Dennis Ring

摘要

I met Dennis Ring in the late 1970s when we were both graduate students at Texas A&M University. Dennis was working on casebearer (Acrobasis nuxvorella) and had seen evidence of infestation in nuts on trees of the Eli Whiteley memorial planting at Texas A&M University. I knew that planting was a hybrid swarm that included water hickory (Carya aquatica), pecan, and their interspecific hybrid {Carya X lecontei). Dennis was curious about distinguishing the hybrids from the two parents. I could do that becauseI had studied herbarium vouchers of hickories confirmed by experts like Dr. Donald E. Stone (Botanist, Duke University). Casebearer was not known to infest water hickory, and Dennis thought he had seen nut infestations on C. aquatica. If infestations were on the hybrid, interpretations changed. Dennis was already famous in my mind because of the work he and Marvin Harris had done on pecan weevil and the casebearer emergence model.