BENJAMIN CARROLL THARP (1885–1964)REMEMBERING A LIFE FASHIONED OF

EVENTS AND CIRCUMSTANCE

Alan GrahamMissouri Botanical Garden, P. O. Box 299, St. Louis, Missouri 63166-0299.

Alan.Graham@mobot.org

Abstract: Benjamin Carroll Tharp was a legendary Texas botanist who madefundamental contributions to understanding the vegetation of the state and todeveloping the University of Texas Herbarium. His publications in the early and middle1900s were used by numerous writers and artists in the southwest, and throughout hiscareer he contributed generously to students and colleagues needing field collections forteaching and research. Later, however, he became caught up in the changing trends inbotany that shifted staffing, administration, and departmental emphasis away fromdescriptive field studies and more toward laboratory and experimental research andnewer methodologies. He was also concerned in later years with completing a lengthytreatise on soil-vegetation relationships and soil development in non-glaciated regions.The result of these many factors was a complex individual with deep feelings for hisnative state and great respect for those studying its natural history. He also harboredresentments and anxieties manifested as a stoic personality easily interpreted as bitterand even angry. He was all of these but for those closest to him he was admired for hisdeep reservoir of knowledge about plants which he shared generously with thosedevoted to Texas and its vegetation.

Keywords: B. C. Tharp, Texas, vegetation, natural history.

When Captain H. Malcolm Macdonald,U. S. Navy (Ret.), and Professor of Govern-ment at The University of Texas, Austinwalked in with his characteristic militarybearing to American Government 610 in theSummer of 1954 he perused the class rosterand said, ‘‘Where’s Graham’’? I raised myhand and he said, ‘‘Good. Macdonald,Graham, and Tharp- the Scots have thingswell in hand.’’ This was my first indicationthat the elderly, rather dour professor seenin the Biology Laboratories Building waswell-known outside the Botany Department.But well-known he was—to the Klebergs ofthe famed King Ranch and historian TomLea, author of The King Ranch (1957) whosent Tharp a special-bound set of booksacknowledging his work on grasses (p. 750);legendary Texas naturalist Roy Bedichek(Adventures with a Texas Naturalist, 1947);folklorist J. Frank Dobie (A Vaquero of theBrush Country, 1928; Coronado’s Children,1930; The Longhorns, 1941); Texas wildflow-er specialist Eula Whitehouse (Texas Flowers

in Natural Color, 1936); and prolific short-story writer O. Henry (The Heart of the West,1907; A Chaparral Christmas Gift, 1910). Allof these authors and artists drew on theextensive knowledge and writings of B. C.Tharp, known as the ‘Father of TexasEcology’. He was a member of Phi BetaKappa often referring to it as ‘an organiza-tion often maligned by those not involved’, alife member of the Texas Academy ofScience, and Vice-Dean of the College ofArts and Sciences (1928–1934). He was onthe board of the Austin Bank and a friend ofexecutives of the Humble Oil and RefiningCompany (now Exxon). He was also aparticipant while still a graduate student,with geologists from the Bureau of Econom-ic Geology and Technology and the associ-ated legal consul in the border disputebetween Texas and Oklahoma. The casewas argued before the U. S. Supreme Courtduring its October term in 1919, and theruling was handed down on January 15,1923 (Sellards et al., 1923). The boundary

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had been set at the mid-channel of the RedRiver and the contention was that the riverhad been eroding its way northward. Theissue became important as oil in theunderlying strata became increasingly valu-able. Professor Tharp enjoyed recountingthat expert witnesses for Oklahoma testifiedthat trees in the channel were all youngindicating the river could have had beenmoving north. ‘Not being blessed with thegift of determining the age of a tree bylooking at the bark, I had some of them felledand they were much older than the date ofthe treaty’, so there was no way the channelhad been eroding north to the benefit ofTexas and at the expense of Oklahoma.

