Walter Norman Koelz
More actions
| Walter Norman Koelz | |
|---|---|
 Koelz with a bearded vulture in Lahaul, from the Journal of Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute (1931)
| |
| Born | 11 September 1895 Waterloo, Michigan, United States |
| Died | 24 September 1989 Waterloo, Michigan, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Zoologist and plant collector |
| Institutions | University of Michigan; Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute; United States Department of Agriculture |
| Known for | Plant, bird and ethnographic collections from the western Himalaya, Afghanistan and Iran |
| Collector name on accessions | W. N. Koelz |
Walter Norman Koelz (11 September 1895 – 24 September 1989) was an American zoologist who collected plants, birds and ethnographic material in South Asia and Iran between 1930 and 1953.[1] He went to India in 1930 to head the biological and botanical section of the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute at Naggar in the Kullu Valley. He later collected seed in India, Afghanistan and Iran as a plant explorer for the United States Department of Agriculture.[2][3] His herbarium gatherings of Cannabis sativa come from Lahaul, Kangra and Bashahr State in the western Himalaya, from Keshapur and Pathankot in the Punjab, from Afghanistan and from the Khasi Hills.[4][5][6] Ernest Small redetermined the New York sheets in 1975. Small and Arthur Cronquist cited three Koelz gatherings in their 1976 taxonomy of the genus.[6]
Zoology
Born in Waterloo, Michigan, Koelz attended Olivet College and took a doctorate in zoology, specialising in ichthyology, at the University of Michigan in 1920.[1] His studies of the whitefish and ciscoes of the Great Lakes were published by the United States Bureau of Fisheries as a monograph in 1929.[7] He represented the Bureau as naturalist on the MacMillan-Byrd Arctic Expedition of 1925.[1] After a period in New Mexico he returned to Michigan as a Lloyd postdoctoral fellow for 1927–28 and was appointed State Ichthyologist of Michigan.[1][3] The botanist Harley Harris Bartlett, who had sat on Koelz's doctoral committee, wrote in 1957 that Koelz's plant collecting began in New Mexico and continued in the Arctic and in Michigan.[3]
The Bentley Historical Library credits Koelz with more than 50,000 bird specimens.[1] In 1939 he described new bird subspecies from India and Afghanistan, seventeen of them from Afghanistan. The ornithologist H. Whistler judged that few of these would stand.[8]
Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute
According to Bartlett, Koelz's work in Asia began with a request from E. D. Merrill, then director of the New York Botanical Garden, for the nomination of a botanist to the institute that Nicholas Roerich directed at Naggar.[3] Koelz reached Naggar on 28 May 1930 as head of the biological and botanical section of the institute's Department of Natural Sciences and Applied Research. He began with the alpine flora of the Kullu valley and on 10 July set out for Lahaul across the Rohtang Pass.[2]
His report on the 1930 season says that collecting in Lahaul began in the middle of July and covered the district "from Jupa on the one side to and across the Chamba border, and to the Rothang Pass". It also states that information on local uses of plants had been gathered wherever possible and that a large share of the plants served as food, flavouring, medicine or ornament.[2] Sets of specimens went to the University of Michigan herbarium, the New York Botanical Garden and the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Seed also went to the Department of Agriculture in Washington. Merrill agreed to supervise the identification of the plants; Bartlett was to identify the Michigan set.[2] A consignment of seed "collected by Walter Koelz, Botanist, Himalayan Research Institute" was received by the department on 18 March 1931. Its entries include plants from Kullu, Chamba and Lahaul, some under local names; one is a cultivated pea from Lahaul entered as Shadma.[9]
In the summer of 1930 Koelz met Rup Chand, a Lahauli of the Thakur family, who worked and travelled with him for nearly thirty years.[10] Bartlett wrote that the two met on a pass leading into Lahaul and that Rup Chand chose to become a naturalist rather than remain "a Prince of Lahul".[3]
