Kur th : Na ta l i e Uh l Vo lume 44 (1 ) : 2000

Natalie Uhl: APortrait of aScientist

Natal ie W Uhl,

lune |999.Photo byDeena Decker-Walters.

Last June, while attending the Palm Symposium at Fairchild Tropical Garden, I was

honored to have the opportunity to speak at length with Cornell University Professor

Emeritus Natalie W. Uhl, the retiring senior editor of Palms and, the grande dame of palm

research and taxonomy. Our conversation focused on her six decades of research on palms

and her place in history as a pioneer in her field, long-time co-editor of Principes and

Palms, and the co-author of Genera Palmarum.

DoNRto J. KunrH10569 Apple Ln.Alta Loma, California 91737USA

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To follow Dr. Uhl's career through time is to followthe modern history of botany. Beginning with herwork with Dr. Vernon Cheadle at the Universityof Rhode Island in 1939, through the frenzy ofscientific activity spurred by the Soviet conquestof space, she worked side by side first with Dr.Harold Moore, Jr. of Cornell University and laterwith Dr. John Dransfield of the Royal BotanicGardens, Kew. She also credited Dr. George H. M.Lawrence, the first director of the Bailey Hortorium(at Cornell), for her successful career. As she putit, "I feel very fortunate. I just happened to be inthe right place at the right time to have a chanceto undertake a really big job.... And, also, I waslucky all through [my career] in that I worked withreally excellent people...."

Dr. Uhl's work with palms began after she had"retired" from research. She had met her husband,Dr. Charles Uhl, a noted specialist in succulentplants of the family Crassulaceae, while at Cornell.They had married, and she had spent 13 yearsraising a famlly of four children. It was the successof the Soviet satellite Sputnik that brought herback to the laboratory. The Cold War and the USgovernment's fear of losing the Space Race to theSoviets resulted in millions of dollars flowing toresearch institutions. Grants from the NationalScience Foundation in 1964 allowed Dr. Uhl toreturn to Cornell University, where she joined Dr.Harold Moore in his studies of the palm family.First Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey, and then Dr. Mooredreamed of producing a Genera Palmarum, butthere was so much work to be done. Dr. Uhl'sspecialty was plant anatomy, and the anatomy ofpalms was a field largely uncharted at that time.

Dr. Uhl has very fond memories of the excitingtimes during those early days of palm work.Commercial air travel was beginning to make thetropics accessible to scientists, so Dr. Moore beganmaking trips to see and collect palms in theirnative habitats. He prepared for ten years for hisfirst around-the-world trip by studying specimensin various European museums and herbaria. Withhis localities chosen and his "must see" list in had,Moore set out.

Madagascar, Malaysia, New Guinea, SolomonIslands, Australia, Fiji and the Pacific islands-everyplace he went, he carried liquid preservative forcollecting flowers and fruits, which he air-mailedback to Dr. Uhl's laboratory. Every week, Dr. Uhlprepared incoming specimens by immersing themin more preservative and labelling the samples.Dr. Uhl began preparing the samples foranatomical study, a time-consuming process thatinvolves dehydrating the material, embedding itin paraffin, cutting paper-thin sections, and

staining them with special dyes. Samples were alsosent to Marian Sheehan, a botanical illustratorwho prepared the drawings and illustrations forthe Genera Palmarum project. They were headydays for palm research.

Dr. Uhl recalled, "When I first started working theyear that Dr. Moore was sending back palmmaterials from all around the world, theinteresting thing to me was that when he went toFiji, I thought there really couldn't be any morepalms that he had not already sent to Cornell.But, oh, there were over 10 different generarincluding some new ones found in Fiji, and that,of course, was the reason that he had to make thetrip."

The anatomical studies of palm materialprogressed rapidly with every shipment receivedfrom Dr. Moore in the field. She has no regrets notbeing able to accompany Moore on his expedition,because she was making so many excitingdiscoveries in her anatomy lab. For example, palmsare believe to have evolved from ancestors withthree pistils in each flower. The flowers of Thrinaxand its relatives have only one, but is that pistilone reduced from three, or is it three pistils fusedinto one single structure? The anatomy revealedelegantly and convincingly that the pistil ofThrinax is really one separate pistil, not three fusedtogether. Dr. Uhl's anatomical studies revealedunexpected diversity in the palm family, too. Forexample, several groups of palms have manystamens, over 100 stamens per flower. Her studiesrevealed that Phytelepftas develops its manystamens in a way that is completely different fromthat of Ptychosperma, which also has manystamens. Prior to her ground-breaking work,botanists assumed that Ptychosperma andPhytelephas developed their stamens in the sameway.

ln 1978, Dr. Uhl and Dr. John Dransfield wereappointed associate editors of Principes. They werebrought on board, in part, to lighten the workloadof Dr. Moore, the iournal's editor, who hadsuffered a heart attack some years earlier. AfterMoore's untimely death in 1980, Drs. Uhl andDransfield became the full time co-editors of thejournal. The work that Dr. Moore began, collectingand documenting every genus of palms, wascontinued by Drs. Uhl and Dransfield. The IPSfunded the purchase of a computer, the firstpersonal computer in the Bailey Hortorium, for Dr.Uhl to continue Moore's work. The IPS also fundedtechnicians who prepared black-and-white photos.As Dr. Uhl recalled, "It was a very exciting timewhen were doing Genera Palmarum, because wediscovered at least three new genera then.... We

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had a glorious time. We were chopping up seedsand fruits with hammers and saws, the way youhave to with palms, and writing descriptions [ofeach palm genus]."

Genera Palmarum was published in 1987 andimmediately became a best-seller among IPSmembers. It was a shot in the arm for palmresearch around the world. Dr. Uhl recalled,"Before Genera Palmarum, when there wasn't ageneric treatment of palms worldwide, thescientists in any particular country couldn't reallyidentify the palms. They didn't have the literature.They didn't know what palms were elsewhere. So,one reason for doing GeneraPalmarum was to givepeople a chance to work more widely in palms,and that has really happened. That's one of thegreat satisfactions that John and I have for gettingthe book out."

Genera Palmarum stands as the definitive referenceon the palm family, although several changes(including new genera, such as Satranala andLemurophoenlx) have come to light since that time.Drs. Uhl and Dransfield are continually updatingtheir notes for an eventual second edition ofGenera Palmarum. They hope to have it availableelectronically with interactive keys.

Dr. Uhl explained, "We are waiting at the momentfor the many palm students to finish somemolecular and other studies, because certainly

there wil l be major changes in some of theclassification."

When asked what might be left to do in the fieldof palm research, Dr. Uhl was quick to reply,"What we found with palms is there is somethingto be discovered at almost any level within thefamily. There is still basic taxonomy to be done.There's fieldwork to be done. We're lacking muchin ecology, in pollination, and it just depends onwhat area [in which a researcher] is interested. Ifyou're interested in uti l ization, there's atremendous field there, in agroforestry, which willrelate directly to conservation."

Dr. Uhl is a study in determination and dedicationrarely seen in today's world. Despite her humbledenials, her research laid a foundation for all futurework of palm anatomy and classification. All of uswho love palms owe Dr. Uhl a debt of gratitudefor her selfless dedication to the IPS and herenormous contribution to the knowledge ofpalms. Her many years of service to the IPS as co-editor of our iournal were recognized last year,when the IPS Board of Directors presented Dr. Uhlwith the Dent Smith Memorial Award. Dr. Uhlmay be retiring from the editorship of Palms, butshe is certainly not retiring from palm research. Iam sure all IPS members eagerly await what shedoes next.

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