D. E. Stone
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Name
Donald E. Stone
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Dates
1930 -
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Specialities
Spermatophytes
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Roles
Author, Determiner, Collector
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Movement Details
United States of America
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Notes
Determiner Notes: Tulane
Collector Notes: Nevada (1971): NY, DUKE
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From Flora of North America Newsletter 25(1): 15. 2011
Donald E. Stone
1930–2011
D
onald Eugene Stone died
from a short bout with
cancer on Friday, March 4,
2011, in Durham, North
Carolina. Don was born on
December 10, 1930, and
grew up in Eureka, California.
Don did his undergraduate
work at Humboldt State
College and the University
of California at Berkeley. He
remained at Berkeley and was
awarded his Ph.D. in Botany in 1957. Subsequently, he
taught at Tulane University for six years. In 1963, he
joined the Botany Department at Duke University and
taught at Duke for the remainder of his career. In 1969–
70, Don took a one-year leave of absence to serve as
the Associate Program Director in Systematic Biology
at NSF. In 1976, while teaching full-time at Duke, he
began shepherding the Organization for Tropical Studies
(OTS) as its Executive Director, expanding the consortium from 20 to more than 60 universities, colleges,
museums, and research institutions. During this period
he enhanced the Organization’s field-based graduate
courses and created an on-the-ground training program
for policy makers. Most importantly, he strengthened
OTS’s three biological field stations in Costa Rica, La
Selva, Las Cruces, and Palo Verde, as major research
centers, and, in particular, established the La Selva
station as one of the most important sites in the world
for research in tropical biology. In the early 1980s,
under Don’s guidance, OTS took a leadership role,
along with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund, and The Nature
Conservancy, in establishing a protected, 47,000-hectare,
forested corridor from the Braulio Carrillo National
Park, located in the central highlands of Costa Rica, to
La Selva, more than 35 miles away in the Caribbean
lowlands. As result of these efforts, in 1985 OTS was
the first organization to be awarded the John and Alice
Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. When Don
retired from OTS in 1996, he served as the chair of the
Botany Department at Duke for three years. In 2000, he
joined the OTS Board of Visitors, which he formed in
1992, and from 2003 to 2005 he served in a volunteer
capacity as OTS’s Interim Executive Director during
an 18-month search for the current CEO. Don’s own
research interest centered on the systematics and evolution of temperate and tropical plants using biochemistry,
cytotaxonomy, comparative anatomy, and comparative
morphology in the walnut family (Juglandaceae), and
pollen development in the ginger family (Zingiberales).
In addition to many other publications, he contributed
Juglandaceae to the floras of Mesoamerica, Nicaragua,
Costa Rica, and China, as well as Juglans and Carya to
the Flora of North America, Volume 3.
Memorial contributions may be sent to OTS, Box
90633, Durham, NC 27708-0633. -
Collections