–1934); (Frère) Hermano Léon (1871–1955); Joel Lunell (1851–1920); James Francis MacBride (1892–1976); William Randolph Maxon (1877–1948); Ynes Enriquetta Julietta Mexia (1870–1938); Charles Frederick Millspaugh (1854–1923); Hans Molisch (1856–1937); Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866–1945); Edward Sylvester Morse (1838–1925); David Myers Mottier (1864–1940); Aven Nelson (1859–1952); Abbott Chandler Page (1856–1946); Louis Hermann Pammel (1862–1931); Francis Whittier Pennell (1886–1952); Henri François Pittier (1857–1950) [to F. L. Stevens]; Frederick Belding Power (1853–1927); David Prain (1857–1944); John Ramsbottom (1885–1974); Christen Christiansen Raunkiaer (1860–1938); Alfred Rehder (1863–1949); James Henry Rice, Jr. (1868–1935); Benjamin Lincoln Robinson (1864–1935); Frans Hubert Edouard Arthur Walter Robyns (1901–1986); Harold St. John (1892–1991); Ruth Dexter Sanderson (1891–ca.1951); Charles Sprague Sargent (1841–1927); William Seifriz (1888–1955); Francis Wayland Shepardson (1862–1937); Bohumil Shimek (1861–1937); C. F. Skinker; John Kunkel Small (1869–1938); Wilhelm Gerard Solheim (1898–1978); Paul Carpenter Standley (1884–1963); Eduard Adolf Strasburger, (1844–1912); Georg Friedrich Leopold Tischler (1878–1955); Ignatius Urban (1848–1931); Alexander Wetmore (1886–1978); David White (1862–1935); Robert Statham Williams (1859–1945); Ernest Henry Wilson (1876–1930); Robert Everard Woodson (1904–1963); Georges Woronoff (1874–1931); Author Unknown (to H. Humbert, Phanérogame, Musée d'Histoire Naturelle).

Finding Aid

A finding aid for this collection is available online.

Other Resources

For information about portraits of and biographical citations for the subject, see the Hunt Institute Archives Register of Botanical Biography and Iconography database.