photo by: Clyde Imada, BISH
Derral Raymon Herbst, Pacific botanist
(1934–2023)
Derral Herbst was a prominent figure in Hawaiian and Pacific botanical science from 1971 until his retirement. Derral was born in Faith, South Dakota, on October 13, 1934 and received his Bachelor’s degree from Black Hills State University in South Dakota. Following a period of high school teaching in Montana, South Dakota, and Guam in 1964 he enrolled in the University of Hawaii, Mānoa, to begin doctoral studies. He was awarded the PhD in 1971 for a dissertation entitled “The ontogeny of the disjunct foliar veins in Euphorbia forbesii Sherff.” Although Derral published widely on floristics, plant taxonomy, and ecology, at heart he was always aplant anatomist.
Following completion of his PhD, Derral was the first botanist hired in 1971 at the nascent Pacific Tropical Botanical Garden (now the National Tropical Botanical Garden) and he then worked in turn for the University of Hawaiʻi, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS, where he was the Endangered Species Botanist), and finally at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers(USACE), Honolulu office. For much of his working career he maintained a close working relationship with the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, where he was a Research Associate in Botany. Following retirement, Derral stopped all botanical work and took up research on genealogy, a pastime he greatly enjoyed. He loved to tell stories about his grand-aunt, Mattie Goff Newcombe, a famous rodeo trick rider and, later, cattle ranch owner; his genealogical explorations found many interesting details about his family history in the Dakotas.
During Derral’s working career he was able to travel extensively throughout the Hawaiian Islands, including the remote and seldom visited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, as well as many islands and atolls of Micronesia and parts of Polynesia. Derral was an old-school plant collector who documented his field work with carefully prepared voucher specimens, typically with some duplicates for distribution. The principal set was deposited at BISH with duplicates widely distributed in A, GH, HAW, L, PTBG, US and others. Derral’s early botanical collections formed the foundation of the PTBG herbarium. His field collecting books are deposited in BISH and will be digitized in time (B. Kennedy, pers. comm., 2023). To date we have been able to verify Derral’s collection numbers ran at least as high as 9,881.
Although Derral was deeply committed to plant conservation and devoted his career to working toward the preservation and protection of rare species in the Hawaiian flora, his position with the federal agency responsible for listing endangered species put him directly on the firing line for criticism from organizations and individuals who felt the USFWS was dragging its feet on listing efforts. Throughout the 1990s, as pressure and criticism of the slow pace for new endangered species listing grew, Derral took this personally; he often remarked to me, sadly, that the lawyers were running the show with the listing process, instead of the biologists. When several conservation groups filed a lawsuit against the USFWS to try and force them to speed up listing efforts, Derral took it very hard. Ultimately, the stress from this tense, acrimonious situation led him to make a transfer to the USACE, where he was still available to serve as a resource to aid conservation efforts, but was no longer directly in the line of fire. He remained with the Army Corps of Engineers until his retirement.
Derral believed deeply in public service: he often said that scientists who were able to conduct research funded by governments, agencies, or grants had an ethical obligation and responsibility to share the knowledge they gained with the community they served. Derral lived this ideal to the fullest and was extraordinarily generous with his time and knowledge, sharing his mana‘o to educate and inform anyone who asked for his help. His knowledge of Hawaiian, Micronesian, and Polynesian flora was encyclopedic and also extremely detailed. Derral was an active member of the Hawaiian Botanical Society for many years, serving as Vice President in 1974, President in 1975, a Director in 1976, and as Treasurer from 1982–1989. Among his many public service roles he very much looked forward to volunteering each year as a lei plant identifier for the annual Honolulu Lei Day competition on May 1. He also served pro bono for several years on a committee that crafted an updated Mission Statement and created the first Living Collections Policy for the Honolulu Botanical Gardens, the oldest and most extensive tropical plant collection in the Islands.
Derral published more than one hundred peer reviewed scientific articles and technical reports as well as several books, including the Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawaii (with W.L. Wagner and S.H. Sohmer, 1990, revised 1999); A Tropical Garden Flora (with G. Staples, 2005); and Hawaiian Plant Life: Vegetation and Flora (with R. J. Gustafson and P. W. Rundel, 2014). The Manual was recognized by IAPT with the Engler Medal in Silver in 1990 and A Tropical Garden Flora was awarded the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries Annual Literature Award in 2007. Never a boastful person, Derral was quietly and deeply proud of these recognitions. It was always amusing to see Derral approach an award ceremony, or almost any social occasion really: he was a self-professed curmudgeon, a role he played quite well. It took a fair amount of wheedling and persuasion to convince him to go to any event where there were going to be people present. But then when he got there, Derral came out of his shell and became animated and talkative; afterwards he glowed for days! Quite an amusing transformation to see the curmudgeon had a social butterfly hidden inside.
At least six plants (species or infraspecific taxa) are named in honor of Derral R. Herbst and he authored or co-authored eight plant species names.
In his later years, through 2019, Derral gifted more than 1,700 botanical books and bound journals to the Herbarium Pacificum (BISH) where they are kept as a reference resource for staff and visitors. Some of his manuscripts and project-related files are also kept in BISH. Additional botanical books that formed part of his estate at the time of his death will be donated to the Black Hills State University in South Dakota.
For those who wish to read personal reminiscences of Derral, many of them citing instances of his kindness and generosity in sharing with others, a memorial site has been set up: https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/0VeqekBA where friends and colleagues shared photos and stories about him and may continue to do so.
Derral R. Herbst died in his sleep on March 6, 2023, aged 88, in Honolulu, Hawaii, after a period of declining health. He was buried April 1 in the cemetery at White Owl, South Dakota. His life partner, Stanley Yamashita, had predeceased him.
Ua pau ka lei aloha a Derral, ua hoʻomaka ʻia ā ua pau pono nō ia.
Biography submitted by George Staples