Remembering Fred Case Jr. and the Junior Chapter of the Michigan Wildflower Association

August 23, 1942

On this day, the Michigan Botanical Club summer meeting was held at the University of Michigan Biological Station at Douglas Lake. 

It was a three-day conference with the Sullivant Moss Society, named in honor of William Starling Sullivant, mentioned earlier in today’s episode. Happy coincidence.

During the conference, there were daily field trips and evening discussions about mosses, lichens, and liver warts.

The focus on mosses was something new to the members of the Wildflower Association who were in attendance.

The records show they were amazed and delighted at having found a new world of nature.

It was reported that one of their members, Fred Case, Jr, had been stricken with polio and couldn’t attend the meeting.

So, the members put together a dish garden containing a seedling pitcher plant, a one-inch tall cedar, 25 or 30 mosses, and other woodland plants.

Fred was just 15 years old and had already written a treaty called Orchids of the Western Great Lakes Region, which he had dedicated to the botanist Marjorie T. Bingham, his teacher and friend.

Fred also organized the first Junior Chapter of the Michigan Wildflower Association in Saginaw.

The group was essentially Fred's Boy Scout Troop, and they planted a wildflower sanctuary in his dad’s place.

When World War II broke out, all the group members entered the armed services ... except for Fred - due to his polio diagnosis.

When the men returned from the war, they continued their lives, and the Junior Chapter of the Saginaw Wildflower Association closed.