NEWS

Photo note: See end of story for photo information.

CHAPEL HILL -- William Chambers Coker hated pruning.

Fungi fascinated him -- especially mushrooms. He helped Chapel Hillians decide what to plant where in their yards, identified plants for people all over the Southeast and -- judging by letters from his students -- was one of the best teachers ever at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The letters and much more about Coker, UNC's first botany professor, can be seen in four exhibits up through spring in the University Libraries. The displays herald the 100th anniversary of the campus arboretum that Coker developed and later was named in his honor.

Also in anticipation of the centennial in April, the libraries will co-publish a biography of the botanist by his niece, Mary Coker Joslin of Raleigh, a former member of the UNC Board of Visitors. The co-publisher is the North Carolina Botanical Garden, which oversees the arboretum. On March 20, Joslin will attend a 5 p.m. reception in Wilson Library and discuss and sign copies of the book at 6 p.m.

The event will highlight the signature exhibit of the libraries' remembrances, "William Chambers Coker: The Legacy of a Lifelong Botanist," open through April 13 in the Melba Remig Saltarelli Exhibit Room on the third floor of Wilson. This exhibit focuses on the life and achievements of Coker, 1872-1953, who taught at UNC from 1902 to 1945 and headed the first botany department, created in 1908. Today he is known for the classroom building named for him.

Also in Wilson is " 'All the Charms of Nature': A History of Landscaping at UNC-Chapel Hill," which tells that story in photographs and lithographs from 1795 to the present and looks at some plans for the future. This 40-piece display will be up through May in the North Carolina Collection Gallery.

Davis Library will offer an exhibit March 5 through April 15 on Joslin's book and the libraries' venture into publishing. Items will be in the 72-foot display case on the first floor. Davis opens 8 a.m. to midnight Mondays-Thursdays, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. to midnight Sundays.

The fourth exhibit, "William C. Coker As Collector of Fungi" in the biology library in Coker Hall, includes photographs, articles about the professor in the 1926 Chapel Hill Weekly, two of Coker's books and information on students he influenced.

"Legacy" visitors likely will experience admiration, amusement and more, as did Emily Guthrie, a master's degree student in library science who curated the exhibit. "He's an example of a UNC professor who was passionate about his work, and whose passion inspired generations of students."

The biology library exhibit includes a list of 26 graduate students that Coker advised, said botany section librarian Bill Burk, exhibit curator. They earned, collectively, 25 master's and nine doctoral degrees. "Three of them were elected as members of the National Academy of Sciences," Burk said.

Besides students, Coker was protective of his plants. His letters in "Legacy" include one to a dean, said Guthrie, "about some suspicious activity he believed was taking place in his arboretum. He didn’t like the way some of the students were behaving there in the summer, especially at night. He singled out one student who had picked the finest bouquet in the arboretum to give to his girlfriend. He wanted the dean to make sure that student was reprimanded."

Coker arrived in Chapel Hill in 1902 as associate professor of botany, fresh from studying at a German university that had an arboretum, Guthrie said. Carolina owned the land that is now Coker Arboretum, at the corner of Cameron Avenue and Raleigh Street, but considered it unbuildable.

Coker convinced UNC President Francis Preston Venable to allow him to turn it into an arboretum -- a place where trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants are cultivated for scientific and educational purposes.

From the large scale to the small, Coker glorified in greenery. "Legacy" includes plant specimens that Coker dried and mounted himself and a microscope from his era. He even wrote poetry, mostly about plants, which fills a whole case in the exhibit.

Some photos displayed show a person standing beside a plant or tree. These citizens had had their photos taken beside flora they wanted Coker to identify and mailed them off to Chapel Hill. "He was renowned throughout the Southeast," Guthrie said.

And identify, he did, for citizens and in his studies. Among the diversified professor's specialties was the study of fungi, and he discovered (as new to science) and described many species, Burk said.

"He became particularly enthralled with mushrooms," he said. "We have picture of Coker with some other people who are collecting fungi in the field, and we have in the display mushroom models to add a bit of a flourish."

" 'All the Charms of Nature' " recognizes Coker and others who contributed to the present beauty of the campus, said Neil Fulghum, keeper of the North Carolina Collection Gallery: "The gallery's exhibition intends to place the Coker Arboretum in a broader historical context with regard to this campus's development over more than two centuries."

Photographs and lithographs recount the first real landscaping efforts, in the late 19th century, and a push southward in the 1920s. A member of the UNC buildings and grounds committee from 1913 to 1942, Coker was party to the planting of many trees and shrubs that helped beautify the campus.

"At one point, very elaborate gardens were proposed behind South Building, but those were never developed because of the cost involved and the pragmatic concerns of serving students," Fulghum said.

In another pragmatic move documented in the exhibit, professor of chemistry, mineralogy and geology Elisha Mitchell had stone walls built around campus to keep out pigs and cattle. "Back then there were no restrictions about penning up animals," Fulghum said.

He also documents that Coker helped beautify campuses across North Carolina, not just in Chapel Hill. And it was Fulghum who learned that unlike modern gardeners, Coker spared the shears.

"We've included a booklet by Coker in 1921 in which he talked about the ‘barbarous act of pruning.’"

Grow forth, arboretum, and prosper. Exhibit hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays in Coker (962-3783) and Wilson and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays in Wilson. Call 962-1345 for information on the "Legacy" exhibit and 962-1172 about the history of landscaping exhibit.

- 30 -

Photo url: To download a photo of Coker from the "Legacy" exhibit, click to http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/faculty/former/coker_wc.jpg

Contacts: "Legacy," Emily Guthrie, 962-1345; " 'All the Charms of Nature,' " Neil Fulghum, 962-1172; "W.C. Coker as Collector of Fungi," Bill Burk, 962-4785.

News Services contacts: L.J. Toler, print, 962-8589; Karen Moon, broadcast, 962-8595.