Peggy-Ann Kessler Duke ’53 didn’t court her husband in the College Woods like many of her contemporaries, but she did unearth a life’s passion there.

A biology major, Peggy chose to study the ferns in the woods as her special studies project and included original illustrations of their fronds, rhizomes and roots in the completed work. She still has those illustrations, along with hundreds of others that she’s drawn for scientific and popular publications and exhibitions.

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“My years at Maryville were wonderfully enhanced by having professor Bonnie Hudson Brown as a teacher and mentor,” Peggy wrote recently. “Through her recommendation, I was accepted into graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – in the botany department – and received a master’s degree in art in 1956. The next four years I illustrated, in part, The Flora of the Carolinas.”

Meeting husband James Duke while in graduate school at Chapel Hill seemed destiny. His extensive research and publishing as an ethnobotanist with the USDA has been greatly enhanced by her pen-and-ink and hand-colored prints. Together, the Dukes have traveled the U.S. and the world, cataloging the flora and fauna of South America, Central America, the Middle East, the Far East, Asia and the Caribbean. Peggy and James have collaborated on several books, including Medicinal Plants of the Bible,The Green Pharmacy and the CRC Handbook of Medicinal Plants.

“These were definitely career highlights,” she said of the illustration projects, “especially after signing some 500 copies of The Green Pharmacy in one day at a trade show in Las Vegas. It went on to sell over one million copies.”

As a member of the International Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, Peggy has exhibited at the Natural History Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the USDA National Arboretum and the National Wildlife Federation.

Peggy has worked in watercolor for more than 30 years and began studying Chinese brush painting with Henry Wo Yue-Kee 15 years ago. Her work has been exhibited in many local and national juried shows with a number of awards to her credit. Her paintings are in private collections from Maine to Hawaii.

Peggy is active in several art organizations, especially the Sumi-e Society of America, which she served as national membership chairman and president of the Society’s National Capital Area Chapter.

Not your average gardener

The Dukes have a large garden at their Maryland residence, where they grow more than 300 different species of medicinal plants and herbs on six acres. Named “the Herbal Vineyard,” the garden is primarily a research and teaching garden for students of alternative medicine. He writes – and she illustrates – a newsletter called “News from the Herbal Village.”