32 ILLINOIS STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CIRCULAR 480 



Not since David White had a paleobotanist brought such illustrative talents 

 to bear on fossil plants. Stewart was responsible for several of the often-repro- 

 duced plant restorations of Medullosa noei (Stewart and Delevoryas, 195 6) and 

 Psaronius blicklei (in Morgan, 1959). Stewart's students and others greatly in- 

 fluenced by him in paleobotany included Florence E. Neely, whose significant 

 doctoral thesis on petrified seeds was published in 1951; John W. Hall (1952, 

 1954); Alice J. Warren, whose master's thesis (1955) was on Dolerotheea; Robert 

 M. Kosanke, whose study of Mazostaohys (Kosanke, 1955) is a classic in combin- 

 ing three branches of paleobotany; Theodore Delevoryas, whose dissertation on the 

 Medullosae structure (Delevoryas, 1955a) became a prototype for later monographic 

 studies of coal-ball plants; E. Jeanne Morgan [Willis], whose thesis was on the 

 morphology and anatomy of American species of Psaronius (Morgan, 1959); Grace 

 S. Brush, who studied pollen organs for a master's thesis and completed her doc- 

 toral work on the spores and pollen from identifiable Carboniferous fructifications 

 with Barghoorn (Brush and Barghoorn, 1962, 1964); Thomas N. Taylor, who pub- 

 lished from his thesis a monograph on the American species of Paehy testa (Taylor, 

 1965); and Margaret Kain Balbach, who studied arborescent lycopod fructifications 

 (Balbach, 1962, 1965, 1966a, b, 1967). 



While Taylor and Balbach were doing graduate work, Delevoryas was also 

 at Urbana, on the botany faculty. David L. Dilcher, angiosperm paleobotanist, 

 began his graduate studies on epiphytic fungi (Dilcher, 1965) with Delevoryas at 

 Urbana and followed him to Yale to complete them. 



Hall, who completed his degree work at Urbana under Oswald Tippo, re- 

 called how he became interested in paleobotany: 



My interest in paleobotany really goes back to my -undergraduate days, and 

 the influence of R. E. Torrey. His course in morphology really leaned 

 heavily on the fossil record, and he had some of the old Lomax slides 

 which I thought were quite outstanding. Then, when I got to Illinois, 

 Stewart began organizing a course in paleobotany. It was an easy step in- 

 to his lab, and I not only took his first course but also assisted in it. 



Torrey taught at the University of Massachusetts and influenced many other stu- 

 dents, including Henry Andrews, Theodore Delevoryas, and William H. Murdy, 

 all of whom later contributed significantly to paleobotany in the Illinois Basin. 

 Judging from the paleobotanist s who studied with Stewart, Hall, Andrews, and 

 Delevoryas, excellent and enthusiastic teaching of paleobotany has attracted a 

 number of paleobotanists into the field at rather late stages in their training. 

 Stewart wrote of his teaching: 



The paleobotany course Just grew like Topsy. If students like the course, 

 it may have something to do with a natural enthusiasm I have for the ma- 

 terial and the fact that I have tried to build a teaching collection that 

 will Illustrate many of the things we talk about. If I have any objective 

 in teaching paleobotany or any other course, it is to stimulate students' 

 interest in their world. Some want to investigate it in detail and become 

 graduate students in paleobotany. 



Hall wrote: 



When Bill Stewart began teaching paleobotany, I was also well along in my 

 thesis so that it was not feasible to change. There Is no question about 

 Stewart's influence, however. In my final year at Illinois, Bill was in- 



