From Plant Press, Vol. 26, No. 3, July 2023.
Former Chair of the Department of Botany, Edward S. Ayensu, passed away on April 22, 2023. He was a distinguished scholar who dedicated his life to science and sustainable development. His contributions to the field of environmental science, biodiversity conservation, and photography are immeasurable.
Ayensu joined the Smithsonian Institution as an Associate Curator of Botany in 1966 and became Chair of Botany in 1970. In 1978, the Smithsonian Office of Biological Conservation was established with Ayensu as Director. The responsibility of this office was to coordinate the various environmental conservation activities already in progress in the Institution and encourage a variety of new projects related to environmental conservation, especially within the area of staff interest. In 1978, Ayensu and Botanist Robert DeFilipps authored a Smithsonian Institution reference book entitled Endangered and Threatened Plants of the United States.
In 1985, he left the Smithsonian taking on a variety of positions in Africa, including the following: Chairman and President of the Pan African Union for Science and Technology, Chairman of the World Bank Inspection Panel, Chairman of Sustainable Forestry Management Ghana Limited, Chairman of the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences Ghana, and President of the Energy Globe Foundation.
Here are two reflections from former Smithsonian colleagues:
Alice Tangerini:
Dr. Edward S. Ayensu was my first Chairman in the Department of Botany and instrumental in my being hired. I had worked previously for him for a few summers doing contract work through Dr. Lyman Smith, who cowrote papers with Ayensu on the Velloziaceae. I learned to illustrate leaf anatomy sections in the Vellozias and make dissections of the flowers for their publications.
My first illustration for the department was in the summer of 1968; it was a new species in Bromeliaceae drawn for Smith who named it Ayensua uaipanensis. After I was hired in 1972, I continued to illustrate papers by Ayensu and Smith on the Velloziaceae. I also illustrated other plant families for Ayensu including the Passifloraceae (for Smithsonian Magazine, March 1973) and Sapotaceae.
One of my most memorable assignments came from Ayensu to draw bat skulls of bat species that fed on or pollinated certain plant species in West Africa. The publication, "Plant and Bat Interactions in West Africa," for the Annals of Missouri Botanical Garden 6(3), 1974, provided me with experience in illustrating bat skulls in different views using photographs and the skulls as research material.
Ayensu's interest in medicinal plants led to his books, Medicinal Plants of West Africa (1978) and Medicinal Plants of the West Indies (1981), which featured my illustrations and those of Mary Monsma and Cathy Pasquale. Ayensu also provided funding for my initial professional illustrator meetings where my interaction with illustrators from other institutions proved invaluable for information on illustration techniques.
Those first six years under Ayensu gave me the background in botanical illustration and in experience in working in a variety of plant families.
Dieter Wasshausen:
In 1962, Eddie and I were graduate students at The George Washington University, where he was finishing his master’s degree in biological sciences. From what I recall, he was a very good student, well-liked by the professors and his peers. After graduation, we both were employed the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian Institution. I still remember the times Eddie would receive visitors from Ghana or attend functions in his native clothing in the offices of Robert Kennedy across Constitution Avenue. He looked very impressive and suave.
Later in our careers, Eddie and I undertook field work in Dominica in the Caribbean. We spent a month together making botanical collections on the island. At that time, he was very interested in floral pollination and would spend hours waiting for suitable visitors to visit these showy plants. These photographs that he took are still in exhibition in the Department of Botany. During our stay, we established wonderful rapport—this was due entirely to Eddie’s cool, level-headed demeanor. He made our stay a pure delight. Later Eddie’s interest diverged into habitat and species conservation efforts which he correctly determined as being vital.
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