DEVELOPMENT OF PALEOBOTANY IN THE ILLINOIS BASIN 31 



Andrews' last two students in coal-ball studies were Tom L. Phillips, who 

 studied Sphenophyllum (1959) and Botryopteris (1961), and Shirpad N. Agashe. 

 Aga she's (1964) dissertation study of Catamites anatomy is one of several such 

 contributions made from Andrews' laboratory (Andrews, 1952; Anderson, 1954; And- 

 rews and Mahabale, 1961; and Andrews and Agashe, 1965). Agashe returned to 

 Bangalore University, India, where he published a report on fungi in coal balls 

 from the Illinois Basin (Agashe and Tilak, 1970). Phillips is now in the Botany 

 Department, University of Illinois. Andrews and Phillips carried out several joint 

 projects on coal-ball plants from the Illinois Basin (Phillips and Andrews, 1963, 

 1965, 1966, 1968) before Andrews moved to the University of Connecticut and 

 changed his research emphasis to plants of Devonian age. 



Type and figured slides of plants described by Andrews and his students 

 are housed in the paleobotanical collections, Systematics and Evolution Section, 

 Life Sciences, University of Connecticut. 



University of Illinois and Derivative Programs 



The program in paleobotany at the University of Illinois at Urbana was in- 

 stituted in 1947 when Wilson N. Stewart joined the botany faculty. Stewart, who 

 became one of the outstanding teachers and an enthusiastic supporter of paleo- 

 botanical research, has guided many students in graduate studies of fossil plants. 

 Stewart had completed his master's work on comparative study of stigmarian ap- 

 pendages and Isoetes roots (1947) at the University of Illinois under the extended 

 guidance of Schopf . His interest in the unique lycopod roots and root systems 

 had developed before the war (Stewart, 1940), and he continued the study of Isoetes 

 for his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin. In relating how he became in- 

 terested in paleobotany, Stewart wrote us: 



I received an assistantship at the University of Illinois (19^0-19^1) and 

 signed up with John Buchholz to do a master's thesis. When we sat down to 

 discuss the problem, I told him of my interest in the evolutionary study 

 of Isoetes . He said he was not well enough versed in the subject, but 

 thought Jim Schopf, who had just gotten his degree with Buchholz the pre- 

 vious year, might help out. So that is how I got interested in paleobot- 

 any. At the time Jim Schopf was working with the Illinois State Geological 

 Survey. It was in Jim's laboratory that I saw my first coal ball. As I re- 

 call, they were from the Nashville, Illinois, locality. I never had a 

 course in paleobotany or one in geology. So you might say I came into pa- 

 leobotany through the back door — a door that Jim Schopf opened for me. 



In turning to paleobotany Stewart brought his morphological training to 

 bear on the medullosan pteridosperm assemblages that had been studied by Noe" 

 (1923c), Hoskins (1923), Steidtmann (1937, 1944), Arnold and Steidtmann (1937), 

 Schopf (1939), Hoskins and Cross (1946a, b), Baxter (1949), and Andrews and 

 Mamay (1953), and he and his students (Stewart, 1951a, 1954, 1958; Warren, 

 1955; Delevoryas, 1955a; Stewart and Delevoryas, 1952, 1956; Taylor and Dele- 

 voryas, 1964; Taylor, 1965) complemented the work on Dolevotheca by Schopf 

 (1948a) . Stewart recalled, "The first medullosas I saw were in Jim Schopf s labor- 

 atory. I started getting interested in them at that time (1940s). Jim was working 

 on Dolevotheca, I remember the original illustrations for the paper. They were 

 beautiful. Jim did much to stimulate my interest in the group. " 



