Page  61 ï~~2009 THE MICHIGAN BOTANIST 61 IN MEMORIAM - JOHN W. THOMSON Theodore S. Cochrane Dr. John W. Thomson, Professor of Botany Emeritus, dean of American lichenologists, and founder of the Botanical Club of Wisconsin, passed away on February 20 at his rural Mt. Horeb home. He was 95 years old. Thomson was born in Cockenzie, Scotland, in 1913 but immigrated to France and then to the United States while still a child. He graduated from Columbia University in 1935, where he majored in botany and zoology, and earned his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin in 1937 and 1939, respectively. He studied the ecology of prairie plants in central Wisconsin for his dissertation. As a graduate student in botany, in the company of dedicated professors, particularly Norman C. Fassett, his major professor, and ecologists and environmentalists John T. Curtis and Aldo Leopold, Thomson's affinity for the life of a scientist was only reinforced. Conscientious, careful, and organized, it seemed natural he would be drawn to ecological and taxonomic studies. After finishing graduate school, he worked in New York as a naturalist at the American Museum of Natural History and taught at Brooklyn College before returning to Wisconsin to take a position at Superior State Teachers College (now the University of Wisconsin-Superior) in 1942, where he served for two years before joining the faculty of the Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1944. He retired in 1984 but continued to come to school and work almost daily until about 2001. At the University of Wisconsin Thomson was professor of botany. His research dealt with the identification and classification of lichens, those unique, plant-like, symbiotic organisms composed of a fungal partner, the mycobiont, and one or more photosynthetic partners, the photobiont(s). Although he never lost interest in the higher plants, Thomson's involvement with lichens began in 1935 and developed rapidly; he spent the rest of his life building up his knowledge of the lichens of North America. From the mid 1950s onward he focused on the American boreal and arctic lichens, starting with the Hudson Bay region and the Canadian Eastern Arctic, then extending his studies westward across the continent. Thomson was the first person to systematically collect, identify, and map the lichen flora of the tundra regions of northern Canada and Alaska. He made 14 expeditions to the American Arctic, collecting lichens across the vast expanse of terrain from Labrador to the Arctic islands to the Bering Straits. By 1978 Thomson estimated he had identified 90,000 lichen specimens from the North American tundra using chemical tests and thin-layer chromatography. Needless to say, his collections and those of his students form a significant part of the University of Wisconsin Lichen Herbarium. Thomson was a scientist/professor of the old school, broadly trained with a big outlook, cultured, zealous in his campus duties, always neat in appearance, always courteous and helpful to visitors. His varied interests included cryptogamic botany, plant taxonomy, science education, conservation, dendrology, ethnobotany, ecology, horticulture, phenology, and geology. Thomson's main interests may have been in science and the university, but he and wife Olive became citizens of Wisconsin as well as the university. Both were joiners and doers; they set down deep community roots, incessantly performing services and attending meetings, often traveling all over the state. Thomson lectured widely and published a large number of monographs, revisions, papers, and five books, including Lichens of the Alaskan Arctic Slope (1979), American Arc

Page  62 ï~~62 THE MICHIGAN BOTANIST Vol. 48 tic Lichens. 1. The Macrolichens (1984), and American \. Arctic Lichens. 2. The Microlichens (1997). In 1995.American Arctic Lichens, vol. 1, won the 1985 Gleason Award, presented by the New York Botanical Garden..each year to an outstanding publication in plant taxonomy. In 2003, at the age of 89, he published Lichens of;, Wisconsin, a guide to the 660 species of lichens growing S\across the state. He wrote many floristic papers, includ-............ ing reports on the lichens collected on the yearly forays of the American Bryological and Lichenological Society (ABLS). Thomson also wrote more general articles on the structure, habits, and uses of lichens. In 1985 John and Olive Thomson won the Gulf Oil Conservation Award, and in 2005 John was one of the first to receive the Acharius Medal from the International Association of Lichenology, a major award specif JOHN W. THOMSON ically for work on lichens. The prize selection commit(Photo by C. Lipke, UW-Botany) tee cited Thomson's pioneering studies and body of work, which embody the highest standards of scholarship and have profoundly influenced generations of lichenologists. Dr. Thomson's achievements as a scientist are especially impressive when one remembers that through all those years he was carrying a full teaching load. A teacher and conservationist all his life, Thomson's popular courses in plant taxonomy and dendrology have influenced two generations of students in biology and conservation, many of whom became professional botanists, horticulturalists, conservationists, rangers, or naturalists, as well as hundreds who volunteer their time and rResources to organizations involved in natural area preservation. He was always happy to share his knowledge with amateurs and professionals alike and was ever willing to lead field trips for local groups. He spent seven decades as an active participant in and leader of organizations like the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters (WASAL; President; founder and President of the Junior Academy of Science for 16 years), The Nature Conservancy (TNC; Board of Trustees for the Wisconsin Chapter), Citizens Natural Resources Association of Wisconsin (CNRA), American Bryological and Lichenological Society (ABLS; Vice-President; President), The Torrey Botanical Club (TBC; Recording Secretary), The Prairie Enthusiasts (TPE), and the Botanical Club of Wisconsin (BCW; Academy Representative). He served on the boards of the UW Arboretum and UW-Extension's Camp Upham Woods and the advisory committee of the Lake Itasca Biological Station for many years. It was while he was President of WASAL that Thomson instigated the founding of the BCW. Having been involved in the TBC of New York, Thomson believed that a similar organization, especially one that included field trips, would be influential in encouraging Wisconsin citizens to appreciate botany. He appointed a committee chairman, Dr. James H. Zimmerman, who issued an invitation to interested persons to meet for the purpose of discussing the proposed organization. On April 6, 1968, the first meeting was held in the Thomson home, and soon thereafter the academy issued an invitation to all its members to join the newly formed BCW, which was established as an affiliate of WASAL. Thomson is survived by his wife of nearly 72 years, Olive; sons Dennis, Norman, and Roderic and their wives and children; and daughter Elizabeth and her husband. A son, Douglas, and two sisters predeceased him. His family suggests that friends wishing to honor John should consider a remembrance donation to an organization dedicated to wildlife or environmental protection or to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Herbarium, where John worked for so many years (see instructions under the link "Support" on the Wisconsin Vascular Plants web site: http://www.botany.wisc.edu/wisflora).