Clearly, based on his autobiography, Peck regarded AManual 
of the Higher Plants of Oregon as his greatest achievement. The 
San Francisco Chronicle first announced its sale in September 
1941 at a price of $5.00 and reiterated Peck's goal of writing a 
manual accessible enough to allow persons with a ''minimum of 
technical knowledge" to "determine the genus, species, range, 
and typical habitat" of over 3000 Oregon ferns and flowering 
plants. Peck was successful because the original flora and his 
revision of it in the 1950's were the products of many years of 
study and field work, correspondence with other botanists and 
taxonomists, and sheer perseverance. His manual was based on 
an intimate, first-hand knowledge of a diverse flora, and, ac¬ 
cording to Art Cronquist, on an "excellent collection of Oregon 
plants, the most complete, so far as 1 know that exists." More¬ 
over, Peck had the support and broad expertise of a community 
of botanists with whom he corresponded regularly, exchanging 
specimens, identifications, and locality data. These colleagues 
included, among others, L. Bailey (Cornell); L. Detling (Uni¬ 
versity of Oregon); J. Howell (California Academy of Sciences), 
C. Hitchcock, and J. Thompson (University of Washington), 
W. Jepson, L. Constance, and G. Stebbins (University of Cali¬ 
fornia at Berkeley), B. Maguire (New York Botanical Garden); 
P Munz (Pomona); M. Ownbey (Washington State University); 
R. Rollins (Stanford and Harvard); and C. Weatherby (Gray 
Herbarium). Furthermore, Helen Gilkey (OSC) kindly inter¬ 
vened to dissolve publisher Peter Binford's concerns that such a 
technical book would have a limited market and a "difficult set¬ 
up." 
Almost without exception. Peck's flora received enthusiasm 
and praise for its format, good prose, and lightweight size, its 
phylogenetic keys, new floristic records, thorough descriptions 
and treatments, discussion of Oregon physiographic provinces, 
and likelihood of promoting the study of Oregon plants. Ex¬ 
amples of comments gleaned from correspondence deposited at 
OSC include accolades from Munz that "it stands up to use!" 
and from Constance, who declared, 
I am frankly delighted with your new Manual! I knew 
that it would he a carefully conceived and painstakingly 
prepared volume, but the actual book is much more than 
that. In my humble opinion, it is one of the tivo or three 
best floras that have been written on the Pacific coast, 
and I am not sure but it may not prove to be the best of 
the lot... 
Similarly, Hitchcock congratulates Peck on a "beautiful piece of 
work... [that] seems to be as nice a flora as I have seen." Hitchcock 
in fact used Peck's manual extensively in taxonomy courses at 
the University of Washington until his own flora was completed. 
Gilkey further noted the manual's usefulness in untangling dif¬ 
ficulties with Oregon plants. Yet Peck's flora was not without a 
few drawbacks: e.g., its only illustrations were part of a techni¬ 
cal guide to basic plant parts. Peck also regretted various typo¬ 
graphical errors, but these merely underscored the enormous 
task he had undertaken. His strongest critic was W. H. "Red" 
Camp (NewYork Botanical Garden), who cited insufficient bib¬ 
liographic referencing of new combinations. His negative re¬ 
marks in Taxonomic Index drew a backlash of criticism, how¬ 
ever. Camp later acknowledged Peck's limited access to the "nec¬ 
essary bibliographic aids and literature," and admitted that his 
form was valid under nomenclatural rules. Many colleagues wrote 
letters of support to Peck, including Reed Rollins, who noted 
that Camp "tends to be a bit 'flip' on tilings of real significance, 
at other times giving undue attention to publications of far less 
merit." 
Peck's interests were wide-ranging within the areas of flo¬ 
ristic botany, taxonomy, and phytogeography; he regularly pub¬ 
lished short articles of a descriptive nature on vegetational prov¬ 
inces within Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Letters to Peck 
also suggest air interest in large trees (e.g., Oracle Oak), in coni¬ 
fer diversity, including the Modoc cypress, and in protecting 
areas of diversity within "some kind of primitive area," perhaps 
foreshadowing the modem concept of "Research Natural Ar¬ 
eas" and other similar designations. He corresponded extensively 
with J. Thomas Howell in the 1950's concerning endemism 
and the boundaries of the California Floristic Province. Howell 
describes his first visit to meet Peck in 1952 as part of a 4300- 
mile trip to collect Cirsium for the Abrams flora: "As I look 
back over it all, one of the happiest, pleasantest moments of the 
whole outing was my visit with you in Salem. I am ever so 
grateful to you for the privilege of examining your specimens 
and I treasure the memory of our afternoon together." Cer¬ 
tainly, the quiet, yet humble personage of Peck left a mark on 
posterity. 
What is unfortunate is that so little of the correspondence 
of record was actually penned by Peck. Thus, most of what we 
know comes from the letters of others, and very little is known 
Penstimon peckii, drawn by Esther McEvoy. 
Kalmiopsis Volume 7, 2001 
5 
