Lawrence Joseph Crockett (1926-2010): In Memoriam

The City College of New York lost one of its most beloved teachers last spring. Professor Emeritus Lawrence J. Crockett died of complications of Parkinson’s disease and cancer on June 8, 2010 in San Antonio, TX.

Larry Crockett was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 3, 1926. He attended Columbia College as an undergraduate on a scholarship, and earned his degree in 1949. Following service in Korea in the early 1950s, he continued his studies at Columbia, this time as a graduate student under Dr. Edwin B. Matzke, earning his MA (1954) and PhD (1958).1 His first publication, A Study of the Tunica Corpus and Anneau Initial of Irradiated and Normal Stem Apices of Nicotiana Tabacum L, appeared in the Torrey Botanical Society’s Bulletin in 19522. In 1958, he authored a study on the irradiated stem apex of Coleus blumei.2 Subsequent research on the same species resulted in another paper in the American Journal of Botany.3 His interest in the unusual resulted in yet another paper, this time on Stylites4. During that time he also taught botany at Barnard College (1955-1959).  From 1959-1961 he taught botany at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. Larry joined the faculty of the Biology Department of The City College of New York (CCNY) in 1961, where he taught courses in vascular and nonvascular plants in addition to field botany. When the CCNY Urban Landscape Program was introduced he also taught budding landscape architects in a course specifically designed for them. While at CCNY he served as a member of the school Senate from 1968-1971, as Deputy Chairman of the Biology Department from 1969-1972, and was also a member of the Faculty Council from 1968-1969.

Crockett was a member of the Botanical Society of America (BSA) and served for many years as Business Manager (1961-1972) of the American Journal of Botany (AJB) and also as Business Manager (1961-1964) of the Plant Science Bulletin (PSB).  From the early 1960’s to the mid 1970s he served the BSA as a member of the editorial board of the AJB and the PSB. He was an active member of the Torrey Botanical Club (now the Torrey Botanical Society), serving as its president twice (1970, 1985), and regularly organizing programs for its members. He also wrote twenty articles, several of them in two parts, entitled “On the Trail of John Torrey” which highlighted significant achievements and episodes in the life of one of America’s most celebrated early botanists. All were published in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club.5 In addition, he coauthored several papers and presentations with other noted scholars. 6,7. Over the years his work has been cited many times by numerous researchers. Larry also served on the Steering Committee for the Centennial Celebration of the New York Botanical Garden. He authored “Wildly Successful Plants: a Handbook of North American Weeds”, published in 1977 and recently reprinted. In 1989 he appeared twice on Cable TV on the interview program WORLDWISE, speaking on the topic of “Evolution of Photosynthesis and its Effects on the Living World” and, on a later show, on “Seeds and Civilization.”

Above all, Larry loved teaching, and it was as a teacher that Larry might have made his most valuable contribution to biology and his students. His enthusiasm for botany was infectious, and stimulated many who had resisted even takinga botany course into making it their life’s work.  One of us (LBK) recalls begging the dean at CCNY to waive the botany requirement because she saw no relevance to her major in Zoology. His wise refusal of her request became a turning point in her career as she became mesmerized by Professor Crockett’s lectures and devoted her future to Plant Biology. Another of us (ESC) became a horticultural librarian. Yet another (ML) is on the faculty of the University of Texas at San Antonio. Larry was an absolutely spellbinding lecturer.  Many of his students have gone on to become well known researchers, and some became members of the National Academy of Science. He received the Charles Edwin Bessey Teaching Award from the Botanical Society of America in 1984 and won the Outstanding Teacher Award of CCNY in 1988. Larry was also so honored by the American Association for Higher Education in 1989. He managed to meld botany and history in a way that brought new life to both. His writings on the flora of the Unicorn tapestries at the Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City brought him international recognition, and are just two examples of Larry’s ability to connect science with art8,9. It comes as no surprise that he was once a member of the Renaissance Society of America. He was a true Renaissance man, and an accomplished scholar of the history of science as well as botany.

Other examples of his talent for melding history with botany took the form of writing and acting in plays about noted scientists. His “Market Day in Delft: An Hour with Henry Oldenburg and Antony van Leeuwenhoek” and “An Evening with John Torrey” were produced at many universities and professional meetings, including the International Congress of Protozoology, the BSA, the New York Microscopical Society, as well as on the campus of CCNY. BSA members may recall our current PSB editor, Marshal Sundburg, as he played Henry Oldenburg opposite Larry’s Leeuwenhoek at the American Institute of Biological Sciences meeting in Knoxville, TN, in August 1984. Perhaps the only play which he wrote and in which he performed that did not touch upon his botanical interests was Alexander VI: The Bull of the Borgias. It was performed several times for various audiences, but most memorably for the public at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in upper Manhattan in the early 1970’s. The noted drama critic for The New York Times, Clive Barnes, attended the performance and reviewed it very favorably in that newspaper, which Larry cherished for many years.

What was it like to be a student of Dr. Crockett?

Enrolling in Field Botany at CCNY meant enrolling in a never-to-be-forgotten adventure. When, during the first meeting of the field botany class, he informed us that over the course of the semester we would learn to recognize and name about 500 plants, we sat in disbelief. But he was right. Local botanical gardens and beaches, New York State bogs, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, the Sharon Audubon Nature Sanctuary in Connecticut, even New York City’s own Central Park were all fair game for Larry’s weekly field trips. Rain or shine we tramped through mud, sand, and dirt, and occasionally fell into one of the quaking bogs that brought botany to life for us.

When we weren’t wading through surf grabbing pieces of algae and learning about Rhodophyta, or marveling at a tiny Drosera or the walking fern, Asplenium rhizophyllum, we were trying (in vain) to keep up with Larry as he plunged ahead into yet another of Nature’s collections of local plants. Specimens gathered were passed back from the front of the often single-file column to those bringing up the rear, by which time the plants looked very sorry indeed. All were carefully collected in plastic bags and reexamined as we took our buses and subways back home at the end of the day.

But he was right – we did learn the scientific names of close to 500 species – and remember most of them to this day. Even now, when purchasing plants at local nurseries, it’s likely that most graduates of his course still ask for composites, grasses, trees, shrubs, etc., by their scientific name before buying them; daisy, foxtail, oak or beach plum simply won’t do.

We can think of no greater tribute to a teacher than the letter found in his CCNY file from Paul Friedberg, the Director of what was then the CCNY Urban Landscape Program: “...students…would move mountains and perform incredible feats to get into your class. Furthermore, when I indicated [to them] that you would be teaching the Plant Materials course directly for the Landscape Program, there was a roar of approval and delight...one or two students that have already had the course said they felt cheated...” Likewise, Karl J. Niklas, a past Editor-in-Chief of the AJB and a past president of the Botanical Society of America, said of Larry “He was the most splendid teacher and kindest human being I’ve ever known. He inspired generations of students to follow in his footsteps. I should know. I was one of them! Those of us who had the privilege of having him as an instructor will always cherish our memories of his fabulous lectures and the warmth of his personality. He made us want to become botanists and teachers by virtue of his boundless exuberance and obvious delight in the study of plants”.

Larry was cared for in his last years by his former student and great friend, Michael Laverde, and is also survived by his former wife, Edith Crockett. He will be deeply missed.

Please send what you would like to have posted on this website to: . The site will remain active for two years and its contents archived at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh, PA.

Edith S. Crockett, The Waterford Foundation, Waterford, Virginia
Jane Gallagher, The City College of New York, City University of New York
Lee B. Kass, Cornell University
Michael Laverde, The University of Texas at San Antonio

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