Holly Forbes
A Distinguished Career
By Dr. Clytia Montllor Curley
Holly Forbes should write a book. After a 36+ year career as a curator at the University of California Botanical Garden she has been both witness and contributor to significant history in the plant world – here at the Garden and beyond. It is hard to overstate the impact she has had through the various channels her work has taken: from documentation and management of the UCBG collection to conservation projects; and from field work and seed banking to involvement with organizations such as the American Public Gardens Association (APGA), the Center for Plant Conservation, and the California Native Plant Society (CNPS). Holly’s roots are very deep in this world; her reminiscences sound like a Who’s Who of names from California native plant, public garden, research and conservation circles. It would be a very interesting book, indeed.
Persistence in the Face of Change
Starting as curatorial assistant to Jim Affolter in 1988, Holly later took over the job of Curator from Robert Ornduff in the mid 1990s. Ornduff, a former Director of the Garden and a renowned field botanist and professor of botany, was an expert on California (and other Mediterranean) flora; he left some really big shoes for Holly to fill and fill them she has.
Holly came to the Garden during a period of change: the life sciences were being completely reorganized on campus, and the Garden – then part of the Botany Department – was caught up in the upheaval. Former Director of Collections Chris Carmichael, who came on board at the tail end of that difficult period of transition in 2000, says “Holly was the one constant” as a series of part-time directors, who had other campus priorities, came and went. Holly credits the ensuing long and dedicated tenure of former Garden Director Paul Licht, as a sea-change for the Garden. “That was the biggest change – to have someone working full-time and taking the reins of building staff morale and relationships. Paul knew people in the community and worked with our development team to build the Advisory Board…and he raised tons of money.”
According to colleagues, Holly was the “face of the Garden” for years, helping to boost its professional and public stature through her involvement with organizations such as the APGA. “Everybody knew her,” says Carmichael, who worked with Holly for 19 years. He “can’t say enough about the importance of the constancy of her presence and her clarity about the Garden’s vision.” In his view, “that’s why the Garden is what it is – because of her persistence.” Licht agrees that the “national and international reputation of her work” has in turn bolstered the reputation of the Garden.
Dedication to the Garden’s Mission
With the support of Directors of Collections and Garden Directors, Holly has been “left to largely decide how I spend my time.” Her job description is varied and complex, and she contributes, often behind the scenes, to all three prongs of the UC Botanical Garden’s mission: Research, Conservation and Education. She describes her primary role – perhaps 80 percent – as overseeing documentation of the collection (now weighing in at over 15,000 accessions of more than 10,000 taxa) that, among other things, supports research projects on locally, nationally, and internationally. Says Paul Licht, “The quality of the collection underlies the Garden’s mission to foster plant research, but the actual use of the collection has been dependent on Holly’s oversight.”
Garden Curator Holly Forbes building protective cages around endangered Mt. Diablo buckwheat plants
The other important priority – on which Holly has spent most of the rest of her time – is conservation of endangered plants worldwide; there are over 1,200 rare and endangered species throughout the collections. More locally, Holly is the heart of the Garden’s conservation program on native plants, according to Licht. She has been a dedicated partner, in collaboration with UCBG staff, volunteers and local agencies, of conservation efforts to save many California endemics – such as the Mt. Diablo buckwheat (Eriogonum truncatum) – and to seedbank many more rare and threatened species. Holly has been deeply involved in the effort to save the large-flowered fiddleneck (Amsinckia grandiflora); the project was started by Robert Ornduff in the 1960s and is a favorite of Holly’s because it “has so far been fairly successful [which is] rare at any garden.” Obviously, success can take a very long time and setbacks occur, but Holly and collaborators have persevered. These decades-long efforts involve many partners in the field and in the nursery – to protect extant plants, collect seeds, create seedbanks, sow seeds, and reintroduce plants to native habitats. Holly received the Center for Plant Conservation Star Award in 2011 in recognition of her work on behalf of rare native plants. That this prong of the Garden’s mission is important to Holly, and to the Garden more generally, is evidenced by the fact that “we’ve rewritten the job description for my successor to up the percentage in conservation.”
Holly has also been involved in the education piece of the Garden’s mission, working with staff, Advisory Board Members and docents, among others. Holly describes one example of this work: “I’ve done a lot of interpretive sign development. For the panels that you see around the Garden, we had help from the docent committee drafting the initial information. And then [former Director of Collections] Chris Carmichael and I wrote it up.” Her work also provides quality teaching material for undergraduate and graduate students, a role she describes as “really important.”
