The Plant Press

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 #7. New fern species: Hecistopteris kaieteurensis US 33760054)

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 2

The seventh botanical treasure is Earth's second smallest terrestrial fern.

Botanical Treasure #6. Deepest photosynthetic marine algae: Undescribed species in the order Corallinales (Rhodophyta)

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 2

On the deck of the submersibles mother ship the R/V Johnson, Mark and Diane Littler hold a crustose coralline growing attached a rock substrate collected from a depth of 268 meters off the northern border of San Salvadore Island, Bahamas, in October 1983.

Botanical treasure number 6 dives deep to find photosynthesis in extreme conditions.

Botanical Treasure #4. New Hawaiian species: Hibiscadelphus woodii (US 3313194)

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 2

Botanical treasure number 4 is a rare and possibly extinct species from Hawaii.

Botanical Treasure #3. Lichens as biological monitors: Flavoparmelia baltimorensis (US Barcode 00536547)

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 2

 

Detail of the rock greenshield lichen, Flavoparmelia baltimorensis (US Barcode 00536547).

The third botanical treasure demonstrated a relationship between lichen growth and air pollution.

 

Plant-Herbivore Network Reconstructed Using DNA Barcodes from the Gut

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 1

Plants, together with insect herbivores, represent more than 50% of all known species on earth. To better understand these ecological and evolutionary interactions and how they create and maintain biological diversity we need to determine the associations and networks between insect herbivores and their host plants.

Researchers at the Department of Botany (Carlos García-Robledo, W. John Kress and David L. Erickson), in collaboration with the Department of Entomology at Smithsonian (Charles L. Staines and Terry L. Erwin) tested a DNA Barcoding based alternative to determine insect-host plant associations for an entire guild of insect herbivores using plant DNA extracted from insect gut contents. In a two-year study of tropical plants in the order Zingererales and their herbivores, rolled-leaf beetles, it was found that by collecting about four insect herbivores representing each plant-herbivore interaction, it is possible to reconstruct the entire plant-herbivore network.

Zingiberales and rolled leaf beetle network reconstructed using DNA barcodes

This study demonstrates that host plant identifications at the species-level using DNA barcodes are feasible, cost-effective, and reliable, and that reconstructing plant-herbivore networks with these methods will become the standard for a detailed understanding of these interactions.

García-Robledo, C., D.L. Erickson, C.L. Staines, T.L. Erwin and W.J. Kress. 2013. Tropical plant–herbivore networks: reconstructing species interactions using DNA barcodes. PLoS ONE 8(1): e52967. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052967

Bright African Fruit has the Natural World’s Most Intense Color

From Plant Press Vol. 15 no. 4

 

Pollia condensata, native to Africa, uses structural coloration instead of pigments to produce the most intense color ever studied in biological tissue.

The metallic blue color on the fruit wall in Pollia condensata (Commelinaceae) has been found to be more intense than any other biological material, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The structure of the wall of the fruit in Pollia, a pantropical genus of Commelinaceae, has always been of interest to Robert Faden, one of the authors of the study, because the indehiscent fruits, although showy and often metallic blue on the surface, like Christmas tree ornaments, entirely lack flesh but instead are fully packed with dry seeds. Faden has always thought it likely that these fruits mimic truly fleshy berries and drupes and are dispersed when they are eaten in error by birds. It has also been suggested that some birds and mammals decorate their nests with such baubles, but that has yet to be demonstrated in Pollia.

 

Planted Evidence Found in Research Greenhouse

From Plant Press Vol. 15 no. 4

By Gary A. Krupnick

Larsenianthus wardianus W.J. Kress, Thet Htun & Bordelon, one of four new species in this genus of gingers (Zingiberaceae) from Asia. (Photo by Leslie Brothers)

Walking along a trail in an evergreen forest in the foothills of the Himalayas in north central Myanmar in 2002, Botany Curator John Kress came across a plant that appeared to be a species of Hitchenia (Zingiberaceae). The plant had no flowers, so he collected a living specimen and brought it back to Washington, DC, for further study. Placed in the hands of the Botany Research Greenhouse manager, Mike Bordelon, it took two years and plenty of care for the plant to flower. During a hot summer day, while hand-watering and soil-checking, Bordelon found at the base of the plant an inflorescence with open flowers. While examining the flowers, Kress decided that this was not Hitchenia, but something new to science instead. What was collected from Myanmar and growing in the greenhouse was a new genus, Larsenianthus. The genus was named after Kai Larsen, a Danish botanist and expert on the flora of Thailand and Zingiberaceae. The species was named L. wardianus, in honor of the famous British plant collector Francis Kingdon-Ward who explored Upper Burma in the first half of the 20^th century.

It is not uncommon for plants to be collected in the field and brought back to the Research Greenhouses to watch them grow. What is uncommon is for a new genus or a new species to be discovered after the collected plant flowers. Currently growing in the greenhouses, for example, are an additional eight different flowering plants of Curcuma (Zingiberaceae) from Southeast Asia that may turn out to be species new to science after further research is completed. Additional Curcuma plants in the greenhouse collection have yet to flower—are they known species or are they new species awaiting description?

Super Tough Seed Coat Keeps Michaux's Sumac on Critically Endangered List

From Plant Press Vol. 15, no. 1

Adapted from Smithsonianscience.org

Photos of Michaux’s sumac by Lytton Musselman

It is one of the rarest shrubs in the southeastern United States but for scientists trying to save it, the critically endangered Michaux’s sumac (Rhus michauxii) is not cooperating. So far botanists have exposed the hard-, thick-coated seeds of this native North American plant to boiling water, dry heat up to 284 degrees Fahrenheit and flames from a propane blowtorch to try to coax them into germination. Nothing has worked. “Complete understanding of the germination requirements of endangered plants is an absolute requirement to effectively manage populations,” Department of Botany research associate Jay Bolin and botanists Marcus Jones and Lytton Musselman write in a recent paper on this plant in Native Plants Journal. So far, however, Michaux’s sumac has not given up its secrets.

Marquesas Islands Yield 18 New Species

From Plant Press Vol. 14, no. 4

Oxalis simplicifolia growing on cliff, Ua Huka, Marquesas Islands, shows distinctive simple leaves, flowers and fruits. (Photo by Steve Perlman, NTBG)

New findings by Warren Wagner and David H. Lorence (National Tropical Botanical Garden), in collaboration with French IRD and French Polynesian researchers, have brought to light 18 new species and one new variety of ferns and flowering plants from the rugged Marquesas Islands. Since 1988, 62 new species have been described in conjunction with the Vascular Flora of the Marquesas Islands and the Flore de la Polynésie Française projects, representing a 20 percent increase in the known native flora. Ten precursor papers by the authors and collaborators describing the new species were published in an issue of the open access journal PhytoKeys.