You are here:
ASPT Publications / ASPT Newsletter / Newsletter
IN MEMORIAM
John Tucker
Marking the end of an era at UC Davis, Professor emeritus and past Herbarium Director Dr. John Tucker passed away on July 5, 2008 due to complications of a stroke suffered two weeks earlier. John was an oak expert. He wrote the key and descriptions for the oak family treatment for the 1991 Jepson Manual, and at the age of 92, he finished a new version of that treatment this past spring for the upcoming Jepson Manual revision. Many people benefited from John's expertise and sent him oak samples in letters or brought oaks to the herbarium for him to identify. He was generous with his time and always glad to look at any oak from anywhere.
John credited Maunsell Van Rensselaer, Director of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden during its early years, with encouraging his interest in botany. John had long had an interest in trees, and he obtained a botanical assistant position at the garden after coursework at Santa Barbara State College and the University of Idaho — a position he returned to during summer vacations until 1942. John had thought that he might earn a degree in forestry, but Van Rensselaer noted John's careful horticultural, botanical, and plant collecting skills and encouraged him to get a degree in botany instead. With that advice, John continued on to UC Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor's degree and a doctorate, both in botany, in 1940 and 1950, respectively.
His collection notebooks from his senior year at UCB in 1940 already emphasized oaks, with long entries describing the appearance of each one. He was sometimes frustrated in his attempts to gather more information while out in the field with Ledyard Stebbins, his genetics teacher. On one excursion in San Luis Obispo County west of Santa Margarita, he commented "Stebbins and Walters were so intent in their chase after peonies that I didn't have time to stop and collect or get more dope on [the hybrid blue oaks that held his interest]."
His Ph.D., under the guidance of Herbert Mason, Ledyard Stebbins, and Adriance Foster, dealt with the evolution and relationships of scrub oak (Quercus dumosa) and related species, including hybridization between scrub oak and grey oak (Quercus turbinella), and the parentage of Alvord's oak (Quercus × alvordiana). On sabbatical leave in 1955-1956, John began to study variation in hybrid oak populations in the southern rocky mountain region, an extremely difficult task.
To say that John's studies of oak taxonomy were detailed is an understatement. During his numerous field expeditions, especially within California and the southwestern U.S., John described oak populations from an ecological, geological, historical, and taxonomic viewpoint. He collected flowers to look at chromosome counts, acorns to analyze their chemistry and viability, and seemingly endless population samples to look at leaf surfaces and architecture. Everything was documented with careful notes. He collected pollen and crossed oaks and then collected acorns to examine acorn viability and subsequent progeny — techniques more easily applied to annual plants rather than slow-growing trees like oaks. John's final collections were of Shreve's oak (Quercus parvula var. shrevei), a species whose characteristics and distribution had held his interest for more than a decade.
John did not have the luxury of focusing exclusively on research. While still a graduate student at UC Berkeley, he was hired as Director of what was then the UC Davis Botany Department Herbarium. At that time the herbarium housed 9,400 specimens in just six wooden cases. In 1951, he initiated an exchange program for trading extra specimens with other institutions, and under his leadership, the collection expanded dramatically. In the mid-1950s, the collection moved to a small temporary building with a metal roof, and John sweltered in the Davis summer heat. In 1961, it moved to a new home in Robbins Hall, a space that John designed. Upon his retirement in 1986, the Botany Department Herbarium was officially named the J. M. Tucker Herbarium to honor his 39 years as director. The J. M. Tucker Herbarium is now incorporated into the UC Davis Center for Plant Diversity herbarium which includes nearly 300,000 specimens from all over the world in a wonderful, new, temperature-controlled space for which John provided the lead gift.
In addition to directing the herbarium, John was hired to do plant identifications for UC Cooperative Extension, a task he did alone until 1953, when he hired June McCaskill to help him with that task. John also taught courses in general botany, plant taxonomy, and poisonous plants - courses which served hundreds of students per year. In his first two decades, he also had to collect all the plant material for his courses, something few UC professors still have to do. He was also very active on committees and took his committee service very seriously.
His exemplary service record is partly what led to John becoming Director of the UC Davis Arboretum for 12 years (at the same time as he was herbarium Director). This new administrative task was extremely time-consuming, basically another half-time job on top of his other duties. John took the task on, because he loved the Arboretum and had been involved with it since the early 1950s. In 1962, he established an oak grove near the western end of the Arboretum, planting acorns that he had collected from around the world. Today the Arboretum is home to 574 oak trees, including a number of native California oak species, and is recognized as a national resource.
During his career, John received numerous honors and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955. He was selected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the California Academy of Sciences. He also was a member of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, American Society of Plant Taxonomists, Botanical Society of America, California Botanical Society, International Association for Plant Taxonomy, Sigma Xi honor society and Society for the Study of Evolution.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 46 years, the former Katrine June Petersen (June), son Chris, brother Robert, and sisters Viola, Valenzuela, and Helen. He is survived by his daughter, Carolyn Tucker, son, Peter Tucker, and grandson Carson Mack; sister Mary Kraft; and brothers Glenn Tucker, Ken Tucker and his wife Shirley, and Stanley Tucker and his wife Marion.
A memorial service in his honor is planned for 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 9, at the UC Davis University Club on Old Davis Road. The service will be followed by an informal luncheon. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial donations be made to either the UC Davis Foundation Herbarium Endowment in support of the J. M. Tucker Herbarium or the UC Regents J. M. Tucker Endowment in Support of the Arboretum's oak collection. Donations may be sent to: Allison Chilcott, CAES Dean's Office, 150 Mrak Hall, One Shields Ave., UC Davis, Davis, CA 95616. — Ellen Dean, University of California, Davis. [Posted 23 July 2008]