Holly’s deep knowledge of the collection has made her the perfect partner for a unique project, the creation of the UCBG Florilegium: a collection of botanical illustrations featuring plants growing in the Garden. This project was conceived by renowned botanical illustrator and Garden Advisory Board member Catherine Watters. Along with Carmichael, Holly helped develop the list of iconic plants from the collection for inclusion in the project, and she continues to facilitate the assignment of plants to the participating artists.
An Outstanding Work Ethic
Director Emeritus Paul Licht, who overlapped with Holly at the Garden for 13 years, recently commented that if you want to have something done correctly and in a timely manner, ask Holly. In fact, there is remarkable consistency among her colleagues about the value of Holly’s work and the strength of her work ethic. “I’d say one of Holly’s strongest points, professionally and personally, is if she decides to do something, it gets done,” says Bart O’Brien, Director of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, with whom she goes “way back.”
UCBG Curator Holly Forbes presenting at the Mary Bowerman Science and Research 2022 Colloquium. Her presentation focused on the Garden’s Eriogonum truncatum conservation work, and partnership with the Mt. Diablo Buckwheat Working Group.
Unassuming but forthright, Holly describes herself with characteristic understatement: “I think I have pretty good integrity, and a strong set of values. I want to be honest.” Colleagues agree that she holds her own work to strict standards. Says, Paul Licht: “The very essence of the Garden’s collection of wild plants of known origin has…been dependent on Holly’s curation and attention to detail.” And Bart O’Brien adds: “She is a stickler for policy… and adheres to that. She does not make exceptions.”
In talking about curation work, in particular, Holly’s mantra appears to be “highest standards” followed closely by “you know, University of California,” as if they were synonymous. Holly’s respect for the institution is manifest in everything she does. Former Director of Collections Carmichael “can’t say enough” about the importance of the “constancy of her presence and her clarity about the Garden’s vision.” In his view, “that’s why the Garden is what it is – because of her persistence.”
A communicator by profession and inclination, Holly has been involved in the production of many publications, including the Garden Newsletter, which she edited for years, and her vast knowledge of the Garden’s history has made her an invaluable resource for others. Holly’s long career has seen huge changes in the use of computers, of course, including for our most basic communications. Perhaps not surprisingly, she is not a fan of email, which in her view has fundamentally changed the way we do business. From a letter every week or so, to a daily “firehose” of emails, it has become hard for all of us to keep up, she laments. “I have a friend who, even decades ago, said: ‘If you didn’t actually talk to me, you may not have communicated with me.’ I counsel a lot of our staff to actually telephone people.”
As the Garden Director who worked with her longest, Paul Licht sums up his impressions of Holly and her importance to the Garden this way: “If Holly sounds like a superwoman, it’s because she is. It’s hard to think of the Garden without Holly.”
Holly Then and Now
Looking back, that Holly would spend her life among plants was practically a given. Growing up a 4th generation Californian, she traveled the state on her family vacations and came to love the outdoors. Later, the environmental biology program she joined as an undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara schooled her broadly in natural history; it was a “terrific experience.” A major influence during her UCSB college career was the ‘Plants of California’ class taught by J. Robert Haller; field trips to the desert, the Sierra, coastal mountains, and the White Mountains made an early and strong impression on Holly. (She laughs, remembering Haller’s 6-projector slide show of his photos of California flora and landscapes, set to rock music, with which he started each semester. But we’ll wager it was the plants, not the show, that hooked her.)
Holly’s first formative professional experiences included working at herbaria at UC Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. Back then, she learned to “recognize [plants] in two dimensions, but not three” she admits with a laugh. Thirty-odd years later, she has most certainly mastered that third dimension – and arguably a fourth.
After almost half a lifetime doing this work, what is next for Holly? Though she has traveled to several botanic gardens through (and adjacent to) work, and had some adventures that took her far from home (Chile, Panama, South Africa), she would like to travel more. And she will spend more time with her mother, who is 90. Happily for the Garden, she would like to stay involved as a volunteer, with “respect for staff and their needs” as guide to this new phase of her work.
Now someone else will have some very big shoes to fill.
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Top Image: Large-flowered fiddleneck (Amsinckia grandiflora) had a phenomenally successful year in 2023 at three introduction sites.