American botanist and curator of the Jepson Herbarium and Library in Berkeley, California. Lawrence Heckard was an authority on the flora of California as well as studying the taxonomy of the genus Phacelia Juss. and members of the Scrophulariaceae family.
Born in Long Beach on the Columbia River, Washington, he grew up during the Great Depression when his family survived by foraging for food washed up on the shore from ships wrecked on the sand bar at the river's mouth. After attending high school he entered Lower Columbia Junior College in Longview before moving to Seattle and the University of Washington. During World War Two he served in the US Army and at its close, thanks to the G.I. Bill, began to study horticulture at Oregon State University. Finally receiving his BSc in 1948 Heckard went straight on to postgraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, and here met his life partner, Paul Silva, a fellow postgraduate student. Researching the Phacelia genus he completed his thesis "Studies in the Phacelia magellanica complex (Hydrophyllaceae), with particular reference to the California members" in 1955. Having recently moved to the University of Illinois, where Silva had gained employment, Heckard also began to work there teaching taxonomy and supervising laboratory sessions.
In 1960 the pair returned to California when Heckard was named assistant curator of the Jepson Herbarium. From 1968 until his death in 1991 he worked as curator of the herbarium and began to study the figworts (Scrophulariaceae), producing monographs on the genera Cordylanthus Nutt. ex Benth., Orthocarpus Nutt. and Castilleja Mutis ex L. f. While studying the flora of California in general, Heckard realised that W.L. Jepson's Manual of the Flowering Plants of California (1925) was in dire need of updating, and so he began the great project to revise this publication. Along with nearly 200 collaborators he worked on the project but unfortunately did not live to see it completed, although at the time of his death from AIDS-related causes, he knew that the new edition would be dedicated to him. It was finally published in 1993.
Heckard was a key member of many scientific societies, including secretary and program chairman of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, president of the California Botanical Society, and a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. He was also named fellow of the California Native Plant Society (which he directed for many years) and as a member of the Rare Plant Advisory Committee he helped to prepare its inventory of California's rare plants and to write the first rare plant legislation. Heckard was also a keen musician, playing piano and enjoying ballet, opera and theatre.
Sources:
Lawrence Ray Heckard: Berkeley, Calisphere, University of California:
http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb7c6007sj&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00024&toc.depth=1&toc.id=, accessed 28th June 2011
Lawrence Heckard Papers, 1952-1996, University and Jepson Herbaria Archives, University of California, Berkeley:
http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/archon/?p=collections/findingaid&id=95&q=&rootcontentid=3975, accessed 28th June 2011
History, Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:
http://www.life.illinois.edu/plantbio/history.htm, accessed 28th June 2011.