After he died a number of articlesappeared recounting his professional accom-plishments and the facts and figures of along, eclectic life (Whaley, 1965; Turner,2008; Handbook of Texas Online; Wikipe-dia, The Free Encyclopedia; Anonymous,1971). Benjamin Carroll Tharp (Fig. 1) wasborn in Pankey, Grimes County, Texas,about 100 miles east of Austin, on November

16, 1885 the son of Edwin and Angelina(McJunkin) Tharp. He attended Sam Hous-ton Normal Institute, Huntsville (1908–1910; now Sam Houston State University)and The University of Texas, Austin (B.A.,1914; M. A., 1915; Ph.D., 1925). He workedas a plant pathologist in the Texas Depart-ment of Agriculture (1915–1917), AssociateProfessor of Biology at Sam HoustonNormal Institute (1917–1919), Instructorin Botany at the University of Texas(1919), then Associate Professor (1925), FullProfessor (1933–1956), and Director of theHerbarium (1943–1956). Among his princi-pal publications are Structure of TexasVegetation East of the 98th Meridian (1926),The Vegetation of Texas (1939), Texas RangeGrasses (1952), and co-editor (1962) withChester V. Kielman of Mary Sophie Young’sJournal of Botanical Explorations in Trans-Pecos Texas, August–September, 1914. In1942 John Potzger of Butler University,Indianapolis, Indiana wrote to ProfessorTharp inquiring if there were any peatdeposits in Texas suitable for spore andpollen analysis. By this technique Potzgerhoped to reconstruct the Holocene vegeta-tion of this area far south of the glacialboundary. Tharp located and cored thePatschke (Lee County), Gause (MilamCounty), and Franklin (Robertson County)bogs and sent the material to Potzger whodid the analyses. The results were publishedby Potzger and Tharp (1943, 1947, 1954).

This litany of biographic data is usefulas a historical record of a professional lifebut it fails to reveal the human side of aprominent, complex person living at apivotal time in American higher education,and one shaped particularly by changingdirections at The University of Texas aroundthe 1950s. By way of explanation inrecounting the more personal side of hisprofessional life, I should note that ourassociation began near the end of mysophomore year at Texas in 1954, continuedthrough my Master’s degree in 1958, andthrough occasional correspondence andvisits until his death in 1964. During that

FIG. 1. Benjamin Carroll Tharp from aphotograph taken by the author at the BiologyLaboratories Building, University of Texas, Aus-tin, in 1961.

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time I took his two courses in the Vegetationof Texas (1955, 1956) and in Plant Ecology(1956) that included travel across centralTexas on field trips in his well-worn Dodgeautomobile, and frequently beyond onweekends for extra collecting. As a sideproject in the room next to ProfessorTharp’s office I also began tracing overlaysof vegetation and geology maps onto a statehighway map that allowed us to track thegeologic and plant formations as we traveledalong the road. He became interested in thecomposite map as it emerged, and evensuggested it be continued as part of aMaster’s Degree. The idea was to use thevery large aerial photographic map of Texasmounted on the wall of the Texas MemorialMuseum on Red River Street as the basemap for a broader synthesis. It would haverequired scaffolding and 3-D stereopticonglasses to prepare a detailed vegetation/geologic outcrop/physiographic map andaccompanying text for the state. To asophomore the project had an appealingMichelangelo-ish ring to it and in hindsightit might have proved useful for periodicallytracking changes in vegetation and detectingtheir causes. Chairman W. Gordon Whaleyeven mentioned, in Tharp’s presence, that itcould be worthwhile if we used ‘a moderntaxonomy’ by which he meant that of BillieTurner as opposed to that of Tharp.However, two things argued against it. Onewas that directions in botany were changingand it was apparent that such a descriptivecompilation would serve primarily as train-ing for preparing a never-ending series ofsimilar maps. The other was Billie Turner’ssuggestion that the new field of palynologymight be interesting, and so it has been.Even with this change in thesis topics,however, Professor Tharp continued hissupport that proved of inestimable value incompleting the project (see later section). In1955 I set up a primitive palynology‘laboratory’ on the fourth floor of theBiology Laboratories Building where theherbarium was located. The laboratory andmy desk were located in a corner of the

