Reid Venable Moran
Reid Venable Moran
San Diego Natural History Museum Curator of Botany Reid V. Moran.
San Diego Natural History Museum Curator of Botany Reid V. Moran. (Photo: San Diego Natural History Museum Research Library)
BornJune 30, 1916
Los Angeles, California, United States
DiedJanuary 21, 2010(2010-01-21) (aged 93)
Clearlake, California, United States
Scientific career
Alma materStanford University (B.A.)Cornell University (M.S.)University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
FieldsBotany
InstitutionsSan Diego Natural History Museum
Author abbrev. (botany)Moran
Military career
AllegianceUnited States
BranchUnited States Army
Service years1942–1946
RankSecond lieutenant
Unit515th Bombardment Squadron
Conflicts
AwardsDistinguished Flying Cross

Reid Venable Moran (June 30, 1916 – January 21, 2010) was an American botanist and the curator of botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum from 1957 to 1982.[1]

Moran was the world authority on the Crassulaceae, a family of succulent plants, and in particular the genus Dudleya, the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation. He named at least 18 plants new to science — some in that family and some not — and published many papers elucidating relationships within the Crassulaceae. As a mark of the respect he earned among his peers, more than a dozen plants have been named for him. Jane Goodall described Moran as "a sort of living myth in botanical exploration in Baja California and the Pacific Islands of Mexico," citing specifically his analysis of the environmental impact of introduced species (especially goats) on the flora of Guadalupe Island.[2]

Biography

Early life

Born in Los Angeles, California on June 30, 1916, to Edna Louise Venable and Robert Breck Moran (a petroleum geologist),[3] Moran was raised in Pasadena. By 1932, 16-year old Moran was noted as a "discriminating young collector" of Dudleya. A now invalid species of Dudleya known as Dudleya moranii was named after him.[4] He received his B.A. from Stanford University in 1939 and his M.S. in botany from Cornell University in 1942 before his studies were interrupted by World War II.[1][5]

Military career

Moran served in World War II as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1946, his enlistment interrupting his studies at Cornell. By 1944, Moran served as a navigator on a B-24 Liberator in the 515th Bombardment Squadron during the Big Week raids. On the 23rd of February, Moran's aircraft was shot down over Steyr,[6] Austria on its first mission, but the crew had managed to complete their bombing run and bailed out over German-controlled Yugoslavia. Moran was rescued by Yugoslav partisans and managed to return to friendly territory in Italy after 6 weeks with the rest of his crew, collecting plants on the way.[1][5][7][8]

On his way back to the United States, Moran passed through Algeria and Morocco, visiting the French botanist René Maire, at the time the authority on Algerian and Moroccan plants. Moran collected plants and Maire assisted with identification and gave Moran tours of the local botanic gardens. Moran later stopped in Dakar and Brazil before making his way back to the United States, returning with 350 herbarium specimens. By September of 1944 Moran was assigned as an Assistant Research Officer in the AAF Instructor's School at Selma, Alabama. Moran was discharged in 1946.[1][7][8][9]

Later life

After service in World War II, Moran worked at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden for a year and a half, but left when he was expected to become its next director, as he found the position too restrictive.[8] Moran went on to receive his Ph.D. in botany from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1951. His doctoral dissertation was titled "A Revision of Dudleya (Crassulaceae)."[10][11] He then went on to join the Bailey Hortorium at Cornell, and then left to join the University of California's Far East Program teaching biology to military personnel in Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Okinawa. While there, Moran spent time collecting specimens of Crassulaceae and sending them to Charles H. Uhl at Cornell for cytology. After his time in Asia, Moran was hired by his longtime collaborator George Edmund Lindsay, who by then was the director of the San Diego Natural History Museum, as the curator of botany. Moran worked as curator from 1957 to 1982.[7][8]

