By Amanda M. Chandler, Laura Briscoe
Jul 15 2022
Riclef Grolle (1934 – 2004) was among the most dedicated and knowledgeable liverwort specialists to date and holds this remembrance without conducting fieldwork during his lifetime. Born in Oldenburg, Germany, his family fled to Jena during World War II, where he continued to live for the entirety of his life. As a member of the Thuringian Botanical Society, he discovered an affinity toward bryophytes on meeting bryologist Theodor Herzog and subsequently attended Friedrich Schiller University with the guidance of Otto Schwartz, Bruno Schussnig, and Herzog. His studies were delayed when he contracted polio at the age of 19, which caused loss of function in his legs and partial function of his arms. He used a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Upon returning to university, he refined his focus to liverworts and completed his thesis concerning rhizoid arrangements in leafy liverworts. He went on to complete a dissertation on the genus Leptoscyphus and worked tirelessly from his home laboratory as a research assistant for the Institute of Systematic Botany and Herbarium Haussknecht of the University of Jena. Riclef utilized this position to become an unrivaled expert on liverwort morphology and systematics and spent over 35 years examining slides he made from both unidentified and type specimens, until retiring in 1996.
Grolle’s early work shed light on the diversity of the tropical and southern hemispheric liverwort genera. His studies resulted in the description of many new species and produced multiple monographs that remain relevant and informative to liverwort specialists today. He specialized in an extensive span of geographies, including Cuba, the Himalayas, Madagascar, Mascarene Islands, Mongolia, New Guinea, Samoa, Seychelles, and some sub-Antarctic islands. These efforts eventually shifted to examining type specimens and he visited multiple European herbaria to make nomenclatural revisions for all known genera in the world at the time, as well as for European species. The research basis for the last 25 years of Riclef’s life centered on the neglected amber-fossilized hepatic collections kept in European herbaria and “The Liverworts in Baltic and Bitterfeld Amber” was published following his death. In analyzing these specimens, he was able to demonstrate the existence of many current genera during the early Tertiary period and also showed that some taxa now found only in Asia were present in Europe during this same time period. To increase the accessibility of his private collection for other researchers, Grolle also began translating labels from German to English during this time.
Riclef is remembered as having a delightful sense of humor and happily guiding others in the appreciation and understanding of liverworts, as he mentored many impactful bryologists, including Stephan Robbert (Rob) Gradstein, Alfons Schäfer-Verwimp, May Ling So, Sinikka Piippo and Rui Liang Zhu. He was also the chairman of the International Nomenclatural Committee for Bryophytes for a long period and received a Hedwig medal of the International Association of Bryologists. His personal herbarium exemplified utmost attention to detail in curation and held somewhere around 40,000 specimens. Donation of this to the Herbarium Haussknecht of the University of Jena greatly contributed to its current status as a leading bryophyte collection. In his career, Riclef named 34 new genera, 164 species, and 161 new species combinations as he radically improved bryologists' understanding of generic concepts. He consistently produced research throughout his lifetime, ending up with over 300 publications by the time of his passing in 2004. The success of Grolle's career highlights his own dedication and skill, as well as the importance of working with already-made herbarium collections; perhaps not as exciting as conducting field work, but even more important. Grolle carefully annotated specimens from various herbaria, including those held by the New York Botanical Garden, greatly improving their quality and leaving his mark.