taxonomy classroom at the vortex betweenthe offices of legendary B. C. Tharp, theformidably focused and impressively knowl-edgeable doctoral student Marshall C. John-son, and the soon-to-be legendary B. L.Turner who was often in the herbariumacross the hall. As one of the few under-graduate botany majors at Texas at the time,and perhaps the only sophomore focused ontaxonomy and natural history, I became asurrogate student of Tharp. In part this wasbecause I treated him with the deference heexpected, especially from a student, and itwas obvious that to do otherwise couldprovoke a good scorching. It was fromconversations between 1954 and 1958 thatsome direct revelations, as well as hints andimpressions, provided insight into Tharp’sattitudes and feelings. He made no secret ofhis opinions and all the views recountedhere involving others were public knowledgeaccording to my best recollections. An effortwas made to locate his correspondence andwritings but almost none of it is cataloguedat The University of Texas. He had a son, B.Carroll Tharp (deceased), an architect in thefirm of Koetter, Tharp, and Cowell inHouston, but the firm is no longer in business.On June 1, 1971 the son wrote to me stating:

‘‘For several years, I have attempted towork with the University of Texas toarrange for the publishing of a book whichmy father was writing at the time of hisdeath. Due to many circumstances, I havebeen unsuccessful in this effort and in lieuof publishing the book, my wife and I havepurchased forty-two acres in San JacintoCounty which we propose to dedicate toDr. Tharp as a wilderness area. Theproperty is located only a mile and a halffrom the shores of Lake Livingston, andone side of the property is bordered by aspring-fed creek. The land is partly openand partly wooded, the trees consisting ofoaks, pines, magnolias, redbuds anddogwoods. We will plant wild flowers inthe open field and hope to construct asmall lake on the hillside. In the future, a

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small museum will be built to house someof my father’s books, slides, manuscriptsand other mementos. As we accumulatethem, other small trees that are native tothis region will be planted, and we like tothink of this as becoming a livingmemorial to him.’’

The wilderness area and museum wereapparently never built. The papers may be inpossession of the family but the two childrenof B. Carroll Tharp could not be located.

In later life Professor Tharp presented anair of someone bitter, even angry with thecourse of events in the Department. It was hisexpectation that anyone in botany at Texasshould know something about Texas botany.There may have been also a subliminal feelingthat this knowledge involving an area soextensive and so diverse would be broadestand felt deepest by lifelong, native residentseducated in the state—a fading mark of the‘Texas mystique’. His interests were exclusivelywithin the state and one manifestation of thiswas the minimum time he spent on obtainingexchange material sent to herbaria elsewhere.In his later years he would often strip a fewtwigs from trees around the pond behind theBiology Laboratories Building, hand-write alabel, and mail them off. There was anexpectation, honed by some precedent at thetime, that diligence, accomplishments thatgave him prominent status among his localpeers, his administrative experience, seniority,and an exemplary personal life meeting thehighest of southern standards (Baptist, Dea-con, Mason, and Democrat) would mark himfor leadership of the Department of Botany atThe University of Texas.

However, two global events changed thebalance between research and teaching, andgraduate and undergraduate education inmany large American Universities. One wasthat with the end of World War II in 1945considerable resources were becoming avail-able for domestic purposes. Then, onOctober 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launchedthe satellite Sputnik, intensifying the ColdWar and establishing Russia as a major

