Environmental Echo

Dr. Peter Raven. Photo by Michael Jacob, Missouri Botanical Garden.

Dr. Peter Hamilton Raven, a botanist of global stature who transformed the Missouri Botanical Garden into one of the world’s leading centers for botany and became one of the most influential voices for biodiversity and conservation, passed away on April 25, 2026. He was 89 years old.

For nearly four decades, Dr. Raven served as President and Director of the Garden while also holding the George Engelmann Professorship of Botany at Washington University in St. Louis. When he assumed leadership of the Garden in 1971 at age 35, the institution was modest in scope. By the time he retired in 2010, he had transformed the organization into a global hub for research, education, horticultural display, and sustainability, with far-reaching scientific partnerships and conservation programs.

Dr. Raven’s vast and varied list of accomplishments at the Garden includes opening the Japanese Garden (Seiwa-en), the Margaret Grigg Nanjing Friendship Garden, the William T. Kemper Center for Home Gardening, and the Doris I. Schnuck Children’s Garden. He tripled the size of the Garden’s Herbarium, helping make it one of the largest botanical collections in the world, and greatly expanded its library, now among the world’s most comprehensive botanical libraries and since named in his honor. Dr. Raven’s many global scientific contributions in this role include founding the Garden’s William L. Brown Center and the Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development, as well as launching numerous research projects, conservation programs, and partnerships across North America and in China, Madagascar, Peru, Bolivia, and Tanzania. The 150-person staff at the start of his tenure, which included just a handful of scientists, had grown to nearly 500, including close to 50 PhD-level research scientists undertaking pioneering work on the St. Louis campus and around the world.

“Peter Raven didn’t simply lead the Garden; he redefined what it could be,” said June McAllister Fowler, chair of the Garden’s Board of Trustees. “His vision elevated it to a world-class institution while deepening its roots in St. Louis. He believed the Garden should serve its community as much as the scientific world, and that legacy is visible across our city today.”

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The Missouri Department of Natural Resources is now accepting entries for its 2026 MoDNR Photo Contest. The department will feature winning entries on its website, social media platforms and at various public events. The deadline to submit photos is Sept. 1.

Entries can include images from anywhere in Missouri. Contestants can submit entries in the following categories:

Natural Resources: Photographs of Missouri’s air, landscapes and waterways
Unique Places: Photographs taken within one of Missouri’s state parks and historic sites. (For a list of all parks and sites, visit mostateparks.com.)
People Enjoying Missouri’s Outdoors: Photographs of people having fun and exploring Missouri’s great outdoors.

Department judges will choose first, second, third and honorable mention winners for each category. For more information or to submit photos, visit dnr.mo.gov/photo-contest. Please send questions about the photo contest to socialmedia@dnr.mo.gov.

Earth Day 2026 – CLICK HERE for more information.

The Missouri Invasive Plant Council (MoIP), in partnership with the Missouri Community Forestry Council, Magnificent Missouri, Forest ReLeaf of Missouri, Forrest Keeling Nursery, the Missouri Prairie Foundation, and the Missouri Department of Conservation, will host a Callery pear “buyback” program at 23 locations around the state on April 21. On this date, citizens who register with a photo of a cut down Callery pear tree from their property will receive a free native tree.

“As we prepare for spring, many Callery pear trees—also known as Bradford pears—will soon begin to bloom,” said Carol Davit, chair of the Missouri Invasive Plant Council. “The profuse white blossoms of this highly invasive tree make their alarming spread especially apparent in spring, along roadsides, in fields, parks, and on private property.”

Registration for the Callery Pear Buyback event is open from March 16 through April 16. To register, participants choose a native tree and submit a photo of the cut-down Callery pear tree. One free, non-invasive, native tree will be given to registered participants at the selected location on the day of the event, April 21, from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.

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In 2021, Shrewsbury writer Diane Key-Biggs and Kirkwood illustrator Shelley Dietrichs published “A Friend to All – Charlie Hoessle.”

By Don Corrigan

Anyone baking a cake for Charlie Hoessle needs to be ready with 95 candles. They also need to know that the St. Louis Zoo legend will be more interested in talking about snakes, than cakes, on his March 20 birthday.

“Snakes really launched my career,” said Hoessle. “When I was a kid, I read every snake book I could put my hands on. My mother said if I spent as much time reading my school textbooks, as my snake books, I might amount to something.”

Hoessle did amount to something. Marlin Perkins, former Saint Louis Zoo director, recognized something special in Hoessle, and hired him as zoo reptile keeper in 1963. Hoessle rose through the ranks to become director himself from 1982 to 2000.

“Actually, it was Perkins’ wife who brought me to the attention of Marlin,” explained Hoessle.“I had a pet shop in Affton where I sold snakes. She came to my talk on reptiles at the old science center at Oak Knoll.

“I had a lot of fun and I told the ladies they could pet my boa constrictor at the door at the end of my talk,” recalled Hoessle. “But one lady in the front row was making me nervous taking lots of notes. She turned out to be Perkins’ wife and she told him to hire me.”

That’s how Hoessle got started at the Zoo, but it wasn’t easy to let go of his popular pet shop. He did well with birds and tropical fish, but things really took off when he started selling garter snakes and boa constrictors.

“Baby boa constrictors are actually pretty gentle and interesting,” said Hoessle. “I even had some strippers from the East Side who came to the pet store and wanted them for their acts. I had to order them special because the ladies wanted them to be six to eight feet.”

Hoessle has more reptile stories than you could shake a snake at. When he was in the Army at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, he collected the five species of rattlesnakes in the area, and kept them in an outdoor shed.

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