On December 24, 2025, one of the original members of KNPS, Richard L. Cassell, died at his home in Louisville.

Remembrances of Richard Cassell
by Barry Howard

Richard was a longtime friend, outstanding naturalist and great American. I first met Richard in the spring of 1979 shortly after becoming the park naturalist at Pine Mountain State Resort Park. We spent a lot of time together throughout much of the 1980s, both in the field and with various endeavors associated with the Kentucky Society of Natural History (KSNH) in which we were both heavily involved. These were days before the Kentucky Native Plant Society (KNPS) had been formed and thus “the Society” as we used to call KSNH, attracted amateur botanists as well as other naturalists interested in all aspects of Kentucky natural history. Some of my early memories include Richard showing up at the park with a rough, hand-drawn map to a rare plant location in northeast Tennessee. After some searching and poking around we found it. Clumps of large, gorgeous orchids, Cypripedium reginae (showy ladies-slipper) A similar experience occurred when Richard arrived with notes to a Cypripedium kentuckiense site near Corbin. (I believe the former site is now protected by The Nature Conservancy, while the latter is gone.)

By Dwayne Estes

We have lost one of the most gifted botanists of the past 100 years of the southeastern U.S.

I knew of Max many years before I met him. I heard of him from other professional botanists while I was just a graduate student. Some painted a picture of Max as a reclusive, unkempt, disheveled botanist who had been down-and-out for a long time and who had given up his large private collection of 17,000 plant specimens. I had seen his unpublished PhD dissertation which was well over 1,000 pages and multiple volumes and had always admired his work long before I met Max and became his friend.

But the Max I first met in July 2009 was hands-down one of the most brilliant and gifted botanists I’ve ever had the privilege to know. In spite of the very real challenges he faced, I was truly a fan of Max and I loved him, although I’m sad to say, I wasn’t there for him. Max, to those who know him, was a complicated man. But I wanted to share a few select stories from some of my remembrances of him.

Robert “Bob” Dunlap
Feb. 5, 1955 – Oct. 13, 2023

On Friday, October 13, 2023, our friend Robert “Bob” Dunlap died, a terrible loss to the Kentucky botanical community. Bob loved nature and his love for the natural world was evident in how he spent his time. Bob liked to say of himself that he was “an amateur naturalist living near Paducah who owns every Peterson Field Guide that was ever published”.

In 2005, Bob was awarded the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission Volunteer Steward of the Year. He was a longtime member of the Kentucky Native Plant Society. He wrote several articles on native plants that were published in scientific journals and the KNPS Lady Slipper newsletter (see a list of his Lady Slipper articles at the end of this memorial). Bob was a wonderful nature photographer and you can see some of his photographs at his iNaturalist Observations page. Bob was also a certified Master Naturalist. He loved to share his knowledge by giving presentations on native plants and leading nature walks in the area. He was a self-taught botanist who found new locations for rare plants and assisted in plant surveys (with state nature preserves botanists beginning over 20 years ago). Recently he was researching management strategies for a rare lily species, re-visiting the populations to determine whether light, competition or other factors are causing decline, to determine the best long term conservation strategy.