player and a dangerous competitor in worldpolitics. The response in the United Stateswas partly altruistic in that there was anationalistic desire to keep pace with aforeign challenger. It was also partly eco-nomic in anticipation of the vast amounts offederal money that would become availablefor research. The greatest need was formodern, technologically innovative research,and much less attention was given todescriptive natural history. With the benefitsof newly available resources, and the need toupgrade science, the Botany Department atTexas began hiring individuals that were ananathema to the likes of Benjamin CarrollTharp—W. Gordon Whaley (Ph.D., Colum-bia University, Chairman at Texas, 1949–1962); Harold C. Bold (PhD, ColombiaUniversity, 1957–1978); Charles Heimsch(PhD, Harvard University, 1947–1959); andIrwin Spear (PhD, Harvard University,1953–1994). In public Tharp maintained aseething politeness to Whaley, Bold, andHeimsch, but both in public and in privatehe could not abide Irwin Spear perhapsbecause he was a further anathema to anold-guard natural historian of the era- aphysiologist. He liked Ralph Alston (BotanyDepartment between 1956 and 1967), as didmost everyone else (Graham, 1999, p. 307),but he still belonged to a category of recentappointees whose research and its relevancyto Texas botany was a mystery to Tharp. Hedid not have anything critical to say aboutBillie Turner even though he was the newtaxonomist and Director of the Herbarium.He thought Billie didn’t know enough localplant species names, and I suspect Billiethought many of those Tharp knew werewrong or outdated. In the plant taxonomyclasses Tharp’s goal was to have studentsrecognize as many plants as possible. I recallBillie’s view was that family characteristics,relationships, speciation processes, andemerging methodologies in taxonomy weremore important than memorizing namesthat could be found in the literature. Tharpmused whether Larry McCart was deliber-ately slowing the mounting of the Silveus

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Grass Collection to prolong employment,and if the enigmatic Lloyd Shinners wouldever complete the Spring Flora of the Dallas-Fort Worth Area, Texas (1958; Ginsburg,2002). These and other concerns wereexpressed during mid-morning tea breaksin the herbarium or on field trips whilesitting under live oaks on the limestoneoutcrops (motts) of central Texas, or onpark benches under the ‘lost’ pines nearBastrop. His views were admirably re-strained on other occasions, as when wetook Harold Bold to collect Isoetes atEnchanted Rock.

Another of Tharp’s concerns was com-pleting the book he had been working on forseveral years dealing with the relationshipbetween vegetation, geologic formations,and soil, and with soil genesis in periglacialregions (viz., beyond the glacial boundary).He had suffered one heart attack and wasaware that time was running out. It becameapparent in Plant Ecology that a principalaim of the plant taxonomy courses was toprovide the background for recognizingplants that demonstrated the relationshipbetween geologic formations, soils, andvegetation. Numerous examples were point-ed out on the ecology field trips where asharp ecotone existed at the contact betweentwo geologic formations of different lithol-ogy. Professor Tharp was uniquely qualifiedto make such observations because his earlywork involved defining the composition anddistribution of the plant communities ofTexas. However, a major portion of thebook was a reaction to a specific point in thewritings of Russian soil scientist K. D.Glinka (The Great Soil Groups of the Worldand their Development, 1914) which had alsobeen used in the U. S. Department ofAgriculture’s 1938 Yearbook, Soils andMen. These works dealt extensively withthe glaciated parts of the Northern Hemi-sphere, and Tharp was convinced that bothgroups had been misled by the overlyingveneer of glacial soils into believing thatgiven enough time different bedrock wouldweather into a similar soil type. By the

mid-1960s this view had changed but he feltcompelled to get his observations from anextensive unglaciated area like Texas into theliterature. In Texas, limestone rock weath-ered into limestone soil, and granites andsandstones weathered into sandy soils. ‘Theytell me that when talking about soildevelopment you have to forget about time.I’m willing to forget about time. All I’msaying is there has not been enough time’ -referring to the Precambrian granites of theEdwards Plateau, Lower Cretaceous lime-stones like the Glen Rose Formation and theAustin Chalk, and the Eocene Carrizosandstones of the Coastal Plain. In preparingthe book, every semester for years a cadre ofundergraduate secretarial workers wouldspend hours copying verbatim multi-pagequotes from Glinka’s work, translated intoEnglish by Marbut (1927; see Glinka, 1914),and from Soils and Men, with the justifica-tion that ‘I want them to speak forthemselves’. Even with the editorial practicesof the day it is unlikely these lengthy quoteswould have made it into print, and, if so, thebook reviews of a subject no longer timelywould probably have been unfavorable orthe work mostly ignored. In many waysTharp’s later life and his writings had beencaught in the transitional times of the 1950sand 60s. He did not adjust to these changesand as a result he was unhappy with his fatein the Department and anxious aboutcompleting his opus maximum. His ratherlugubrious air toward the end of his lifereflected these feelings.

