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Cage 317
Piper, Charles Vancouver
Papers, 1888-1926

The papers of Charles V. Piper, 1867-1926, were received by the Washington State University Herbarium in 1926 along with his library and herbarium, donated by Maude Hungate Piper, Stanley Piper and R. Kent Beattie. Transcripts of correspondence located in other archives and repositories were added from time to time. Another segment of Piper’s papers is located in Office File of C. V. Piper, 1903-1924, Series 71, Records of Division of Forage Crops and Disease, Bureau of Plant Industry Records, Record Group 54, National Archives, Washington, D. C.

BIOGRAPHY

Charles V. Piper was born in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1867. He grew up in Seattle, and attended the Territorial University of Washington until about 1892, although he had received his bachelor’s degree in 1885 at the age of 18.

Piper’s career as a botanist had two almost distinct, although overlapping, phases, first as a regional taxonomist in the Northwest and later as an agronomist with the United States Department of Agriculture at Washington, D.C. His activity as a student of Northwest flora began in the mid-1880s, associated with his mountaineering hobby and supported by the Young Naturalists, a Seattle scientific society. Piper joined the staff of the newly opened Washington Agricultural College and School of Science, now Washington State University, in late 1892, and spent the next decade at Pullman, except for one year while a fellow at the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University. At Pullman, he and his collaborator, R. Kent Beattie, composed the first reasonably complete and authoritative regional Flora, beginning with a survey of the Palouse area of Southeastern Washington and expanding into the 1906 Flora of Washington. The investigations Piper conducted at Pullman also served as the basis for two later publications, Flora of Southeast Washington and Adjacent Idaho (1941) and Flora of the Northwest Coast (1915).

Piper’s career as a USDA researcher began in 1903 and continued to his death in 1926. His primary work consisted of the location, domestication or development and introduction of grasses. His most notable success during these years involved his discovery of Sudan grass, a plant he found in Africa and introduced to North America as a forage plant.

As a plant scientist Piper often attempted to take positions which placed him simultaneously in several of the various schools of thought which characterized the bitterly divided field of botany of his day. Throughout his career he consistently emphasized attention to economic and agricultural plants, much to the criticism of the purists of the profession. He also attempted to combine various positions in the nomenclature dispute: while arguing for the necessity of historical research to establish the validity of original names, his Flora adhered to the names proposed by the International Rule school. He himself undertook a great deal of the historical research inspired by the American Rule school. He was greatly involved in the re-discovery of Meriwether Lewis’ lost herbarium and encouraged the publications of journals of earlier plant explorers of the Northwest, such as Archibald Menzies and David Douglas. On one occasion, Piper even traveled to England to make a copy of Douglas’ journal, which was not then available in the United States. Piper also took a mixed position of matters of "splitting" and "lumping." While criticized as a "splitter" and "too anxious for new species," he expressed opinions which tended to encourage "lumping."

Poor health began to restrict Piper’s activities in his early 50s and he died at Washington, D. C. in 1926.

Biographical treatments in Piper appear in Albert S. Hitchcock, "Charles Vancouver Piper, 1867-1926, "Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 57 (1928) 275-276 and Irwin F. Lange, "Pioneer Botanists of the Pacific Northwest," Oregon Historical Quarterly, 57 (1957) 120-124.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PAPERS

Those of Charles V. Piper’s papers which are located at Washington State University consist primarily of correspondence and notes relative to taxonomic studies of Northwest flora, and to the history of Northwest botany. Piper’s letterbooks contain considerable correspondence relative to the identification of plants sent to Washington State University by the public.

ARRANGEMENT OF THE PAPERS

Piper’s correspondence is arranged in a chronological sequence. His notes follow the subject files he established, with the exception of his typescript copy of the Journal of David Douglas, an item found among the papers of R. Kent Beattie and relocated with Piper’s papers. An index for this collection is available in Manuscripts Archives and Special Collections. Additional Botanical manuscripts in MASC may be found in the following collections:

Cage 53 Botanical Papers, 1881-1973
Cage 318 Beattie, Rolla Kent Papers, 1899-1956
Cage 316 Cusick, William Conklin Papers, 1906-1924
Cage 315 Suksdorf, Wilhelm Nicolaus Papers, 1867-1935
Cage 319 St. John, Harold Papers, 1912-1957

SERIES LIST

Series - Containers
1. Correspondence 1-4

A. General correspondence
B. Letterbooks of outgoing correspondence

2. Notes and working papers 5

A. Taxonomic notes and determinations
B. Douglas’ Journal

3. Biographic Materials 5

CONTAINER LIST

Box	Folder	Dates	Approx. No. of Items
Series 1: Correspondence
1	1	1888-1891	125
	2	1892-1894	150
	3	1895-1896	200
	4	1897-1898	225
2	5	1899	155
	6	1900-1901	200
	7	1902-1904	175
	8	1905-1911	130
	9	1912-1915	130
3	10	1916	100
	11	1917	90
	12	1918	185
	13	1919	170
	14	1920	120
4	15	1921	130
	16	1922	85
	17	1923	95
	18	1924	65
	19	1925	60
	20	1926	15
	21	n.d.	10
	22	Letterbook, Feb. 1902-Aug. 1902 (380 letters)	1 v.
	23	Letterbook, Sept. 1902-June 1903 (370 letters)	1 v.
Series 2: Notes & Working Papers
5	24	Notes	20
	25	Allocarya	20
	26	Aster	45
	27	Berberis	40
	28	Carex	20
	29	Castilleja	5
	30	Crypthantha	10
	31	Delphinium	10
	32	Erytheronium	25
	33	Fungi	40
	34	Grasses	50
	35	Grindellia	10
	36	Lathyrus	20
	37	A Brief Memoir of the Life of Mr. David Douglas, with Extracts from his Letters.	1 vol; 240 pp.
Series 3: Biographical Materials
	38	Photograph, C.V. Piper ca. 1910	1
	38	New and Noteworthy Plants VII. C.V. Piper. Reprinted from Bulletin of the Torrye Botanical Club, 29: November, 1902.	1
	38	Dr. Charles Vancouver Piper. [Memorial text] Bulletin of the Green Section of the U.S. Golf Association, March 16, 1926. pp 54-57.	1
	38	Botanical Gazette, March, 1882.	1
	38	The Terminology of the Parts of the Grass Spikelet. Reprinted from Science, N.S., pp. 789-790, May 18, 1906.	7 copies