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JOHN NATHANIEL COUCH 39 JOHN NATHANIEL COUCH October 12, 1896-December 16, 1986 BY PAUL J. SZANISZLO "HAVE YOU SEEN our latest book?" The question came from John Couch, my graduate professor and mentor from some twenty years earlier. This man was ninety years old, and he was signing and presenting me with a publication that was hot off the press! As we sat in his comfortable living room that pleasant afternoon in Chapel Hill, we discussed the book and his thoughts for the future. He asked about my work and students, and he questioned my daughter, who was entering the University of North Carolina as a freshman, to ascertain whether or not her father had given her an ample foundation in mycology! I was amazed at his sharpness and his continuing interest, and I thought as he talked how extensive this man's influence has been in his lifetime. He taught his first students in 1919, and here he was, nearly seventy years later, ready to search anew for a spark of interest in a college freshman. Indeed, his time and accomplishments span an even greater distance. From his birthplace in Prince Edward County, Virginia, in the fall of 1896 to his final resting place in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery in the closing days of 1986, John Nathaniel Couch's life journey took him across the southern United States, through a Europe at war, to Long Island
JOHN NATHANIEL COUCH 40 and a young woman destined to share his life, to the steamy forests of the Caribbean and the cooler American Midwest, and back to his beloved South. In each of these destinations, another facet of John N. Couchâthe gentle man, the curious scientist, the diligent teacherâwould develop. A curiosity was sparked, and he followed it. The trail that he blazed during that life's journey leaves a plethora of knowledge about fungi from which the scientific community will continue to benefit and which Couch's students, and theirs, will carry through research and teaching into the next century. By then, the journey and influence of John Couch will have touched at least three centuries. John Couch contributed to a broad spectrum of professional activities during his long and distinguished career: research, teaching, administration, and service to professional organizations. He believed that one area related to the other and that activities in one benefited all. However, he is probably best known for his research in mycology through his work with numerous diverse fungi. His earliest major contribution was born out of his Ph.D. research in which he described for the first time the existence of physiologically distinct and separate male and female strains in an oomycete. In subsequent major research, Couch described, with his mentor W. C. Coker, the Gasteromycetes of the eastern United States and Canada. He then moved on to do extensive work with Septobasidium, a large genus of fungi which previously were thought harmless to the trees on which they grew and, in fact, beneficial because members destroyed infestations of scale insects on the trees. Couch found quite the opposite, that not only did Septobasidium and the scale insects have a mutually reliant relationship, but that together they destroyed the host tree. His treatise on Septobasidium, published in 1938, may remain to this day the most definitive
JOHN NATHANIEL COUCH 41 contribution related to these fungi and their symbiosis and pathogenesis. All types of fungi were of interest to John Couch, but particularly his interest in the aquatic fungi led to his inadvertent discovery of a new group of bacteria. He eventually established this group as a family, the Actinoplanaceae, which he included in the bacterial order Actinomycetales. This pioneering work at first appeared to establish a link between the ''higher bacteria" and the "lower fungi," but Couch remained skeptical. Later research conducted in his laboratory proved that, although morphological similarities exist between Actinoplanaceae and some fungi, the similarities are superficial and only reflect the parallel evolutionary trends that created the sporangial bacteria and fungi. In his later years, John's major research emphasis involved the potential role that fungi of the genus Coelomomyces might serve in biologically controlling mosquitoes by parasitizing and killing their larvae. The possibility of controlling malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases with fungi held exciting prospects for a devoted bench scientist. His nearly fifty-year fascination with these fungi, commencing with studies in the 1940s and his early recognition of their blastocladiaceous affinities, culminated in 1985 with his last major research contribution, the publication of the edited volume with Charles E. Bland, The Genus Coelomomyces. Although deeply involved in research, Couch also found time to be a conscientious teacher and to serve his university, state, and nation. He first taught general biology at the secondary level and then botany and mycology at the university level for more than forty-five years. During this time he was recognized with numerous awards for his teaching abilities and dedication to students. Forty students received graduate degrees under his tutelage. During a major portion of this same time, Couch also served the University of
