Today would have been Peter Raven’s 90th birthday. Sadly he passed away earlier this year, but his legacy is still with us. It sounds like a very AI sentence, but it’s a bit difficult to write briefly about his achievements without being a bit overwhelmed. For example, take his role at Missouri Botanical Garden.
He became director there at the age of 35. One reason he could do that is that it wasn’t a major botanical garden, at least not when he started. It had just two or three research scientists when he started. He left it with fifty. He tripled the size of the herbarium and massively increased the size of the library that now bears his name.
But his influence wasn’t limited to a corner of Missouri. His work reached across the world. With Paul Ehrlich, he wrote a paper Butterflies and Plants: A Study In Coevolution, which introduced the term coevolution. He was one of the lead editors of the Flora of China, a massive 45 volume work covering over 30,000 species. His single-volume textbook Biology of Plants has been the reference for thousands upon thousands of undergraduate students for many years, improving both mind and, thanks to its 864 pages, muscle.
Today is a sad day, his first birthday since his death, and I expect today he's going to be more sorely missed than ever. But it's also a day to celebrate him. The measure of him isn't really the fifty scientists or the 340 publications. It's that all of it is still working, still growing, still teaching, with him gone. That's a rare kind of legacy, and a good one to raise a glass to.
How to Play
Six plants fill each row
each column, each box of six
no bloom may repeat
Tap an empty cell
then choose your plant from below
watch the garden grow
Or pick a plant first
then tap the cells where it goes
faster hands plant more
Red borders will warn
when two alike share a line
rethink and replant
Ticked plants rest complete
all six placed in rightful soil
fewer choices left
The clock starts to run
the moment your first plant falls
how swift is your hand?
Select a plant, then tap cells
Two ways to play: Tap an empty cell then pick a plant, or select a plant below then tap cells to place it.
Cover image: Peter Raven by Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
