The Plant Press

By the Numbers: Collections Edition

From Plant Press, Vol. 27, No. 4, October 2024.

U.S. National Herbarium
By the Numbers
* Collections Edition *

A volunteer in the Department of Botany carefully mount plant specimens to herbarium sheets. (photographer unknown)

16,042

Specimens digitized/imaged in FY24

 

6,109

New specimens accessioned into the collection in FY24

 

6,027

Specimens mounted in FY24

 

1,140

Specimens loaned out in FY24

 

A volunteer in the Department of Botany carefully mount plant specimens to herbarium sheets. (photo by Erika Gardner)

Staff activities

From Plant Press, Vol. 27, No. 4, October 2024.

On July 16, 2024, Alice Tangerini traveled to Oak Spring Garden Foundation (OSGF) in Upperville, Viriginia to teach a class on Botanical Illustration and present a lecture entitled, “Botanical Illustration at the Museum.”

Alice Tangerini (top right corner of the table) instructs a class from the University of Virginia on botanical illustration. (image courtesy of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation)

Tangerini was asked by Danielle Eady, OSGF Director of Art and Residential Programs, to lead a class demonstration on botanical illustration in pen and ink techniques to students from the Rare Book School of the University of Virginia. Tangerini’s class this year was modeled after her previous year’s class for the Rare Book School, and it was also part of the curriculum titled, Six Hundred Years of Botanical Illustration, led by Roger Gaskell, UVA Faculty member, and Peter Crane, OSGF President.

Tangerini’s lecture and techniques focused on the last 50 years of botanical illustration. She concentrated on the techniques used in pen and ink illustration but also showed examples of digital artwork and explained the transition from the traditional to digital techniques over the last 24 years.

Gardeners at OSGF provided living material including varieties of rudbeckias and made available prints of the flower heads to expedite the drawing process. Using the tracing acetate and drafting film provided, the class completed their finished pieces in pen and ink of the Rudbeckia heads and leaves. The class ended with Peter Crane giving an early evening tour of the greenhouses and conservation gardens followed by dinner at the former “schoolhouse”.

New faces

From Plant Press, Vol. 27, No. 4, October 2024.

Bertrand Black is a Ph.D. candidate in Plant Biology at the University of Vermont. He joined Botany as a predoctoral fellow in August 2024, working under the mentorship of Eric Schuettpelz. His dissertation focuses on the phylogenomics, biogeography, and systematics of American lady ferns (Athyrium filix-femina complex), with an emphasis on understanding their evolutionary relationships, species diversity, and historical biogeography. While at the Smithsonian, he will continue his work integrating next-generation sequence data and the collection of preserved specimens housed in the herbarium to document unrecognized lady fern diversity across the Americas. At the University of Vermont, he also teaches field courses on plant identification and how to prepare museum-quality plant collections.

 

Angélica Gallego Narbón started a Peter Buck fellowship in October 2024 in the NMNH Department of Botany under the supervision of Jun Wen. Her postdoctoral research examines the influence of climate and biogeography in the evolution of several Araliaceae lineages, with a special focus in the disjunct Asian-Neotropical genus Dendropanax and the ivy genus Hedera. She recently completed her Ph.D. focused on the systematics and evolution of the biggest clade of the plant family Araliaceae (Asian Palmate group) at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain. Her dissertation investigated the evolutionary relationships of the genera within this clade, as well as the evolution, biogeography, and ecology of ivies in their natural habits in western Europe. During this period, she had the opportunity to work at the Smithsonian with Wen supported by the Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program (SIFP). Her research interests include studying the plant family Araliaceae from an integrative perspective, combining phylogenomics, biogeography, diversification, climate and functional trait analyses. Her research can be followed on her social media accounts (X: @agallegonarbon, ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angelica-Gallego-Narbon).

 

Yali Li is a visiting graduate student from the South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences. A Ph.D. student in Plant Biology, her thesis focuses on the conservation genomics of Firmiana danxiaensis (Malvaceae), a critically endangered species currently found in only six locations in Guangdong Province and Fujian Province, China. The species is naturally distributed across Danxia and Karst landforms. Under the supervision of Jun Wen, she is working to better elucidate the endangered mechanisms of F. danxaiensis as well as its adaptation to specialized habitats. She has additional interests in biogeography, dispersal, and evolution of the Firmiana genus.

