The Sorrowful Botanist: Dr. J Dan Pittillo (1938-2025)
Dan Pattillo (left) and Adam Bigelow shared a deep love for the natural world.
Donated photo
On Monday, Aug. 11, J. Dan Pittillo died. The world has lost an amazing person, a gifted and kind educator, a dedicated father and husband, and one of the top botanists in the Southern Appalachian Mountains and the Southeastern United States.
Dan retired many years ago as a professor of biology and botany at Western Carolina University, in Cullowhee. During his tenure at WCU, he taught and helped guide so many people while sharing his love and understanding of plants and the science of botany.
While I was not one in one of his WCU classes, I have learned so much from Dan; he and his work have positively influenced my life and broadened my plant knowledge in many ways. There is hardly anywhere that I go in the region that, botanically speaking, does not have Dan Pittillo’s hand in its work.
Over 40 years ago, Dan helped found the Cullowhee Native Plant Conference, which is one of my main inspirations and teachers. He helped in the development and promotion of the Corneille Bryan Native Plant Garden, a hidden gem at Lake Junaluska. He was a founding member of the Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy and remained active on its board up until his death.
Dan was a key part of highlighting and protecting Panthertown Valley, a special and biologically diverse area of Jackson County, that is among my favorite places to hike and botanize in all the mountains. He is one of the heroes of conservation in this region. There is not a natural area or botanical garden in WNC that Dan hasn’t helped or been involved in.
Speaking of gardens, the land around his modest home near Cullowhee has been planted and tended for over 40 years and is now protected through the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust as the Pittillo Family Nature Preserve, featuring one of the most impressive collections of Native Plants in the region, with over 115 species of plants documented, all native to the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
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There is a short walking loop through Jean Pittillo’s Nodding Trillium Garden at his home that I visit a couple of times a week during the springtime. The beautiful flowers bloom in a progression that starts with skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) in February and shines through the peak of spring wildflower season all the way into early summer and the blooming of Dan’s beloved yellowwood tree (Cladrastis kentuckea).
Ever the educator, one of the last times that I got to see Dan, after quizzing me about every plant we saw and after carefully walking that beautiful garden loop one last time together, he taught me that the genus name Cladrastis meant brittle wood. He then showed me how twigs of yellowwood would snap easily when bent. Brittle, indeed.
Dan was certainly not brittle, however. He was notorious for being difficult to keep up with while walking in the woods looking at plants. Even late in his life, he could traverse up a slope quicker than most of his students and peers, but you would want to keep up with him, both to learn from his giant wealth of botanical knowledge and because he was a quiet and diminutive speaker.
I thank Dan for his kindness and generosity. I am grateful for his advocacy and activism to highlight and protect these beautiful and diverse Southern Appalachian Mountains. I thank him for planting and tending his beautiful and special wildflower garden, and for having the foresight to see that his land and efforts are protected forever.
I thank Dan for his friendship, mentorship and for being the special educator that he was. He will remain an inspiration and hero for me and for many others in the world of botany, ecology and conservation. And I promise to get “up to speed” on my grass and sedge identification skills as he tasked me with this past spring.
(The Joyful Botanist leads weekly wildflower walks most Fridays and offers consultations and private group tours through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
