The Plant Press

Keeping an Eye Open for Plant Exudates and Amber

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 2

Jorge Santiago-Blay, Department of Paleobiology

Left panel: Resins from Pinus coulteri D. Don (Pinaceae,). Central panel: Latexes from Euphorbia tirrucali L. (Euphorbiaceae). Right panel: Gums from Prunus sp. (Rosaceae). Images by Roy (Chip) Clark.

Several collaborators, including Joseph B. Lambert (Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois), and I have been steadily pursuing the study of plant exudates (e.g. resins, gums, kinos) and ambers (fossilized plant resins) worldwide for several decades. Through their chemistry as well as biological inclusions, in the case of amber, these materials help us understand our past. For example, amber materials we have studied from Chiapas, Mexico, contain inclusions, such as the base of a barnacle and carbonates strongly suggesting a tropical coastal environment million of years ago.

If the exudate happens to be a resin, the nuclear magnetic resonance NMR spectroscopy profile can help us determine the botanical provenance, such as the plant family and sometimes the genus. For instance, using the carbon-13 isotope, the resinous exudates of conifers can be placed into their correct family (e.g. Pinaceae, Cupressaceae, etc.). Additionally, the same resinous exudates of pines and their allies can be further correctly identified to genera if proton NMR is performed.

Some key discoveries resulting from those efforts have included the establishment of a typology of ambers of the world as well as a classification of modern plant exudates of the world. Although exudates have distinct physical properties, looks can be deceiving. An exudate collected from Pinus coulteri D. Don (Pinaceae) is a resin and it is the most commonly collected exudate in conifers. Milky exudates, often called latexes, are also resins, as in the materials oozed by Euphorbia tirrucali L. (Euphorbiaceae). Exudates from cherry trees, like those that ornate our nation’s capital, are gums, as in the case of Prunus sp. (Rosaceae).

Exudates are ubiquitous in the plant world. If any reader sees materials that look like plant exudates, I will appreciate a sample (100 mg or the approximate volume of an eraser on a pencil) or knowing about who to contact to collect such materials.

Notes from the Plant Mounting Room

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 2

By Melinda Peters

Kermadecia sp. (US 3653808 )

The plant mounting room at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History is buzzing with productivity. It has been a pleasure getting to know the dedicated volunteers, contractors, and staff plant mounters who help prepare the specimens for our research programs. These are treasures of the US collection. We are working on current exchange material for curators while also incorporating specimens from the backlog. The plant mounters have unique backgrounds and are a delightful group to work with. I am also happy to report that two new volunteers, Joan Carpenter and Traute Bushley, have joined the mounting crew, are learning the protocol, and are contributing to this wonderful group. For the first three months of 2013, we have mounted 3,362 specimens for the collection.

I am working on incorporating “learning moments” for the volunteers who are interested in botany and encourage curators and visitors to stop by the mounting room to share any plant knowledge or stories. Many of these volunteers have been coming to work on this project for years and it just shows that they enjoy contributing to our nation’s collection and find it a rewarding experience.

Learn about three noteworthy newly mounted acquisitions below the fold...

Connecting Content at the US National Herbarium

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 2

By Sylvia Orli, guest contributor
IT Manager

The latest buzz term in natural history is “connecting content.” We see the term used officially in certain contexts, such as the California Academy of Science’s collaborative initiative to digitize natural history field notes and connect them to natural history collections and Biodiversity Heritage Library publications. But connecting content can also refer to projects which connect concepts in various content areas. In the US National Herbarium, we are using our KE EMu (Electronic Museum) data system to store different types of content, such as specimen data, photo images, mapping coordinates, and genetic voucher details, which connect to each other and to outside content. To date, we have nearly 1.2 million specimen descriptive records, 300,000 geocoded collection localities, and 185,000 specimen images and live plant images in EMu and available online. With these resources, we can illustrate botanical taxonomic and geographic checklists with both live images and plant specimen images, create locality maps of our collections, and connect our botanical research to our herbarium collections through the use of online tools.

The original 1856 botanical illustration of “Echinocactus (Sclerocactus) whipplei” drawn by Paulus Roetter, above, is housed at the National Museum of Natural History, whereas the type specimen is at the herbarium of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Sometimes the merits of connecting our botanical content into one data storage system are shown to us in surprising ways. For example, this year we will be importing our botanical art images into EMu. Alice Tangerini, our botanical illustrator, discovered that the Department of Botany has most of the original botanical illustrations from the Report of the Expedition of the 35^th Parallel, “Explorations and Surveys of a Railroad Route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean,” published in 1856. The exploration was funded by the U.S. Secretary of War and led by A.W. Whipple of the Corps of Topographical Engineers and accompanied by botanists, George Engelmann and J. M. Bigelow of St. Louis. The expedition was part of an initiative of the U.S. government to find a railroad route from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean.