 

 

Ting Wang, a visiting postdoctoral fellow from South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, joined Botany in September 2024, working under the supervision of Jun Wen and Eric Schuettpelz. Her project focuses on the phylogenic and biogeographical origins of Angiopteris (Marattiaceae), a genus that is widely distributed from Madagascar to the Pacific Islands. At the Smithsonian, she plans to supplement the DNA from the Pacific Island samples with the aim of gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the evolutionary history of Angiopteris across time and space.

Congressional 'Night at the Museum'

From Plant Press, Vol. 27, No. 4, October 2024.

Smithsonian Congressional Night was held at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) on the evening of July 24, 2024. The event was attended by approximately 1,800 guests, including Members of Congress, Congressional staff, representatives of Nissan North America, senior Smithsonian and NMNH staff, and guests’ families. The event enabled informal interactions between the museum’s scientific expert community, Members of Congress, Congressional staff, and their families. Guests had the opportunity to meet the museum’s research staff, engage in educational activities, and visit the museum’s exhibit halls. NMNH previously hosted the event in 2022, 2019, 2013, and 1998.

The success of the Smithsonian Congressional Night was in part due to broad participation from across the museum’s research departments. NMNH had over 40 science volunteers to show off the museum’s incredible collections. The Department of Botany was represented by three scientific carts.

A cart hosted by Alice Tangerini and Warren Wagner featured illustrations of two new species of the Hawaiian genus Schiedea, a genus that has been studied by Wagner and colleagues for many years. The illustrations were selected to demonstrate the unique and significant contribution of scientific illustration to understanding the characteristic of a species. One of them, S. haakoaensis, was discovered in a remote location, but was not in flower. When the field botanists returned months later to hopefully find the plant in flower and fruit, it was instead dead. The field botanists collected soil where it was growing, and in the greenhouse they managed to grow two seedlings. Using rulers placed next to parts of the plant, they took photos and collected small parts of the plant which were sent to the Smithsonian. With the photos and plant parts, Tangerini managed to reconstruct a complete illustration of the plant and its unique features that was colored in a final step with the computer matching the colors of the plant parts. The second new species of Schiedea was discovered by a field team using a drone to image sheer cliffs on Hawaii's oldest island, Kaua`i. The drone used a uniquely designed collecting arm to make collections. Photos taken by the drone camera and the small collections were used by Tangerini to reconstruct all features of the new cliff species. The illustration, photos, and plant herbarium specimens on the cart were used to show the guests how the illustration was created for the scientific publication of the new species.

The Department of Botany was represented by Warren Wagner and Alice Tangerini at the Smithsonian Congressional Night, held at the National Museum of Natural History on the evening of July 24, 2024.

The second Botany cart was hosted by Greg Stull and highlighted an assortment of fruits and seeds that were confiscated from cargo and passenger luggage at U.S. Ports of Entry and sent to USDA National Botanists for identification. Stull spoke to guests about the purpose of the USDA's National Identification Services (NIS) Botany Lab, which is now located in the NMNH's Department of Botany. He stressed the importance of Smithsonian Botany collections for performing urgent and routine plant identifications, which is the core responsibility of the NIS Botanists. 

The Department of Botany was represented by Greg Stull at the Smithsonian Congressional Night, held at the National Museum of Natural History on the evening of July 24, 2024.

A third Botany cart, hosted by Ian Medeiros, featured a selection of lichen specimens from the U.S. National Herbarium. Medeiros spoke with guests about what lichens are and how they are able to thrive in water-stressed environments from deserts to downtown D.C. He also discussed how the collections resources of NMNH facilitate his current research on the lichen-forming genus Xanthoparmelia. A side-by-side comparison of wet and dry specimens of Cladonia, which the guests were free to touch, was popular with children and adults alike. The specimens served as a demonstration of the ability of lichens to rehydrate after desiccation.

The Department of Botany was represented by Ian Medeiros at the Smithsonian Congressional Night, held at the National Museum of Natural History on the evening of July 24, 2024.