KNOXVILLE — Dr. Eugene Wofford, herbarium curator in the botany department of the University of Tennessee College of Arts and Sciences, has been selected to receive the 2003 Higher Education Award for External Achievement from the State of Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
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Dr. Eugene Wofford
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Wofford was recognized recently in a Tennessee Conservationist magazine article written by columnist Ernie Blankenship.
“We congratulate Dr. Wofford for well-deserved recognition of his efforts in environmental and conservation stewardship,” Dr. Edward E. Schilling, professor and head of botany, said.
Wofford’s studies include floristics, biosystematics, phytogeography, endangered species and unique habitats.
His research also relates to classical herbarium taxonomy, biosystematic techniques such as scanning electron microscopy and flavonoid analysis.
He recently completed a Field Guide to the Vascular Plants of the Blue Ridge and is working on a revised checklist and distribution atlas of the vascular plants of Tennessee along with other distributional records and notes of Southeastern U. S. plants.
The UT herbarium, established in 1888, houses more than 500,000 specimens of fungi, bryophytes, lichens, and vascular plants from Tennessee and the region. It also includes specimens from China, New Zealand, Mexico, Guatemala, Japan and Alaska.
The facility is a state-supported facility available for undergraduate, graduate, and professional studies, research and creative activity, and public service.
The collection is the largest in the state of Tennessee, the third largest in the Southeast, 13th among state-supported universities and 26th in the U.S.
For more information on the herbarium, go to: http://tenn.bio.utk.edu/.