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Guide to the Cornelius H. Muller Papers
MS-01
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Table of contents
Title: Cornelius H. Muller papers
Dates: 1931-1996
Collection number: MS-01
Creator:
Muller, Cornelius H.
Collection Size:
30.75 linear feet
8 record cartons, 4 photo boxes, 12 oversize folders
Repository:
Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (University of California, Santa Barbara). C. H. Muller Library
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9615
Abstract: Correspondence, publications, field notes, research notes, and photographs relating to the career of plant ecologist C.H.
Muller.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
German
Spanish
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, UC Santa Barbara. All requests
for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director. Permission for publication
is given on behalf of the Cheadle Center as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission
of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
Cornelius H. Muller papers, MS-01, Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration. University of California, Santa
Barbara.
Donated in two gifts in 2005 and 2007 by Robert Muller.
Arrangement and description of this collection was funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Biography / Administrative History
Cornelius H. Muller or
Neil, as he was known to his colleagues and family, had a long and distinguished career as a plant ecologist and plant taxonomist.
After graduating from University of Illinois in 1938 with a PhD in Botany, Muller worked for the Illinois Natural History
Survey for one year and then for the USDA in various capacities from 1938-1945. Summers were usually spent on plant collecting
trips to Mexico, the Southwest, and the southern United States. His work focused on vegetation studies in Texas and Mexico
and most prominently on oaks. Muller married Katherine Kinsel, also a botanist, who directed the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
from 1950-1973. She was a partner with her husband in much of his vegetation studies and oak collecting trips, sharing in
the creation of the extensive field notes found in this collection. He and Katherine also collaborated on a publication about
Jean Louis Berlandier's plant collecting in Mexico in the 1820s. Their son, Robert, is a plant ecologist and is also a correspondent
in these papers.
From 1938 to 1942 Muller worked for the USDA Division of Plant Exploration and Introduction, naming and classifying plant
specimens. As a result of this work, he published
A Revision of the Genus Lycopersicon and
The Central American Species of Quercus. During World War II, he worked for the Bureau of Plant Industry on the Special Guayule Research Project on a series of experiments
on root development. His results were published in the USDA Technical Bulletin 923 entitled
Root Development and Ecological Relations of Guayule. In 1945 he began teaching at UCSB (then known as Santa Barbara College). He helped develop the botany major in 1947 and
taught various courses in botany and ecology until 1976 when he retired from UCSB. He continued in a teaching capacity as
Adjunct Professor of Botany at University of Texas from 1974 to 1992.
At UCSB, Muller founded the Herbarium in the early 1950s and was Curator from 1956 to 1964. In addition to his teaching duties,
during his years at UCSB Muller conducted numerous research studies, funded partly by four National Science Foundation grants,
on allelopathic mechanisms in California plant communities and systematics and evolution of the species
Quercus. He published over 110 articles and books, peer reviewed numerous articles and proposals, and supervised and worked with
over 15 graduate students. He published two monographs:
The Central American Species of Quercus and
The Oaks of Texas, as well as provided treatments for the genus in
Arizona Flora,
Flora of Panama,
Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas, and
Flora North America.
Throughout his career, Muller took collecting trips to Costa Rica, Cedros Island off of Baja California, Texas, Southern California,
and Mexico, and went twice to Europe in the 1950s to study oak specimens at various herbaria. In the course of his years at
UCSB, Muller deposited over 15,000 oak specimens in the UCSB herbarium, including 90 type specimens. He was named Faculty
Research Lecturer in 1957, the third faculty member to receive the title, honoring distinguished research achievement both
locally and abroad. In 1975 Muller was honored for his work in ecology by being named Eminent Ecologist for 1975, a prestigious
award given by the Ecological Society of America. He was also honored for his work in oak systematics by having two plants
named after him:
Quercus cornelius-mulleri and
Quercus mulleri.
Muller passed away in Santa Barbara on January 26, 1997 at the age of 88.
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection documents the botanical research and teaching career of Cornelius Muller. The bulk of the material relates
to Muller's research on oaks, chemical ecology, or allelopathy, and plant classification and vegetation studies of plants
from the southwestern United States and Latin America, resulting in over 110 publications over the course of his long career.
The collection includes correspondence, field notes, research notes, experimental data, unpublished drafts and published articles,
photographs, drawings, maps, and artifacts, such as lab and field equipment.
The bulk of the papers fall into the Research and Publications Series. Field notes describe plants and vegetation that Muller
and his wife Katherine collected and observed on collecting trips to Mexico, Texas, the southwestern and southeastern United
States, Cuba, and in California. The Guayule subseries contains data on experiments conducted at the Santa Barbara Botanic
Garden in the 1940s, additional notes, and the original drawings for the publication
Root Development and Ecological Relations of Guayule. The Quercus subseries includes correspondence, notes, data on individual species, and notes on Muller's trips to European
herbaria. Experimental Plant Ecology subseries consists of research data on allelopathy, inhibition, and plant toxins of
California native plants compiled by Muller, his colleague Walter Muller, and various graduate students from 1961-1966, that
resulted in at least six publications. Included are gas chromatography data, bioassays, and field notes for various experiments
conducted in the Santa Ynez Valley region and elsewhere in Santa Barbara. The Publications subseries contains drafts, notes,
and correspondence for some of Muller's publications, as well as unpublished writings. (A complete set of Muller's publications
are catalogued in the library.) A separate photograph subseries complements the collecting trips and various publications.
The papers are organized into six series as follows. Series 1. Correspondence, 1936-1996. Arrangement is alphabetical by
correspondent and then chronological within each folder. Subject files are arranged alphabetically by correspondent. Series
2. Research and Publications; Series 3. Faculty and Professional Papers; Series 4. Personal Papers; Series 5. Maps; Series
6 Artifacts.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
University of California, Santa Barbara
Muller, Cornelius H.
Botanists--North America
Oaks--California
Oaks--Mexico
Plant ecology--California--Santa Barbara County
Allelopathy
Guayule--California
Guayule--Texas
Drawings
Photographs
Maps
A small subset of photocopies of these papers constitute a series of bound volumes in the Museum of Systematics institutional
files (RG-01) that were compiled by former Herbarium curator Wayne Ferren. They deal predominantly with Muller's work on
oaks and include correspondence, field notes, and grant proposals. Information on Muller's role as founder and Curator of
the UCSB Herbarium can be found in the series Herbarium Correspondence. Correspondence and other files relating to Muller's
work on the Special Guayule Research Project are also located in the archives of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.
Muller's books, reprint collection, and some bound maps have been added to the library collection. They are accessible through
the library catalog. Several photograph prints and slides have been removed from correspondence folders and are housed together
with Muller's other photographs in a separate photograph collection, part of series II.