In spite of these concerns there wasanother side of Professor Tharp that wassupportive, generous beyond expectations,and unexpectedly humorous under the rightcircumstances. By way of example, one dayhe brought into the herbarium two largebuckets of prickly pear fruits from the KingRanch. During droughts, workers on theranch would sit on the back of jeeps withflame throwers and burn the spines off thecactus pads which would then be used forcattle feed. Toward the end of this particularmulti-year drought the seeds of Opuntia

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were not germinating and Tharp was askedto find out why. The first step was to get theseeds out of the fruit and the job was givento me for a pay of $5 an hour. The smallglochids had to be burned off with a Bunsenburner, the fruits chewed, and the seeds spitinto a jar. At first I thought about prolong-ing the task to earn more money, and laterconsidered subcontracting it out at $2 anhour to some undergraduates but that wasto no avail so the task was eventuallyfinished. Tharp asked me if I had anythoughts on the matter. I said that the onlything more disgusting than fermenting seedsin a jar of saliva was the thought of someonehaving to work with such material. After amoment he almost smiled and said, ‘Mightbe a job for those people downstairs’[meaning the newly hired faculty].

Professor Tharp’s support ranged fromthe incidental to the fundamentally impor-tant. He often left tickets on my desk toconcerts in the acoustically-challenged Me-morial Gymnasium. On the other hand,when it was decided my thesis project wouldbe spore and pollen analysis, he spent severaldays taking me around central Texas lookingfor suitable deposits different from those hehad already studied with Potzger. We wenton a number of field trips and eventuallylocated the South Soefje Bog at Ottine,Gonzales County, near Palmetto State Park.Then he contacted a friend at the HumbleOil Company and arranged for a grant thatpaid my tuition, salary, travel, supplies, andequipment even though the thesis wasofficially under Charles Heimsch. Humblealso provided the radiocarbon dates. A grantsupporting a Master’s degree was unusual inthose days and the freedom to pursueresearch full time contributed to the studybeing published in Ecology (Graham andHeimsch, 1960). Later Professor Tharp gaveme the Dodge to use as a field vehicle. In1958 as I was about to leave for theUniversity of Michigan he took me to theAustin Bank and arranged for a loan to buy a1957 Chevy Bel Air with the comment, ‘Thiswill look better up there’. He told the bank

manager in my presence and, I think for mybenefit, ‘If he doesn’t pay this off, I will’.During undergraduate days at Texas I wasliving in the old Hill Hall behind MemorialGym on an athletic scholarship, but duringthe summer things were lean to the extreme.I made it through many long week-ends inthe Biology Laboratories Building by eatinghalf a Milky Way candy bar with half a canof Pepsi on Saturday from the vendingmachine on the second floor, then eating theother half on Sunday. The fluff from thecandy and the carbonation from the Pepsiwould swell up and give the sensation ofbeing full—two days of subsistence for 25¢.Nonetheless, I would have lived on candybars and Pepsi for a long time beforedefaulting on that loan.

During one of the field trips we went intoa store in an isolated rural area of East Texasto ask for directions to Anahuac (pronouncedAna-wak). The old woman behind thecounter said, ‘It’s An-u-wak’. ‘How can it beAn-u-wak’, Tharp said, ‘there’s no ‘u’ in themiddle of the word’. She pulled herself up toher full 4990 and said ‘young man (he was inhis 70s at that time), I’ve lived here for97 years; and its An-u-wak.’ Professor Benja-min Carroll Tharp nearly smiled again.

