Bell remembered as father of NC Botanical Garden

Anyone who takes a stroll through the North Carolina Botanical Garden this spring has C. Ritchie Bell to thank.

Bell, who died March 6 at the age of 91, became founding director of the botanical garden in 1961, playing a large role in its establishment.

Bell served as director of the garden until 1986, when he passed the role to the current director, Peter White.

“I think of him in the field, leading a field trip, teaching people how to identify wildflowers, trees and shrubs,” White said.

Bell earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in botany from UNC and a Ph.D. in botany from the University of California, Berkeley.

He taught at the University of Illinois before returning to UNC in the 1950s, where he remained until his retirement in 1991, White said.

Bell also co-authored many well-known books, such as “Wild Flowers of North Carolina.”

The book “Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas,” which he co-authored, was a standard reference book for every botanist in the Southeast, said biology professor Patricia Gensel.

“If you go to almost any part of the state, you’ll find someone who knows Ritchie Bell,” she said.

Gensel met Bell after being hired by the University, and remains close friends with his wife, Anne Lindsey.

“He was one of the most entertaining and charismatic people you could run into,” Gensel said, adding that he made the best pickled okra of anyone she knew.

“The most important things to Ritchie were teaching, raising his son David, working on books that helped others and his garden,” Gensel said.

William Kier, chairman of the biology department, said he knew Bell not only as someone who shaped UNC’s botany program but as a neighbor as well. He said he and Bell often lamented together over deer that encroached on their home gardens.

Kier said a memorial gathering will be held for Bell on April 10 at 11 a.m. in the Reeves Auditorium in the N.C. Botanical Garden.

White said Bell was a source of inspiration, advice and enthusiasm.

“He was a well-known figure of an early generation, like Bill Friday,” White said.

“People knew him around campus and people all over know his work.”

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