Special thanks to Donna Ford-Werntz, Curator of
WVA, for her assistance.
The University of North Carolina Herbarium
has only a few of William Clarence Legg's collections. Weldon
Boone's A History of Botany in West Virginia
(1965, McLain Printing Company, Parsons, West Virginia) states,
"Many of [Legg's] interesting collections of plants may be
seen in the West Virginia University Herbarium." Donna Ford-Werntz,
the Curator of WVA, reports that, with approximately 80% of their
collection databased, 34 specimens collected by Legg have been
catalogued.
Rubus leggii was named by H. A.
and Tyreeca Davis in William Clarence Legg's honor (Davis, H.A.
and Tyreeca Davis. 1953. The genus Rubus in West Virginia. CASTANEA
18(1): 1-31). "This species is dedicated to the momory of
the late William C. Legg, naturalist of Mount Lookout, Nicholas
County, West Virginia, whom we accompanied on several pleasant
and profitable field trips" (p. 27-28).
Core, Earl L.. 1952. William Clarence Legg..CASTANEA
17(4): 167.
William Clarence ("Bill") Legg,
nationally known naturalist of Mt. Lookout, West Virginia, died
on May 30, 1952, as the result of a Memorial Day automobile accident
near Summersville. He was born October 18, 1903.
He was a graduate of the Nicholas County
Schools and a veteran of Wold War II. He had been visited at his
rural home by naturalists from many parts of this county and from
some foreign countries. He supplied materials and specimens to
numerous educational institutions. Many of his plant collections
may be seen at West Virginia University. He provided materials
and assistance for books of various nature authors, including
Don Echelberry of Long Island, N.Y.. Recently he had compiled
notes for a book of his own.
At the time of his death he was making
plans for a scientific expedition to Central America.
At Mt. Lookout he operated a small-scale
nature-publishing house, "Twintiliana Press", where
he issued little pamphlets to distribute to his friends. A sample
is "Some Notes on Holly," pubished Feb. 5, 1947. "This,"
he said, "is a very limited edition -- in fact, so limited
that it's about the same as talking to myself." A selection
from this illustrates his charmng, informal style:
"A holly is a sort of 'apartment'
for myriads of insects. Some eat the leaf tissue between the leaf
surfaces, some eat the bloom, the leaves, berries and many of
them eat each other. As Fabre said, each is a guest and in turn
the dish at the table of life. There's a balance here as in all
of Nature and the little black fly, Phytomza ilicis,
whose grub mars the holly leaf with its mine would increase this
damage many fold were it not for a certain little wasp (Braconid,
it seems) that preys on the fly. And I've seen this little wasp
devoured by a larger insect (appparently a Dolichopodidae),
which keps its long abdomen curled up underneath itself. Conflicting
with man's interest, ilicis is considered harmful, the
other one beneficial, but there's no such distinction in Nature.
They each fit the niche that they were adapted for. Like the hawk
or an owl, they both fit perfectly in the niches they were created
for. They know no other way than the beak and claw way so the
gun has never 'educated' them to a man's way.
What has a hwk to do with holly? My alibi
for this dissertation is probably that bugs eat holly, chickens
eat bugs and hawks eat chickens."