If the Department of Botany had the original report drawings, shouldn’t we also have the specimens from the expedition? The notion of combing the herbarium for specimens from this expedition to match the drawings seemed daunting, as 70 percent of the herbarium specimens are not inventoried. But Botany has also embarked on the Historical Collections project, an effort to document the botanical explorations in the US National Herbarium and digitize the collections associated with the expeditions as part of the Global Plants Initiative (GPI). By querying the name of the expedition in our EMu system, we were able to retrieve 71 records and specimen images for the Whipple expedition and match many of them to the original illustrations. A score for both the Whipple Expedition illustrations and specimens! We could now digitally connect the illustrations to their voucher specimen records.

10 Botanical Treasures Exemplify Herbarium

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 2

By Gary Krupnick

trea·sure (noun \ˈtre-zhər, ˈtrā-\): 2. something of great worth or value
- Merriam-Webster

United States National Herbarium

Just under 5 million specimens are housed in the U.S. National Herbarium, placing it among the world's largest and most important. The plant collections of the Smithsonian Institution began with the acquisition of specimens collected by the United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842). These formed the foundation of a national herbarium.

Among the collections are botanical specimens that hold a unique, and rather subjective, value to those who study them. These are some of the treasures of the U.S. National Herbarium. What makes a specimen a treasure? Is it because if its size, age, or rarity? Or perhaps it is due to the circumstances on where, when, or how it was collected.

The staff of the Department of Botany was asked earlier this year to list what they feel are the herbarium treasures—any specimen that is particularly interesting in some respect or aspect. The herbarium has a variety of impressive collections, from the type specimen collection (nearly 110,000 types, including almost 20,000 holotypes) to the 250,000 fern collections, the largest number of these plants in any institution in the Western Hemisphere. Only individual specimens, however, and not collections were considered for this list.

This list of 10 specimens was chosen based on having scientific, taxonomic, aesthetic, representative, historic, and/or cultural value.

The following people contributed to the treasure stories: Barrett Brooks, Carol Kelloff, Nancy Khan, Ingrid Lin, Greg McKee, Rusty Russell, Mary Sangrey, Warren Wagner and several interns.

The 10 Botanical Treasures of the US National Herbarium:

1. Wilkes collection type specimen: holotype of Argyroxiphium macrocephalum (US 59690).
2. Historical collection: Mexican Boundary Survey. Castilleja lanata (US 93751).
3. Lichens as biological monitors: Flavoparmelia baltimorensis (US Barcode 00536547).
4. New Hawaiian species: Hibiscadelphus woodii (US 3313194)
5. Local extirpation: Zizania aquatica (US 2313301)
6. Deepest photosynthetic marine algae: Undescribed species in the order Corallinales (Rhodophyta)
7. New fern species: Hecistopteris kaieteurensis US 33760054).
8. Champion tree: Taxodium distichum (US w42707)
9. World's largest seed: Lodoicea maldivica (US 3609441)
10. New Compositae species: Fulcaldea stuessyi (US 3580444)

Botanical Treasure #8. Champion tree: Taxodium distichum (US w42707)

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 2

This specimen of Taxodium distichum (US w42707) was once ranked as the fifth oldest living tree in the world and the overall state champion in Florida before it was destroyed by an arsonist on January 16, 2012.

Botanical treasure number 8 once stood as tall as a senator.

Report from the Flora of the Guianas Meeting

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 1

By Vicki Funk

At the Flora of the Guianas Consortium board meeting in Leiden (The Netherlands), 22–23 October 2012, Christian Feuillet represented the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program and the Department of Botany. Vicki Funk interviewed him when he returned.

VF – How did you happen to go to Leiden?

