Essays on William Chambers Coker, Passionate Botanist

In this collection of biographical essays, Mary Coker Joslin chronicles the many contributions of William Chambers Coker (1872-1953) as a creative scientist, an infectious teacher, a practical landscape designer, an editor, and a writer whose influence continues to resonate throughout North Carolina. After leaving a successful banking career to become a botanist, Coker became the first professor of botany at the University of North Carolina and founded enduring institutions that have become his legacy, including the University Herbarium and the Chapel Hill arboretum that bears his name. He edited the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society for forty years, during which time it became internationally known and respected. Coker left his mark across the state, as he designed and suggested plantings for at least twenty-one public school grounds in North Carolina and voluntarily helped landscape public areas in communities from Edenton to Asheville.