Koelz's report for 1931 describes three expeditions: from the Kangra valley into the plains between 18 January and 15 March, to western Tibet between June and October and to the Sutlej valley in Rampur Bashahr in November and December.[11] The institute's report for 1932 records that he was no longer connected with it.[12] The Bentley Historical Library describes a falling-out with the Roerich family in 1932.[1] Bartlett wrote that Koelz ended the connection when the institute's aims appeared to lie more in "political (or maybe just theosophical) penetration of trans-Himalayan Asia" than in scientific research.[3]
In December 1932 Koelz returned to Kullu as a Freer Fellow of the University of Michigan to collect Tibetan objects for its Museum of Anthropology. About one hundred thangkas from this collection were shipped to Ann Arbor in January 1934.[1] Bartlett adds that the fellowship also yielded a large collection of plants and some 7,000 birds.[3]
Plant exploration
Koelz worked as a plant explorer for the United States Department of Agriculture from the mid-1930s, travelling in India, Afghanistan and Iran.[3][1] He left India for Iran in December 1939 and remained there until January 1946.[1] His diary of plant exploration in Iran from 1939 to 1941 was published in 1983.[13] He then returned to India and travelled there and in Nepal and Assam until October 1953, collecting seed for the department again in 1947–49.[1][3]
Bartlett quotes C. O. Erlanson, chief of the department's Division of Plant Exploration and Introduction, on the results. Erlanson credited a wild melon that Koelz found near Calcutta with resistance to a disease that was damaging the cantaloupe crop in California. He wrote that breeding stock developed from its seed had saved the state's melon industry. He also described perilla, strawberry, alfalfa and cucumber seed from Koelz's collections that was in use in American crop trials or breeding.[3] The American Genetic Association awarded Koelz the Frank N. Meyer Medal in 1956 for his part in saving the California melon crop.[1] By 1957 his plant collections exceeded 33,000 numbers.[3]
Cannabis specimens
Koelz's cannabis sheets were collected over two decades and carry several different printed label forms. Koelz 692 was gathered in a dooryard at Sisu in Lahaul on 25 July 1930, fifteen days after he set out for Lahaul. Its Urusvati field label records the common name bhang and the note "Roasted seeds eaten and leaves smoked as drug", with "also cultivated" added in pencil.[14][2] The forms for Koelz 1665 and 1666, gathered beside a road at Keshapur in March 1931, are headed "Roerich Museum". One of the 1665 sheets gives the common name as "Bang", with the dialect recorded as "Kulu".[15] Koelz 4612, from Baijnath in Kangra in May 1933, carries a label for botanical collections in north-western India under the auspices of the University of Michigan.[16]
The following specimens have accession records on this wiki:
| Collected | Locality | Elevation | Repository | Catalogue number | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Koelz 692 (1930) | 25 July 1930 | Sissu | 3,048 m;1meter;1meters;3.28084ft;3.28084foot;3.28084feet | New York Botanical Garden | 1414432 |
| Koelz 1665 (1931) | March 1931 | Keshapur | 305 m;1meter;1meters;3.28084ft;3.28084foot;3.28084feet | New York Botanical Garden | 1414431; 1414433 |
| Koelz 1666 (1931) | 7 March 1931 | Keshapur | 305 m;1meter;1meters;3.28084ft;3.28084foot;3.28084feet | New York Botanical Garden | 1414440 |
| Koelz 4612 (1933) | 22 May 1933 | Baijnath | 914 m;1meter;1meters;3.28084ft;3.28084foot;3.28084feet | New York Botanical Garden | 1414434 |
| Koelz 8456 (1936) | 20 June 1936 | Kolong | 3,353 m;1meter;1meters;3.28084ft;3.28084foot;3.28084feet | New York Botanical Garden | 1414438 |
Other herbaria hold duplicates and further gatherings. The United States National Herbarium holds a second sheet of Koelz 4612, Koelz 7264 from October 1933 and Koelz 11591, collected in Afghanistan on 24 May 1937.[4] Naturalis Biodiversity Center holds Koelz 22862, collected at Burnihat in the Khasi Hills on 4 June 1949.[5] The University of Michigan Herbarium publishes six further Koelz cannabis sheets, recorded from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, without dates or precise localities.[17]
