The University of North Carolina Herbarium
(NCU) has databased approximately 880 specimens collected by Ross
Clark. Most were collected in the 1960s and 1970s. To date, approximately
10% of our collection has been databased, so no doubt many more
of Clark's specimens will be catalogued in coming years.
Clark received his Master of Arts in the
Department of Botany at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill in 1966; the title of his thesis was "The Vascular Flora
of the Giery Gizzard Gorges in South-central Tennessee." The
vouchers for this study are in NCU's collection. Clark's Ph.D. thesis
dating from 1969, also completed at UNC-CH, is entitled "A
Distributional Study of the Woody Plants of Alabama" and the
vouchers for this study are also at NCU.
Besides NCU, other herbaria that hold substantial
numbers of Clark's specimens include:
MOR Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, U.S.A
EKY Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky,
U.S.A.
CONV Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina
U.S.A.
The following information, written
by Ross Clark, is from his website
at Eastern Kentucky University:
I'm from Virginia and finished high school
in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. I received a B.A. in biology from the University
of the South and an M.A. and Ph.D. in plant systematics and general
ecology from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where
my advisor was Albert E. Radford. My undergraduate mentor in botany
was George S.Ramseur, Jr. In the picture below, Ramseur, Radford
and I are pictured from left to right. My master's thesis was The
Flora of the Fiery Gizzard Gorges in South-Central Tennessee. The
publication title of my Ph.D. dissertation was The Woody Plants
of Alabama.
I taught at the University of South Carolina at Spartanburg and
Erskine College before serving as Curator of Education at the Morton
Arboretum for over 12 years. In 1992, I came to EKU as Chair of
the Department of Biological Sciences, and shifted into full-time
teaching in 1998. At EKU, I've received two outstanding teaching
awards: the National Alumni Association Outstanding Teaching Award
(2002), and a Student Government Distinguished Educational Leader
Award for Exceptional Classroom Performance (2004). In the early
1970s, I won a similar award at the University of South Carolina
at Spartanburg.
Among my 50+ publications are a treatment of the woody plants of
Alabama and a book on the trees of the Chicago region.
PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS
Taxonomy of temperate woody plants; vascular plant biodiversity
(an esoteric way of saying floristics, which is an esoteric way
of saying I'm always curious about what's growing where and why);
descriptive plant community ecology.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Studies of temperate Aquifoliaceae (that's hollies); flora of Kentucky.
Specifically, I'm working on floras of Cumberland County, the Red
River Gorge, and a statewide, comprehensive study of Kentucky woody
plants.. There are plenty of opportunities for students to get involved
with me in these or other projects.
SELECTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Clark, R.C. 1998. Encouraging new biologists. Trans. Kentucky Acad.
Sci. 59(1): 44-46.
Clark, R.C. & R.M. Bauer. 2001. Woody plants of six northern
Kentucky counties. Jour. Kentucky Acad. Sci. 62(1): 39-51.
Clark, R. C. 2002. Intrinsic and overlooked factors favoring the
establishment and spread of woody weeds. Invited paper presented
at Fourth Annual Symposium, Southeast Exotic Pest Plant Council.
Clark, R. C. 2002. Aquifoliaceae. In Wofford, B. E. & E. W.
Chester. Guide to the Trees, Shrubs and Woody Vines of Tennessee.
pp. 97-98. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press.
PERSONAL INTERESTS
I'm a low-powered woody plant fanatic; our one-acre lot includes
about 120 species of trees, shrubs and woody vines. At times, I've
been big into gandy dancing, beekeeping, tuba playing, bicycling,
goat breeding and bonsai culture. I'm for everything that Republicans
detest. That should be enough to scare you off . . ..
