Nature: Jack-of-all-trades - John Leonard Riddell's legacy still blooms in Ohio botany

 

Ohio goldenrod (foreground) and Riddell's goldenrod/Jim McCormac

NATURE: Jack-of-all-trades - John Leonard Riddell's legacy still blooms in Ohio botany

Columbus Dispatch
October 16, 2022

NATURE
Jim McCormac

One of early America’s larger-than-life characters was John Leonard Riddell. Born on Feb. 20, 1807, in Massachusetts, Riddell would burn the candle at both ends for much of his short life.

A wanderlust to explore and expand his horizons sent him westward early on. Riddell landed at Marietta College by 1832, and following studies there, he moved north to Worthington, where he began earning a medical degree at the Ohio Reformed Medical College (closed in 1840). He finished his M.D. at the former Cincinnati College in 1836.

Riddell became far more than a doctor of medicine. Imbued with a quirky, sometimes challenging personality, he nonetheless was adept at diplomacy when need be, and skilled at making connections. The definition of a multipotentialite, Riddell pursued many passions.

Over his career, Riddell became a botanist, medical doctor, chemist, inventor, numismatist (he directed the New Orleans Mint), geologist, politician and author. His sole book is titled “Orrin Lindsay’s Plan of Aerial Navigation with a Narrative of His Explorations in the Higher Reaches of the Atmosphere, and His Wonderful Voyage Round the Moon!” While wordy of title, the book — published in 1847 — foreshadowed space travel.

At his peak, Riddell juggled an appointment to a high federal post, active lab research, a consultancy to the City of New Orleans, involvement in Democratic Party politics, travel and hobnobbing with U.S. presidents, and lucrative real estate investments.

That wasn’t all. Riddell also balanced a wife and eight children while simultaneously managing a mistress and two other kids.

On Oct. 5, 1865, Riddell, who had been elected Louisiana’s governor — his election would be later overturned — delivered a fiery speech against Louisiana’s secession. This diatribe was met with much ill will. Three days later, John Leonard Riddell died of a stroke at 58.

Riddell’s most famous legacy is said to be his invention of the compound microscope. He was also a bacteriologist. However, botanists would disagree. His contributions to our understanding of flora in the fledgling United States cannot be understated.

In 1835, Riddell published “A Synopsis of the Flora of the Western States,” which encompassed an area including Ohio and adjacent states. He had not let the grass grow under his feet during his short Ohio stay, from 1832 to 1836. His publication listed 1,802 plant species.

Then, Ohio and vicinity was still a botanical frontier. As noted by Riddell, “There are large tracts … whose vegetable products have not yet been examined …”

The indefatigable Riddell discovered four plants new to science in Ohio. One of them is the beautiful sky-blue aster (Symphyotrichum oolentangiense). Its scientific epithet denotes the Olentangy River, upon whose banks the botanist discovered the aster in 1832 near Worthington.

One big river to the west, Riddell made another remarkable find in 1834. He encountered an early blooming lily on limestone cliffs along the Scioto River in Dublin. It was named snow trillium (Trillium nivale), and small populations persist in the area to this day.

While scouring a prairie “two miles south of Columbus” in 1834, Riddell met with a statuesque goldenrod quite unlike any other. He dubbed it Ohio goldenrod (Solidago ohioensis). While our namesake goldenrod still occurs in the state, Riddell’s original site has long been obliterated.

That same year, 1834, Riddell trekked to the famous Huffman Prairie near Dayton, where Orville and Wilbur Wright started the nation’s first flying school. There, he found another unknown goldenrod, the eponymous Riddell’s goldenrod (Solidago riddellii). The plant still grows there.

On Sept. 23, I traveled to Kinnikinnick Fen in Ross County, and was delighted to encounter both goldenrods growing side by side. For botanists, Riddell’s legacy lives large, even 157 years after his death.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Riddell's Goldenrod

Everyone should have a favorite goldenrod. I certainly do, and it is unequivocally Riddell's Goldenrod, Oligoneuron riddellii, a true star of the prairie.

A note before we move on: if you dabble in botany on any serious plane, you'll note that I use Oligoneuron as the genus - not good old Solidago, which is what you've likely learned. The large catch basin of Solidago has been sliced and diced, and a few "new" genera have spewed from the taxonomists' spout. Most of our species are still Solidago, but we've got to learn about Oligoneurons and Euthamias, too.

On my way up to Lakeside today, it was impossible to pass right by Caledonia Prairie and not stop by. This long, linear strip of unplowed virgin prairie sod is bookended by a set of railroad tracks and a country road. If left unmolested, and particularly if the soil is not disturbed, native prairie does a remarkable job of fending off invading plants that don't belong. Caledonia Prairie, although small, may be the best remaining example of the original vegetation of the once vast Sandusky Plains wet prairie.

Easily the most charismatic plants in this scene, a pair of Riddell's Goldenrod jut from the tangled snarl of prairie species. The big leaves down low, already fading to brown, are those of Prairie-dock, Silphium terebinthinaceum.

I have been on a quest to photograph goldenrods. I am to give a lecture on all of the wonderful attributes of their lot, both biological and aesthetic, at next year's Midwest Native Plant Conference. This is a fun assignment, as goldenrods are among the most interesting and valuable of our native flora.

And none of their rank can match Riddell's Goldenrod for glamorous panache. It's too bad more gardeners don't know of it, and more nurseries don't sell it. The inflorescence is a large dome-like affair filled with lemon-yellow elfin sunflowers. A happy, well-fed specimen can tower two feet or more; the blooms acting like a vegetative billboard to all pollinators passing by.

A mouthful of multisyllabic botanical jargon shall now tumble from my keyboard: conduplicately falcate. Those two words sum up the leaves, which are the coolest thing going in the goldenrod world. Conduplicate = folded longitudinally; in essence looking as of the leaf has been folded in half from stem to stern. Falcate = sickle shaped. Riddell's Goldenrod leaves have a graceful scimitar curve to them.

This species has major roots in Ohio, if you'll forgive my bad pun. The above is a photo of the original, or type, specimen callected by John Leonard Riddell in 1834 or thereabouts. The goldenrod is one of 98 or so vascular plants that were originally collected and described to science from Ohio. This type is housed at the New York Botanical Garden.

Riddell was living in my hometown, Worthington, and teaching medicine at the defunct Worthington College, when he discovered Riddell's Goldenrod growing in wet prairies somewhere west of Columbus. His point of discovery, which is termed a "type locality", is long obliterated as has been the case with so many plant and animal type localities. I sometimes rue that so many of our most interesting and diverse habitats were destroyed before I - and others - had a chance to see them.

Quite a character was John L. Riddell, and he packed a lot of living into a life truncated in his 58th year. He wore many hats - so broad were Riddell's interests that it scarcely seems possible that he could have dabbled in them all, let alone mastered most. Itinerant lecturer on the sciences; chemist; politician; numismatician; author; medical doctor; and of course botanist - these were some of the pursuits of Riddell.

In 1835 he published the awkwardly titled Synopsis of the Flora of the Western States, in which Riddell's Goldenrod was first published. I have a copy, and it is by turns both fascinating and depressing to page through. How cool it would have been to have lived in an era in which it was still possible to discover such remarkable, distinctive plants as Riddell's namesake goldenrod.

And how depressing to acknowledge that, in the short 174 years since Riddell published his flora, we've wiped out nearly all of the habitats where he collected his subjects.