The Plant Press

Untangling Indian Hemp

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 4, October 2018.

By Nora Frankel

Plants have always been an integral part of human material history. This may be no surprise to a botanist, but for me, it is sometimes still a revelation. As a conservator, it is my job to understand the material as well as the intangible properties of cultural heritage items so that I can ensure their preservation. Plants became my focus while completing a two-year postgraduate Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Textile Conservation at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) Cultural Resources Center (CRC) in Suitland, Maryland. Working with textile conservator Susan Heald (NMAI), physical scientist Thomas Lam (Museum Conservation Institute), and Marcelo R. Pace (National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Botany), I have been studying identification of certain plants used for fibers throughout North America’s northeast woodlands. This region encompasses the Great Lakes, New England, and southern Ontario and Quebec, and has been home to a diversity of culture groups including the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), Abenaki, and Lenape.

• Nora Frankel in the Botany Plant Anatomy Laboratory microtoming embedded plant fibers. (photo by Stanley Yankowski)

While several types of plant fibers are used in the woodlands, I focused on fibers extracted from the primary phloem (pericyclic fibers) of herbaceous plants and secondary phloem of the inner bark of certain tree species. In textile terminology, these are referred to as “bast” fibers, and include the more familiar linen from flax (Linum usitatissimum L.), as well as hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), ramie (Boehmeria nivea L. Gaudich.), and jute (Chorchorus spp.). Although many different species have been used for textiles in North America, identification is difficult, and fibers are sometimes grouped under the misnomer “Indian hemp.” This is a common name for several species from the Apocynaceae family, but has also been used to describe any plant fiber from North America. Being neither Cannabis nor from India, this terminology can be confusing, and was part of the impetus for this study.

Twined Potawatomi bag with indigenous bast fibers, dyed commercial wool fibers, and hide (NMAI 2/7533).

Smithsonian Botanists Chiefly Edit Scientific Journals

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 4, October 2018.

The curators of the Department of Botany have many responsibilities, primarily independent research on plant taxonomy and systematics and the responsible care and interpretation of specimens within the collection of the U.S. National Herbarium. Often, curators take on additional roles. Currently three curators in Botany serve as editors of prominent scientific journals in plant sciences.

Jun Wen and Song Ge (Chinese Academy of Sciences) serve as the Editors-in-Chief of Journal of Systematics and Evolution (JSE, since 2008; formerly Acta Phytotaxonomica Sinica). JSE is a plant-based international journal dedicated to the description and understanding of biological diversity. It covers the description of new taxa, monographic revision, phylogenetics, molecular and genome evolution, evolutionary developmental biology, evolutionary ecology, population biology, conservation biology, biogeography, paleobiology, evolutionary theories, and related subjects. Wen took on the position of Editor-in-Chief in 2014.

JSE has been growing in prominence over the past few years. The journal has a 2017 impact factor of 3.657, an increase on the 2016 impact factor of 2.050. The journal ranks 26 among 222 journals in the Plant Sciences category of the Science Citation Index (SCI), an increase from the 2016 ranking of 68 among 211 journals in the same category. The rise is largely due to Wen and Ge’s guidance and vision. Many scientists in the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian have contributed to JSE’s growth.

John Kress has been serving as the Editor-in-Chief of PhytoKeys since its inaugural issue in 2010. The journal is a peer-reviewed, open-access, rapidly disseminated journal that was launched to accelerate research and to facilitate information exchange in taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography, and evolution of plants. PhytoKeys publishes papers in systematic botany, including taxonomy, phylogeny, ethnobotany, and floristics, on any taxon of any geological age from any part of the world. The journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public and scientists everywhere supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Launched less than a decade ago in 2010, the main objective of PhytoKeys was to implement the latest technology and innovative workflows in publication to speed-up taxonomic data exchange. As a result, PhytoKeys was the first botanical journal to introduce a XML-based publishing workflow, pre-publication registration of new taxa with the International Plant Name Index (IPNI), semantic markup and tagging of taxonomic treatments and taxonomic names, and extensive data publishing modalities. In 2015, PhytoKeys was granted its first impact factor of 0.68, and it has gradually increased in the subsequent two years and reached 1.11 in 2017. One of PhytoKeys strengths is that the publisher Pensoft continues to invest in the popularization of plants and botany through media campaigns on special articles appearing in the journal. Since its start, PhytoKeys has published 532 articles including 12,569 pages, and recently published its 100^th issue.

In September 2018, Liz Zimmer became the Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (MPE). She had been an Associate Editor at MPE since its inception in 1992, and was promoted to Deputy Editor starting in 2013. The journal provides a forum for molecular studies that advance our understanding of phylogeny and evolution, further the development of phylogenetically more accurate taxonomic classifications, and ultimately bring a unified classification for all the ramifying lines of life. MPE encourages articles that are multidisciplinary, especially in areas such as bioinformatics, computational biology, molecular biology, and organismic biology, which are of interest to the community of systematic and evolutionary biologists.

Articles published in MPE, written by members across the NMNH community, regularly appear in the weekly list of publications compiled by the Smithsonian Libraries staff. Together with the previous Editor-in-Chief, Derek Wildman, Zimmer solicited manuscripts and served as Guest Editors for the 25^th Anniversary issue of MPE. From an impact factor less than 3.0 in 1995, MPE now has an impact factor of 4.4.

Artwork of Emily Dickinson Plants to Be Displayed outside Chair’s Office

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 4, October 2018.

A metalpoint drawing of Rosa carolina by Kandy Phillips. The drawing was inspired by the poems of Emily Dickinson.

A selection of metalpoint drawings by local artist Kandy Vermeer Phillips will be on display beginning October 10 outside the Department of Botany Chair’s office on the fourth floor of the West Wing, National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. These illustrations are the culmination of Phillips’ yearlong project to illustrate the plants associated with Emily Dickinson’s poetry. All of Phillips’ artwork represents specimens from the US National Herbarium collections with attention to choosing those in the area and time of Dickinson’s poetry.

Phillips’ work was supported by an Educational Grant from the American Society of Botanical Artists. The drawings are a generous donation by Phillips to the Botanical Art Collection in the Department of Botany.

A Mystery Solved: The Shifty Shifters are Discovered

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 4, October 2018.

For some time plant specimens in the U.S. National Herbarium have been mysteriously moving from one case to another. Sometimes the event would happen early in the morning, other times it would happen over the weekend. Whole plant families would simply appear in a new position in the herbarium.

On a recent weekend, early on a Sunday morning, the mystery was solved. Mark Strong and Carol Kelloff have been shifting during their “off” hours to help make way for the rearrangement of the herbarium into a modified APG-IV (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group) format. Evidently, the two of them can shift 35 cases in four hours working at top speed. The latest impediment to implementing the new system was the Lauraceae, and it is now in its “forever home.” Space is now ready for the next family to move.

Congratulations to both of them and thanks are extended for the extra effort. But one wonders, where will these shifty shifters strike next?