Harold Robinson Š Recipient of the 2010 Asa Gray Award
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Systematic Botany (2011), 36(1): pp. 1–4 © Copyright 2011 by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists DOI 10.1600/036364411X553063 Harold Robinson — Recipient of the 2010 Asa Gray Award Guy L. Nesom 1 and John F. Pruski 2 1 2925 Hartwood Drive, Fort Worth, Texas 76109 U. S. A. ( [email protected] ) 2 Missouri Botanical Garden, PO Box 299, St. Louis, Missouri 63166 U. S. A. ( [email protected] ) Copyright (c) American Society for Plant Taxonomists. All rights reserved. Delivered by Ingenta to IP: 192.168.39.151 on: Thu, 23 Sep 2021 14:14:42 Fig. 1. Harold Robinson. Photo by Mauricio Diazgranados. Harold Robinson’s contributions to science place him Society. … The Society is organized to foster, encourage, and among the major 20th and 21st century botanical system- promote education and research in the field of plant taxon- atists in North America. It’s likely that in both centuries he omy, to include those areas and fields of study that contribute is the leader in research productivity, as measured by num- to and bear upon taxonomy and herbaria.” From the ASPT ber of publications, number of new species and new gen- Awards Committee (fide Mark Fishbein, 9 June 2010): “We era described, and nomenclatural combinations associated all felt that [Harold Robinson] was a very worthy recipient, with taxonomic restructuring. In the Asteraceae, where especially with respect to his prescient, dramatic revisions to Harold’s work is best known, his comparable colleagues in established concepts of Asteraceae taxonomy and his exem- the Americas are B. L. Robinson, Jesse Greenman, Sidney plary role as a museum and specimen-based researcher.” In a Blake, Angel Cabrera, Jose Cuatrecasas, and Billie Turner, fuller statement, the Committee provided this summary. and he easily belongs with other major figures of basic taxo- “We were particularly struck by several aspects of Harold’s nomic research from the 20th century and into the present; career that are compelling in making our recommenda- Art Cronquist, Paul Standley, I. M. Johnston, Merritt Fernald, tion. First, Harold is strongly in the mold of the traditional John K. Small, Julian Steyermark, Rupert Barneby, Rogers “giant” of plant taxonomy who has amassed a truly stagger- McVaugh, and Jerzy Rzedowski. It is satisfying, too, to view ing body of knowledge pertaining to both a focal research this award as tangential recognition of earlier Smithsonian- group as well as plant diversity in general. In Harold’s case, associated synantherologists, namely Sidney Blake and Jose this expertise improbably extends to a group for Diptera to Cuatrecasas, upon whose publications, herbarium curation, which he has made a startling number of taxonomic contribu- and specimen determinations Robinson has drawn. tions for someone whose main focus is so taxonomically dis- The ASPT Asa Gray award is given “to an individual for tant. Second, Harold’s understanding of the morphological, outstanding accomplishments pertinent to the goals of the and particularly micromorphological, diversity of the hugely 1 2 SYSTEMATIC BOTANY [Volume 36 diverse and species-rich Compositae is so deep and thorough has studied and published in the fields of anatomy, palynol- that his often controversial and hotly contested taxonomic ogy, and (extensively) bryophytes. And insects … the fly fam- upheavals have been born out by molecular phylogenetic ily Dolichopodidae, in which he has described over 200 new analysis to an astounding degree. We are especially compelled species and 7 new genera (the most recent of the new gen- to recognize an individual who exemplifies the fundamental era in 2010). He is coauthor of a new genus of green algae importance of understanding all aspects of the morphology of ( Struveopsis Rhyne & H. Robinson, 1968). Outside of the one’s study group for informing good taxonomy, especially at Compositae, he’s an acknowledged and published expert a time when molecular approaches are paramount. This point in other vascular plant families, especially the Bromeliaceae is underscored by Harold’s strong association with museum- and even the Orchidaceae. His background in bryology, with based research. Third, the sheer volume of his output is stag- the necessity of studying microcharacters through prepara- gering in and of itself!” tion of slides, led to application of similar techniques in the Species diversity and taxonomic structure in the Asteraceae, Asteraceae and reemphasis of microcharacters of flowers and especially in the tribes Eupatorieae, Vernonieae, Heliantheae, fruits, now fully absorbed into normal systematic studies of Senecioneae, and Liabeae, show a major imprint from the morphology. work of “H. Rob.” This work, which began in the 1960s with In the 1970s and 1980s, Harold, in collaboration with Bob the late Bob King in describing generic segregates from the King and Ferdinand Bohlmann of the Technical University huge genus Eupatorium , met with some initial resistance and in Berlin, began a