As curator of botany, Moran traveled the Baja California Peninsula and its surrounding islands extensively, visiting Guadalupe Island numerous times and exploring the peninsula via car, mule, or by foot. During his time at the museum, the number of specimens in the herbarium increased from 44,000 to 108,000, the majority being Moran's.[7][8]

In 1996, Moran published the Flora of Guadalupe Island, a culmination of his nearly 50 years studying the island. The book was pivotal in raising awareness to the plight of feral goats on the island and contributed to their removal.[8]

Moran died on January 21, 2010, in Clearlake, California.[12][1]

Career

Moran conducted a botanical survey of the Channel Islands for the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and performed taxonomic work for the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden[13] and the Bailey Hortorium at Cornell University[8][7] before joining the San Diego Museum of Natural History as curator of botany, succeeding Ethel Bailey Higgins in 1957.[14]

Moran specialized in the systematics of the Crassulaceae (the stonecrop family), and in the floristics of the Baja California peninsula. In addition to a large number of technical research papers, Moran published The Flora of Guadalupe Island[15] and the treatment of the Crassulaceae for the Flora of North America (Vol. 8, published in 2009).[16] He co-authored (with Frank W. Gould) The Grasses of Baja California, Mexico in 1981 and (with Geoffrey A. Levin) The Vascular Flora of Isla Socorro, Mexico in 1989.

Cneoridium dumosum (Nuttall) Hooker F. Collected March 26, 1960, at an Elevation of about 1450 Meters on Cerro Quemazón, 15 Miles South of Bahía de Los Angeles, Baja California, México, Apparently for a Southeastward Range Extension of Some 140 Miles

A specimen of Cneoridium dumosum

Among Moran's publications was "Cneoridium dumosum (Nuttall) Hooker F. Collected March 26, 1960, at an Elevation of about 1450 Meters on Cerro Quemazón, 15 Miles South of Bahía de Los Angeles, Baja California, México, Apparently for a Southeastward Range Extension of Some 140 Miles", a humorous yet factual scientific paper on species distribution which comprised, apart from its pangrammatic title and acknowledgements, just five words and a reference number.[17][18]

The paper reports a collection of Cneoridium dumosum in the Sierra de San Borja mountains of southern Baja California, representing a new disjunct distribution for the species.[18][19] As Moran described in a 1983 book on insular biogeography, this disjunct population is part of a relict community of otherwise more northerly distributed chaparral plants that have continued to survive in the higher elevation mountains ("sky islands") of southern Baja California.[20]

Moran and his colleague Glen Ives visited the Sierra de San Borja in March 1960 to conduct a natural history survey, with Moran responsible for collecting plant specimens and Ives for birds and mammals. After driving to Bahía de los Ángeles from San Diego, they packed into the mountains for 10 days. They reached the Cerro Quemazón on March 26, where Moran collected his specimen from a Cneoridium plant on the summit.[18][21]

The full text of the paper, published in 1962 in volume 16 of Madroño, reads: "I got it there then (8068)" where 8068 is the parenthetical reference number of the specimen collected.

Moran's closing acknowledgement reads:

Last but not least, I cannot fail to mention my deep indebtedness to my parents, without whose early cooperation this work would never have been possible.

The paper was republished as a "Reprinted Classic Madroño Article" in 2013, the California Botanical Society's centennial year.[22][23] A 2010 obituary for Moran published in The San Diego Union-Tribune noted that he "had a dry sense of humor".[1]

