William Willard Ashe
(1872-1932)

William Willard Ashe was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on June 4, 1872. His family inhabited a rambling antebellum estate named Elmwood which provided Ashe, described by one biographer as a "congenital naturalist," with abundant woods and fields to explore for curiousities. It is reported that Willard and his brother Samuel together published a small tract called "The West End Sun" with woodcuts carved by Willard. A copy of this work was placed in the cornerstone of the State Agricultural College Building in Raleigh. Much of the young man's spare time was spent collecting specimens and his collections required a two-story building by the time he entered college. Ashe clearly had the eye of a scientist and was known for being able to readily discern differences between very similar plants.

At the age of fifteen, Ashe entered the University of North Carolina, matriculating in 1891. The following year he received his M.S. from Cornell, where he specialized in botany and geology. From 1892 to 1905, he was employed as a forester by the North Carolina Geological Survey, but also worked on special projects with the recently-formed United States Forest Service. Ashe remained a professional forester all of his life, conducting his work on floristics and systematic botany in his spare time or as a minor sideline to his forestry labors. Realizing this makes a look at a list of Ashe's publications that much more amazing.

In 1905 Ashe joined the U.S. Forest Service full time and was employed there until his death in 1932. During this time he served as Secretary of the National Forest Reservation Commission (1918-1924), vice-president of the Society of American Foresters (1919), and chairman of the Forest Service Tree Name Committee (1930-1932). In 1906 he married Margaret Henry Wilcox, for whom he named Crataegus margaretta and Quercus margaretta. His botanical works centered around woody plants, especially the genus Crataegus, although he also published on such herbaceous genera as Asarum and Panicum. His keen eye for detail led him to create many new taxa, publishing 510 plant names during his career. Many of these have gone into synonomy.