series of studies of secondary compounds criticism, in large part because of the alacrity of publication mostly among the acetylenes and sesquiterpene lactones. This and the numerous newly proposed and resurrected genera. resulted in the publication of more than 230 articles, mostly But with insights from molecular data and a corresponding, in the journal Phytochemistry , detailing new compounds. nearly universal tendency toward recognizing smaller gen- Harold’s contribution to this effort was primarily in provid- era, the restructuring of Eupatorium now appears as a pre- ing identifications (the materials were largely collected by scient forerunner of contemporary systematics. Study of other Bob King), but some of his papers are overviews of the rela- groups followed suit. tion of secondary metabolites to Compositae taxonomy, and As an example of perspectives in the midst of the Eupatorium he clearly is at home among the details of the chemistry. restructuring, Rogers McVaugh (the first Asa Gray awardee) Working at the Smithsonian— Harold works primarily from made this observation in his adherence to a conservative view a massive collection of Asteraceae (and others) at US. North of that genus: “No other authors … in modern times have pro- America collections already were strong when he arrived, posed such sweeping reorganization of a major plant group and his immediate predecessors in Washington, Sidney Blake in such a short time, and asked the public to take so much of it (1892–1959) and Jose Cuatrecasas (Research Associate at US, on faith” (Contr. Univ. Michigan Herb. 15: 181–190. 1982). Of 1955–1996) had contributed greatly to expansion of Central course, Rogers was essentially correct in his observation, but American and South American accessions. But the extra- then, as has proved to be the case, so were King and Robinson North American materials surely have grown exponentially and the implied criticism is cancelled in the botanical alge- during Harold’s tenure, partly because of the field work of bra. “The Genera of the Eupatorieae (Asteraceae)” ( King and R. M. King and his co-collectors such as Earl Bishop, and in Robinson 1987 ) soon provided a documented summary and large part because of the specimens sent to him for identi- overview, beautifully and fully illustrated. fication. Missouri Botanical Garden’s Tropicos system lists Relentless Research— As counted from Harold’s complete 18,000+ collections of Compositae (largely Andean) deter- list of publications posted on his staff page of the Smithsonian mined by H. Robinson, with their duplicates widely distrib- Copyright (c) American Society for Plant Taxonomists. All rights reserved. Delivered by Ingenta to IP: 192.168.39.151 on: Thu, 23 Sep 2021 14:14:42 Botany Department website, he has authored and coauthored uted to the world’s leading herbaria. His determinations of at least 910 (as of November 2010). Of course there are other innumerable Compositae collections not represented in the ways to gauge research productivity, but publication is inar- Tropicos database sent from Brazilian institutions are mani- guable evidence of planning and follow-through in the con- fest in any open herbarium cabinet at US. Harold’s bulk iden- text of knowing what’s needed to be known. Since his first tifications and description as new of so many Compositae publication in 1956 (while a Master’s student in Knoxville) results in the irony of correspondingly few Compositae through 2010, that’s an average of 17 per year. A short selec- (i.e. Robinsonecio , Ayapana robinsonii , Calea robinsoniana , and tion is included below to illustrate the breadth and major Pappobolus robinsonii ) named in his honor. directions of his research. Harold happily acknowledges that working in a large As estimated from Index Kewensis, nomenclatural novel- collection underlies a potential to be productive in system- ties (including new combinations) published by H. Rob. are atic research, but also that it brings an obligation to work in approaching 3,500. Of these, about 200 are new genera (more larger groups. In fact he loves to work in the “big and messy than 100 in the Eupatorieae alone) and 600 are new spe- groups” (“garbage pits”) rather than pick research projects cies. This estimate may be considerably conservative. Many along the “edge of snowbanks,” and although his produc- generic and suprageneric novelties have begun to stand the tivity surely indicates that he finds the research irresistible, test of time, although Harold himself distributed reprints he likes to describe his course as “getting the job done” and of Harthamnus H. Rob. with an erratum equating it with the “doing what needs to be done.” As to the massive number of common Andean Plazia daphnoides , and noted (alas, postpub- publications, he modestly avers that a portion of it has been lication) the tribal name Liabeae H. Rob. & Brettell is an iso- piecemeal in working toward larger goals and that the publi- nym of Liabeae Rydb. cations in Phytochemistry may have had minimal input from In his words: “I’ve always aimed to do the things that him.