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Billie Lee Turner, famous botanist, passed away on 27 May 2020, at age 95. He was Professor Emeritus of the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). Later that same day, I saw an email from two renowned botanists in Arizona, who had just heard the news. They wrote “Another giant has passed. He was a great botanist AND livened our lives for more than 40 years…his lifelong contributions to the flora of Mexico are enormous.”
Billie was a “giant” among the nation’s plant taxonomists, having earned that status from an exceptionally productive career of more than 60 years. His publication total of over 700 includes mostly plant taxonomic treatments, but also a good number of conceptually oriented papers dealing with the history of and approaches to systematics, as well as several books. Two of the books directly relate to the Texas flora: Turner, The Legumes of Texas, 1959, and Turner et al., The Atlas of the Vascular Plants of Texas, 2003. Two other well-known and cutting-edge books explore the use of secondary compound chemistry in taxonomy: Biochemical Systematics, 1963, co-authored with Ralph Alston, and Plant Chemosystematics, 1984, co-authored with J. B. Harborne. Another of Billie’s signature products is The Comps of Mexico; A Systematic Account of the Family Asteraceae, 1996—2017, in 27 volumes; Mexico is rich in composites (members of the sunflower family). Billie’s declining health stopped him a few volumes shy of completing this ambitious project.
Billie joined the faculty at UT as Instructor 1953, and quickly moved up the academic ladder to full professor in 1961. He served as chair of the Department of Botany from 1967 to 1974, and Director of the Herbarium (TEX) from 1967 to 1998. Under his direction the TEX herbarium grew from 200,000 specimens to nearly 1,000,000 specimens. In honor of this achievement, and his dedication to the herbarium, recently it was named the Billie L. Turner Plant Resources Center. Billie was an active member of many U.S. and international societies, held officer positions in the Botanical Society of America and the Southwestern Association of Naturalists, was an editor for several journals, including the international Plant Systematics and Evolution, and he participated in various U.S. and international symposia, including The Biology and Chemistry of the Compositae, at the University of Reading, England, 1975, the proceedings published in two volumes, 1977; his masterful keynote address, Plant Systematics: Beginnings and Endings, before the Thirteenth Annual Southwestern Botanical Systematics Symposium, in Claremont, California, was published in the journal Aliso, 17(2), 1998. In 1991 the American Society of Plant Taxonomists honored Billie with the coveted Asa Gray Award, for teaching and research.
Billie advocated the value of field studies in systematic investigations, and conducted regular field excursions, in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico, in support of his research. He also made it a point to accompany his graduate students during at least one of their dissertation or thesis research field trips. During his teaching career, Billie mentored approximately 60 Ph.D. and 25 M.S. candidates (see All My Academic Children, 2015). I am proud to be one of Billie’s academic children (1960—1963).
Billie first realized his interest in botany after he enrolled at Sul Ross State University, in 1947, while taking classes from Barton H. Warnock, well-known botanist and prolific plant collector at Sul Ross. Billie dedicated his Legumes of Texas book “To Professor B. H. Warnock, inspiring teacher and friend.” Billie graduated from Sul Ross in 1949 (B.S. in Biology), and then earned graduate degrees at Southern Methodist University (M.S. in Biology) and Washington State University (Ph.D. Botany).
Billie is survived by two biological sons, from his first wife Ruth, both notably accomplished professionals: Dr. Billie L. Turner II, Regents Professor and Gilbert F. White Professor of Environment and Society, Arizona State University, member of the National Academy of Science; and Dr. Matt Warnock Turner, author, market researcher, instructor in the Liberal Arts Honors Program at UT, and NPSOT stalwart. Billie also adopted two sons, offspring of his third wife Gayle: Robert Lee Turner, Austin; Roy Parker Turner, Dublin, California.
A detailed obituary for Billie Turner, prepared by Matt Turner, appeared in the Austin American Statesman, 14 Jun 2020, and is the source for some of the information presented above.
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