Annotation slips dated August 1975 record Ernest Small's determinations of the New York sheets. Five were named Cannabis sativa subsp. indica; Koelz 1666 was placed in var. kafiristanica of that subspecies.[4] In their 1976 taxonomy, Small and Cronquist cited three Koelz gatherings among the representative specimens of var. kafiristanica: Koelz 7264 from Bashahr State, Koelz 10365 from Pathankot and Koelz 1666 from Keshapur. Their account of the variety takes in indigenous plants and well-established weedy or naturalised populations, whether largely unaltered by domestication or considerably de-domesticated.[6]
Ethnobotany of Lahaul
In 1979 Koelz published "Notes on the ethnobotany of Lahul, a province of the Punjab". The paper introduces Lahul, as Koelz spelled it, as a Himalayan province of Kangra District. It records plant names in the languages spoken in the valley, alongside Tibetan, Hindi, Urdu and Sanskrit names and some Kullu and Gaddi names.[18] It notes that many settlements carry official map names that Lahaulis do not use, giving as an example the village they call Quakling, which maps call Sisu.[18] Sisu is the locality written on Koelz 692.[14]
Later life
Koelz returned to Michigan in October 1953. He died on 24 September 1989 in Waterloo, in the house where he was born. His collection of artefacts was sold at auction through Christie's in New York for the benefit of The Nature Conservancy.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 "Walter Koelz papers, 1873–1989". University of Michigan Finding Aids. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 "Annual report of the Himalayan Research Institute, 1929–1930" (PDF). Journal of Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute. 1 (1). New York: Roerich Museum Press: 74–76. July 1931 – via Nicholas Roerich Museum.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 Bartlett, H. H. (Spring 1957). "Foreword". Persian diary. I. The Asa Gray Bulletin. New series. 3 (2): 133–135 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Occurrence search: Cannabis preserved specimens collected by W. N. Koelz". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Occurrence 2513887597: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Small, Ernest; Cronquist, Arthur (August 1976). "A practical and natural taxonomy for Cannabis". Taxon. 25 (4): 405–435. doi:10.2307/1220524.
- ↑ Koelz, Walter (1929). "Coregonid fishes of the Great Lakes". Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries. 43 (2): 297–643 – via NOAA Scientific Publications Office.
- ↑ Whistler, H. (1944). "Materials for the ornithology of Afghanistan. I". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 44: 512 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Division of Foreign Plant Introduction (November 1932). Plant material introduced by the Division of Foreign Plant Introduction, Bureau of Plant Industry, January 1 to March 31, 1931 (Nos. 90837–92336). Inventory No. 106. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture. p. 50 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Rup Chand papers, 1930–1994". University of Michigan Finding Aids. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ "Annual report of the Himalayan Research Institute, 1931" (PDF). Journal of Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute. 2. New York: Roerich Museum Press: 153–155. January 1932 – via Nicholas Roerich Museum.
- ↑ "Annual report of the Himalayan Research Institute, 1932" (PDF). Journal of Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute. 3. New York: Roerich Museum Press: 200. January 1933 – via Nicholas Roerich Museum.
- ↑ Koelz, Walter N. (1983). Persian Diary, 1939–1941. Anthropological Papers. Vol. 71. Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. doi:10.3998/mpub.11396345. ISBN 978-0-932206-93-0.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Digitised sheet 1414432: Koelz 692". Virtual Herbarium image service. New York Botanical Garden. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ "Digitised sheet 1414431: Koelz 1665". Virtual Herbarium image service. New York Botanical Garden. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ "Digitised sheet 1414434: Koelz 4612". Virtual Herbarium image service. New York Botanical Garden. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ "Occurrence search: Cannabis preserved specimens collected by Walter N. Koelz". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 16 September 2026.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Koelz, Walter N. (1979). "Notes on the ethnobotany of Lahul, a province of the Punjab". Quarterly Journal of Crude Drug Research. 17 (1): 1. doi:10.3109/13880207909083272.