There is a view that the human fabric iscomposed of strands contributed by eventsand experiences—strands that give color,strength, and ultimately value to the tapes-try. Benjamin Carroll Tharp was fashionedof many different strands incorporatedduring times of considerable change in thenation and in the direction of botany at TheUniversity of Texas. He contributed greatlyto his beloved state. He also had difficultycoping with the changing times, but whengiven the chance by others, and when movedby his own inclination, he could sharemightily with those privileged to know him.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank Tom Wendt for providingunpublished material on B. C. Tharp, andfor his invitation to contribute these

8 LUNDELLIA DECEMBER, 2010

remembrances of an interesting figure in thehistory of plant sciences in Texas. WilliamCarr sought information on the intendedTharp Wilderness Area, and kindly providedan e-image of my original photograph usedin Fig. 1. I also thank Beryl Simpson andtwo reviewers for their helpful comments onthe manuscript.

LITERATURE CITED

Anonymous. 1971. Ten years of progress in systematic

and phytochemical research, a decade report from

the University of Texas Herbarium and Phyto-

chemical Laboratories 1961–1970.

Bedichek, R. 1947. Adventures with a Texas Naturalist.

Austin: University of Texas Press.

Dobie, J. F. (with J. D. Young). 1928. A Vaquero of the

Brush Country, The Life and Times of John D. Young.

Austin: University of Texas Press.

Dobie, J. F. 1930. Coronado’s Children: Tales of Lost

Mines and Buried Treasures of the Southwest (Barker

Texas History Center Series). Austin: University of

Texas Press.

———. 1941. The Longhorns. Austin: University of

Texas Press.

Ginsburg, R. 2002. Lloyd Herbert Shinners, By Himself.

Dallas: Botanical Research Institute of Texas.

Glinka, K. D. 1914. The Great Soil Groups of the World

and their Development. Translated from the Ger-

man by C. F. Marbut (1927). Ann Arbor: Edwards

Brothers.

Graham, A. 1999. Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic History

of North American Vegetation. Oxford, U.K.:

Oxford University Press.

——— and C. Heimsch. 1960. Pollen studies of some

Texas peat deposits. Ecology 41: 785–790.

Henry, O. 1907. The Heart of the West. New York:

Doubleday, Page, and Company.

———. 1910. A Chaparral Christmas Gift (inWhirligigs, a collection of stories). New York:Doubleday, Page, and Company.

Lea, T. 1957. The King Ranch. Boston: Little, Brown,and Company.

Potzger, J. E. and B. C. Tharp. 1943. Pollen record ofCanadian spruce and fir from Texas bog. Science98: 584–585.

——— and ———. 1947. Pollen profile from a Texasbog. Ecology 28: 274–280.

——— and ———. 1954. Pollen study of two bogs inTexas. Ecology 35: 462–466.

Sellards, E. H., B. C. Tharp, and R. T. Hill. 1923.Investigations on Red River made in connectionwith the Oklahoma-Texas boundary suit. Univer-sity of Texas Bulletin N. 2327 (July 15, 1923).Austin: Bureau of Economic Geology and Tech-nology.

Shinners, L. H. 1958. Spring Flora of the Dallas-FortWorth Area, Texas. Dallas: Published by the author.

Tharp, B. C. 1926. Structure of Texas Vegetation East ofthe 98th Meridian. Austin: University of TexasBulletin No. 2606:1–172.

———. 1939. The Vegetation of Texas. Austin: TexasAcademy of Science, Nontechnical PublicationSeries.

———. 1952. Texas Range Grasses. Austin: PlantResearch Institute. University of Texas Press.

——— and C. V. Kielman (eds.). Mary S. Young’sJournal of Botanical Explorations in the Trans-Pecos Texas, August–September, 1914. Denton:Southwestern Historical Quarterly 65.

Turner, B. L. 2008. Botanical anecdotes: Circumstanc-es surrounding the collection of Dichondra mi-crantha (Convolvulaceae) in LaSalle County, Texas.Phytologia 90: 226–229.

U. S. Department of Agriculture. 1938. Soils and Men.Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government PrintingOffice.

Whaley, W. G. 1965. Benjamin Carroll Tharp. BulletinTorrey Botanical Club 92: 489–492.

Whitehouse, E. 1936. Texas Flowers in Natural Color.Dallas: Published by the author.

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