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On the eastern flatlands, nature attains in our state her fullest and most varied expression of loveliness in the form of wildflowers. — B. W. Wells describing the Big Savannah in The Natural Gardens of North Carolina
1. Bertram Whittier Wells
Bertram Whittier Wells was a scientist, botanist, and early ecologist, and perhaps most importantly, Dr. Wells was a teacher. There are many who are capable of gathering and organizing information, but few who feel compelled and have the patience and skills necessary to communicate their knowledge to others. Dr. Wells was able to mentor and educate his students at NC State, and he also educated and inspired much broader audiences. He created a layperson’s guide to the state’s flora, The Natural Gardens of North Carolina, which was published in 1932 and which today, in a new edition, continues to educate and inspire ever-growing audiences about the ecology of the state.
The title of the book, Natural Gardens, was groundbreaking, as it connected home gardening to the natural world, and moved away from mere description of flora toward a study of the relationships among plants and their habitat. To steer readers toward an ecological view, the chapters are structured by habitat, not species. Wells was one of the pioneer ecologists of the era, and his work continues to inform the study of the state’s native plants. Like a one-person conservation organization, he documented the state’s natural diversity, raised awareness in countless presentations across the state, and collaborated with individuals and organizations to encourage conservation and management of diverse landscapes.
B. W. Wells and his students on field trip/Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries (0226589)
Wells was born in Troy, Ohio in 1884, and earned an undergraduate degree from Ohio State University and a doctorate from the University of Chicago. After teaching at universities in Arkansas, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas and Texas, he was offered the Chair of the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at what is today NC State University in 1919, where he served until his retirement in 1954. In the words of his biographer, J.R. Troyer:
Wells was a dynamic and effective teacher in the classroom and in the laboratory, but he was always in superlative form in the field, forcing his students to confront nature head-on. His field trips in ecology acquired legendary status.
Natural curiosity is at the core of any good teacher, and Wells’ curiosity about the state’s natural gardens grew into a lifetime of work, as he labored to solve the mysteries that confronted him across the state from seaside dunes to mountain balds.
His early research focus on insect galls in plants faded when in 1920 while he was riding on a train from Raleigh to Wilmington. Looking out the window, he saw what he would call the Big Savannah near Burgaw in Pender County. Following is a description of this pivotal moment from his article in a 1967 North Carolina Wildflower Preservation Society Newsletter.
In the spring of 1920, on a visit to Wilmington, out of the railroad car window, I saw a vast flat area literally covered with wild flowers. I immediately made up my mind to see it again….I became convinced there was no such area of equal size and perfection with over a hundred species of herbaceous wild flowers blooming in profusion from late February to middle December….As my memory goes back over the 46 years in North Carolina the two summers of day after day on the Big Savannah continually surrounded by floral beauty while we engaged in our technical soil studies stand out beyond everything else.
Wells with Graflex Camera/Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries (troyer_024)
Although he spent much of his life studying and attempting to conserve the Big Savannah, he also studied the many natural plant communities across the state. As he worked, he photographed plants with a heavy and unwieldy Graflex single-lens reflex camera, and created glass lantern slides which he hand colored and used in his lectures as he toured the state.
Dr. Wells lost his first wife, Edna Metz, in 1938. In 1941, he married Maude Barnes. Upon retirement, he bought Rock Cliff Farm northeast of Raleigh, where he began to study its wildlife, and became an accomplished painter. He died in 1978, and today the farm is part of the Falls Lake State Recreation Area. The B. W. Wells Association was formed in 1979 and works to preserve, restore, and interpret the cultural and natural resources at Rock Cliff Farm and to educate the public about Wells and his conservation in association with the N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation.
Dig Deeper
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