literary metaphors to describe topics as diverse as genetic change 
and adaptation, chromosomal inheritance, species concepts, 
endemism, and extinction in plants. 
Collecting Trips & Professional Accomplishments 
Whereas Peck regarded his literary achievements as something 
he completed “just for the enjoyment of it,” he not only en¬ 
joyed his work as a botanist but also took it seriously. The two 
most tangible results of those efforts were the Peck Herbarium 
of Willamette University (WILLU) now housed at Oregon State 
University in Corvallis, Oregon, and two separate editions (1941, 
1961) of A Manual of the Higher Plants of Oregon. Though now 
out of print, this book is still the only existing comprehensive 
flora for the State of Oregon. Except for a sabbatical leave granted 
in 1928-29, Morton and Jessie Peck collected most of their plants 
on weekends and during summers, when the responsibilities of 
teaching were less onerous. They financed their travels through 
personal income and the sale of herbarium specimens at a price 
of 8 cents per sheet; in addition. Peck provided plant lists and 
specimens as part of the U. S. Biological Survey. By the time of 
his retirement. Peck and his collaborators had collected about 
1600 slime mold specimens, over 1000 Central American plants, 
and about 40,000 sheets of plants in Oregon and the adjacent 
western states. The bird and mammal collection he amassed 
with his father and sold to Ellsworth College in 1904 for $300 
was worth nearly $100,000 in 1963. Central American bird 
skins were also deposited at Carnegie and Harvard Museums. 
In the early 1900’s, Peck studied as far afield as Kew Gardens, 
the British Museum of Natural History, and The University of 
Edinburgh. Today, type specimens and duplicates of his many 
plant collections can be found in major world herbaria, includ¬ 
ing Harvard, Kew, Stanford, the Missouri and New York Bo¬ 
tanical Gardens, the California Academy of Sciences, the U.S. 
National Herbarium, and the University of Washington Her¬ 
barium. Sadly, his field notebook is missing; it may have disap¬ 
peared after his death or that of Jessie Peck. During this time, 
a neighbor apparently rescued some of the few notes and items 
that remain in archives at Willamette and Oregon State Univer¬ 
sities. 
Peck’s influence on taxonomic botany is evident in the many 
names, author citations, and collections that bear his mark. 
Namesakes include plants and fungi as diverse as Castilleja 
peckiana Pennell, Hathyrus peckii Piper, Homatium peckianum 
Mathias & Constance, Poa peckii A. Chase, Phacelia peckianum , 
Penstemon peckii , Sanicula peckiana Robinson, and Hydnellum 
peckii. The latter is a fungus, “strawberries and cream,” known 
throughout California. Peck also illustrated his collections of 
myxomycetes in watercolor prints that he “intended mostly for 
class use.” Chambers (1977) describes Peck as a “discriminat¬ 
ing collector” whose herbarium was rich in taxonomically diffi¬ 
cult groups; he records 58 holotypes or isotypes of taxa described 
by Peck. Twenty-nine additional taxa were either based on Peck’s 
collections or named by him, but their documentation by types 
is uncertain. In Belize, he collected many new plants in riparian 
habitat (e.g.. Manatee Lagoon); the Belize types included Inga 
peckii B.L. Robinson, Acacia hucerophora B. L. Robinson, and 
Paspalumpeckii F.T. Hubbard. In Oregon, he frequented places 
as distant as Malheur County and portions of southeastern Or¬ 
egon where he described new species (e.g. Polygonum 
heterosepalum Peck and Ownbey ) and rediscovered some of 
Cusick’s plants. In Central Oregon, he was particularly fond of 
the Three Sisters mountains and the Metolius River where he 
found two of the taxa that later bore his name (i.e., in Poa and 
Penstemon). Lincoln Constance (1960) describes his knowledge 
of the flora of the Wallowa, Steens, and Cascade ranges as an 
“incomparable one,” achieved often under difficult travel by foot, 
horseback, and car. 
The Peck Herbarium was the culmination of a lifetime’s 
work. Peck’s knowledge of the Oregon flora and other works 
earned him a reputation as the “senior resident botanist,” suc¬ 
ceeding pioneers such as William Cusick, Thomas Howell, and 
Louis Henderson (Chambers 1977). Oddly enough, both Cusick 
and Howell were family farmers in Oregon who once attended 
Willamette University; Henderson also lived contemporaneously 
with Peck, emerging from retirement in 1924 to curate the 
University of Oregon Herbarium (Thatcher 1978). Curiously, 
it seems likely that Peck turned down the same position to de¬ 
vote time to his own growing herbarium, which at various times 
has included from 33,000-40,000 sheets. The importance of 
the herbarium is highlighted in his correspondence to Willamette 
University President Smith, nearly three years before Peck’s death: 
The herbarium is still my sole interest to which I have a 
modicum of energy remaining to devote...but have not 
quite given up the hope of seeing [it] at least once more, 
with extended facilities for study and research, for which 
I daily feel indebted. 
4 
Kalmiopsis Volume 7, 2001 
