Botanist James L. Reveal died on January 9, 2015, age 73. At the time of his death he was honorary curator of the New York Botanical Garden, adjunct professor at Cornell University, and professor emeritus at the University of Maryland. During his career he published 543 papers on botany and plant taxonomy and collected more than 9,000 herbarium specimens from North America, Central America, and China.
In 2009, NARGS awarded Dr. Reveal the Edgar T. Wherry award, primarily for his contributions to the genus Eriogonum. For the NARGS Quarterly, he wrote, “Eriogonum in the Garden” (Spring 2007) and “When a Shooting Star is Really a Primrose” (Spring 2008). He was a speaker at the NARGS-sponsored International Interim Rock Garden Plant Conference in Snowbird, Utah, in 2006, speaking on the topic “Western Endemics: Eriogonum.” He had planned to be a speaker at the recent annual meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but withdrew because of health problems.
An extensive tribute to Dr. Reveal by the Norton-Brown Herbarium of the University of Maryland, College Park, can be found at http://www.nbh.psla.umd.edu/collection/reveal.html