The standard author abbreviationMoran is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ abcdef"Reid Moran: Scientist was expert on plants from island off Baja". The San Diego Union-Tribune. February 2, 2010. Archived from the original on 2016-11-14. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  2. ^Goodall, Jane (2009). Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink. Grand Central Publishing. pp. 333–335. ISBN 978-0446543385. Retrieved 4 April 2016. jane goodall guadalupe.
  3. ^Wrather, W. E. (April 1962). "Memorial: Robert Breck Moran (1879–1961)". Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. 46 (4): 554–556. Archived from the original on 2016-04-23. Retrieved 2016-11-14.
  4. ^Johansen (1932). "Dudleya moranii". Cactus and Succulent Journal.
  5. ^ abPegg, Jenny (2010). "Witty Botanist". Stanford Magazine. Archived from the original on 2016-09-11. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  6. ^"Missing Air Crew Report number 2581". National Archives Catalog. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved December 8, 2023.
  7. ^ abcdeRobinson, B. (1981). "Reid Moran, the biography of a botanist". JSTOR Global Plants. Archived from the original on 2015-11-26. Retrieved 2016-11-14.
  8. ^ abcdefgOberbauer, Thomas (Jul 2010). "Reid Moran: 1916–2010"(PDF). Fremontia. 38 (2–3): 62–64. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-03-15. Retrieved 2016-11-14.
  9. ^Cutak, Ladislaus (November 1944). "Spine Chats". Cactus and Succulent Journal. 16 (11). Cactus and Succulent Society of America: 171.
  10. ^"Moran, Reid V. (1916–2010). Historical Note". University and Jepson Herbaria Archives, University of California, Berkeley.
  11. ^"Field Notes of Reid Moran". Flora of Baja California (San Diego Natural History Museum).
  12. ^"Dr. Reid Venable Moran". Legacy.com. February 2010.
  13. ^Moran, Reid (January 1948). "The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden". National Horticultural Magazine. 27.
  14. ^Engstrand, Iris; Bullard, Anne (1999). Inspired by Nature: The San Diego Natural History Museum after 125 Years. San Diego, Calif.: San Diego Society of Natural History. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-918969-04-0.
  15. ^Moran, Reid (1996). "The Flora of Guadalupe Island". Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences. 19.
  16. ^Moran, Reid V. (2009). Flora of North America, Vol 8. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  17. ^Jackson, Morgan D. (10 July 2013). ""I got it there then" – Reid Moran, 1962". Madroño. p. 272. Archived from the original on 14 September 2019. Retrieved 14 September 2019.
  18. ^ abcMoran, Reid (1962). "Cneoridium dumosum (Nuttall) Hooker F. Collected March 26, 1960, at an Elevation of about 1450 Meters on Cerro Quemazón, 15 Miles South of Bahía de Los Angeles, Baja California, México, Apparently for a Southeastward Range Extension of Some 140 Miles". Madroño. 16 (8). California Botanical Society: 272. Archived from the original on June 13, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2019.
  19. ^Rebman, Jon P.; Gibson, Judy; Rich, Karen (15 November 2016). "Annotated Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Baja California, Mexico"(PDF). Proceedings of the San Diego Society of Natural History. 45. San Diego Natural History Museum: 251 – via San Diego Plant Atlas.
  20. ^Moran, Reid (1983). "Relictual northern plants on peninsular mountain tops". In Cody, Martin L.; Case, Ted J. (eds.). Island Biogeography in the Sea of Cortéz. University of California Press. pp. 407–409. ISBN 9780520047990.
  21. ^Moran, Reid (2009). The Field Notes of Reid Moran. San Diego Natural History Museum. pp. 6050–6073. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
  22. ^Moran, Reid (2013). "Reprinted Classic Madroño Articles: Cneoridium dumosum (Nuttall) Hooker F. Collected March 26, 1960, at an Elevation of about 1450 Meters on Cerro Quemazón, 15 Miles South of Bahía de Los Angeles, Baja California, México, Apparently for a Southeastward Range Extension of Some 140 Miles". Madroño. 60 (4). California Botanical Society.: 359. doi:10.3120/0024-9637-60.4.359. S2CID 85111189. Archived from the original on June 26, 2020. Retrieved September 14, 2019.
  23. ^Parker, V. Thomas (2013). "President's report for volume 60". Madroño. 60 (4). California Botanical Society: 360–361. doi:10.3120/0024-9637-60.4.360. S2CID 91869111. Archived from the original on 2020-06-26. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  24. ^International Plant Names Index. Moran.
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