RIP: Ecologist Hugh Iltis dies at 91

Hugh Iltis, UW botanist and outspoken environmentalist, dies at 91

Hugh Iltis, an environmentalist and longtime UW-Madison botany professor known for research on wild tomatoes, corn evolution and spider flowers, died in Madison this week.

He died Monday, at age 91, from complications of vascular disease, said his son Michael Iltis, of Madison.

Iltis worked in UW-Madison’s botany department from 1955 to 1993, including as director of the university's herbarium. He did much of his research in Mexico and the tropics, helping to identify rare plants, establish land preserves and encourage the study of science in places with few economic resources.

He brought many students from Mexico to Madison, sometimes at his own expense, and collected enough science books to fill two semitrailers in a donation to the University of Guadalajara.

“He never wavered from his intense commitment to environmental and social issues,” said Don Waller, a UW-Madison botany professor who worked closely with Iltis. “He was a conscience for all of us.”

David Iltis, who lives in Salt Lake City, said his father "cared deeply about the Earth.”

On a New Year’s card Iltis sent to family and friends in 1976, he sketched a type of corn plant from Mexico, saying it was “extinct in the wild.”

That led a Mexican scientist to dispatch students into the mountains to look for the plant, Michael Iltis said. One of the students found the plant, along with a new one, called Zea diploperennis, which is valued for its resistance to certain viruses.

Spurred by the discoveries, Iltis helped set up the Sierra de Manantlan Biosphere Reserve in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

In 1960, he was a co-founder of the Wisconsin chapter of the Nature Conservancy. A decade later, he helped enact Hawaii’s Natural Areas Law.

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