The treatment of Gesneriaceae for the Flora of the Guianas includes Paradrymonia campostyla (Leeuwenb.) Wiehler, from Montagne de Kaw, French Guiana. (Photo by Christian Feuillet)

CF – Neither Pedro Acevedo, our official representative and member of the board, nor Vicki Funk, head of the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program, could attend the meeting. Around the same time I was scheduled to visit the Paris Herbarium (P) where the Boraginaceae collection was back on the shelves after the herbarium renovation. I was asked to extend my trip and add Leiden to my schedule. In the end I decided the easiest thing to do was to drive from Paris to Leiden. Attending the meeting was a natural thing for me to do since I lived in French Guiana for six years, and have done field work in French Guiana for 32 years. I also represented Cayenne once or twice at previous meetings in the 80s or early 90s. Also I have co-authored two of the fascicles and am working on two others.

Exploring the History of Botany

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 1

A 17th-century iatrosofion (notebook of a physician). (Photo by Alain Touwaide)

The history of Botany is characterized by great figures such as the Greek Theophrastus (ca. 370-280 B.C.), the German Hieronymus Bock (1498-1554) and Leonart Fuchs (1501-1566), and the French Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708) and Carl von Linnaeus (1708-1778), to mention just a few. They are not, however, the only ones who had contributed to the development of botany, from the most remote Antiquity to the present day of plant science. Botany as a discipline was made by a multitude of observers, authors, and illustrators whose names have not been preserved. Their works are hidden in notebooks located in libraries worldwide.

In a 19th-century study book at the General State Archives in Athens, a representation of a plant. (Photo by Alain Touwaide)

Alain Touwaide and Emanuela Appetiti explored several libraries in Athens and Thessaloniki in November and December 2012, searching for books and texts authored by Greek botanists whose identities have been lost through the centuries, from Antiquity through Byzantium between the 5^th century BC to 15^th AD, and later on in the Ottoman Empire.

Their exploration of these library collections was extremely productive. They found more than 100 volumes that were unknown to the scientific community. They discovered one manuscript, for example, that had representations of plants that had never been noticed by previous scholars.

Bindings of iatrosofia sometimes contain pieces of paper with notes. (Photo by Alain Touwaide)

Touwaide plans to publish the results of their research in the form of a world census of Greek botanical and medical manuscripts that will substantially expand our knowledge of the history of botany and botanical illustration. His work will provide the resources for a complex reconstruction of the development of botany, illustrating the slow process of accretion generation after generation, with a whole wealth of small, yet relevant observations first transmitted by oral tradition and written down at a certain point in time.

Leafsnap Continues to Attract Users

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 1

In its online news of 25 December 2012, Scientific American editors named Leafsnap as one of the top 10 science apps for smart phones or tablets. Leafsnap identifies a tree species by taking a picture of a leaf. The app was created by Columbia University, University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institution, and funded by a National Science Foundation grant. John Kress and Ida Lopez headed a group of contractors, volunteers and interns at the Botany Department as the library of leaf images was amassed for the project. The app was released for public use in May 2011. Since its release, over a million downloads have occurred.

Leafsnap has a library of 185 common species of trees found in the northeastern United States. Along with high resolution images of tree characters, the app offers a brief description of each species, gives a link to the Encyclopedia of Life species page and simultaneously maps the location where the leaf image is taken. This free app is available for download at the iTunes Store.

Work continues to increase the number of tree species found in Leafsnap.

Florida “Senator” Arrives at U.S. National Herbarium

From Plant Press Vol. 15 no. 4

By Nancy Khan 

Nancy Khan displaying a specimen of The Senator, a 3,500 year-old bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) from Florida. (Photo by Elaine Haug)

While it is not unusual for the Department of Botany to come into possession of interesting or botanically significant specimens, it is rare for them to arrive with a notable history and nearly iconic status. At first glance the nondescript, charred piece of wood which arrived at the herbarium in late Spring seems insignificant, but the 4-inch by 8-inch sample is from a Taxodium distichum (bald cypress), estimated to be about 3,500 years-old, that once ranked as the fifth oldest living tree in the world and overall state champion in Florida.

The tree received its name, The Senator, and notoriety as a Central Florida landmark when Senator Moses O. Overstreet donated 6 acres, including the ancient tree, to Seminole County in 1927 for a public park thereby protecting the giant tree and the surrounding remnant of cypress forest. As a child I recall visiting the park with my family and I was upset to see that the tree made national headlines as it burned to the ground on January 16, 2012. Initial reports speculated that perhaps the tree had been ignited by a lightning strike, but within a few months it was determined to be arson and an arrest was made.

Department Begins Type Specimen Imaging Project (Vol. 3, issue 2)

"Department Begins Type Specimen Imaging Project" can be seen in this issue from 2000.