The Plant Press

A splitting headache: a herbarium specimen conservation project

From Plant Press, Vol. 22, No. 4, October 2019.

By Erika Gardner

Mixed sheets were created either “deliberately as past practice or accidentally because they have not previously been recognized as a mixture” (Forman & Bridson 1989. The Herbarium Handbook. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew). Over a century ago, access to herbarium supplies were not readily available and very costly. Many botanists and institutions did not have funding to mount every specimen onto its own herbarium sheet. Compromises had to be made and multiple specimens were mounted onto one sheet to reduce cost and space. This was especially true in the 1930s during the great depression. The other scenario involves the collector unknowingly collecting different species from the same collection event and classifying it under one collection number. These mixed sheets are usually found when a researcher annotates specimens many years later.

A mixed herbarium sheet before the splitting process.

Mixed sheets are often found filed away in cabinets of the US National Herbarium. It is unknown how many exist in the collection, but possibly hundreds of thousands. After we completely image and digitize the collection, we will have a better understanding for just how many we have. Usually the collection management staff are informed about these specimens when they are returned from being on loan. This past summer, volunteer Shannon Hicks worked on a pilot project to dismantle, split, and remount about 90 mixed sheets. This project helped us learn about the process, challenges, and time needed to complete this conservation project.

There are many reasons why splitting mixed sheets is desirable. Although it is much easier to place multiple sheet numbers and barcodes on a mixed sheet, for curatorial reasons it is much better for these specimens to be mounted on their own herbarium sheet. These specimens create a number of curatorial problems for staff and researchers:

1. Filing a mixed sheet with different species is difficult. Staff have to decide which name to file the specimen under. If the specimen is refiled it could potentially be filed under the other specimen name. If this occurs, the filed under name might not be updated in the database.
2. Data entry staff need to create two or more records for one sheet and then add cross-reference information in the notes field. When these specimens are imaged, one image is associated with two records. However, mixed sheets are often overlooked if they only have one label.
3. Researchers annotating specimens have to determine how to designate the different species on the sheet using letters or numbers next to the specimen and then attach a corresponding annotation label. Citing these specimens also poses interesting challenges because two or more specimens can correspond to one sheet number, which can be confusing if not mentioned in the publication. In addition, when researchers use the specimens it is sometimes difficult to keep track of which specimen corresponds to which annotation.

Congressional Night at the Museum

From Plant Press, Vol. 22, No. 4, October 2019.

The 2019 Smithsonian Congressional Night was held at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) on the evening of July 17. NMNH partnered with the Smithsonian’s Office of Government Relations to host the event which attracted 2,100 guests and 29 Members of Congress. The event encouraged Congressional staff to meet members of the museum’s research staff, engage in educational activities, and visit the museum’s exhibit halls. NMNH last hosted the event in 2013.

Liz Zimmer interacts with guests at the 2019 Smithsonian Congressional Night at the National Museum of Natural History. (photo by Gary Krupnick)

The success of Congressional Night was in part due to broad participation from across the museum’s research departments. Gary Krupnick and Liz Zimmer represented the Department of Botany who joined 90 other members of the NMNH community to share their research and volunteer their time to help the event run smoothly. Zimmer talked about her research in the molecular evolution of quillworts and the Vitaceae. She displayed specimens of Isoetes and ginseng roots. Krupnick spoke about how herbarium specimens are used in conservation biology research. He displayed specimens of Xylosma serrata, a critically endangered and possibly extinct species from Montserrat; coco de mer, a plant that produces the largest seeds in the plant kingdom; and goldenrod in which its pollen grains have been shown to exhibit a decrease in protein content as atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased over time.

Gary Krupnick readies his station of botanical specimens in preparation for the 2019 Smithsonian Congressional Night at the National Museum of Natural History. (photo by Gary Krupnick)

The Global Genome Initiative for Gardens at 5 years: Intern retrospectives

By Morgan R. Gostel, Farahnoz Khojayori, Jacob Suissa, Kadiera Ingram, Maryam Sedaghatpour, Monica Marcelli, Seth Hamby, and Vicki A. Funk

This year marks five years since the start of the Global Genome Initiative for Gardens (GGI-Gardens) program and it seems an appropriate time to reflect upon the program’s accomplishments. In this time, we have partnered with more than 25 botanic gardens across four continents; moved our headquarters to the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) in Fort Worth, Texas; collected over 3,000 vouchers; funded four GGI-Gardens partner awards; sequenced more than 5,000 plant DNA barcode loci; and are making genome-quality tissue and DNA sequences available for researchers through the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN).

At the core of GGI-Gardens is building capacity for the next generation of botany, whether by mobilizing a worldwide voucher program through partnerships with botanic gardens or by training and supporting the next generation of botanists through internships and fellowships. More than 10 interns and fellows have been trained through the GGI-Gardens program and over half of them are still involved in botany! This summer a couple of GGI-Gardens alumni, Maryam Sedaghatpour and Jacob Suissa, presented at the annual Botany Conference in Tucson, Arizona and we wanted to highlight their (and other GGI-Gardens alumni) accomplishments. We asked a few past interns to share reflections and updates.

Linnaean Medal awarded to Vicki Funk

From Plant Press, Vol. 22, No. 4, October 2019.

Vicki Funk was awarded the Linnean Medal at the annual meeting of The Linnean Society in May 2019. It is bestowed annually to one or two biologists (in any field), as an expression of the Society's esteemed appreciation for service to science. Although Funk was unable to attend the May meeting in London the current President of the Society, Sandy Knapp, brought the medal to Washington DC, and presented it to Funk on 2 October with many colleagues from the National Museum of Natural History in attendance.

Sandy Knapp, president of the Linnean Society of London, presents Vicki Funk with the Linnean Medal, awarded to a botanist for their service to science. (photo by Ken Wurdack)

Funk was highly deserving of this career award which recognized her prodigious contributions as an indefatigable and innovative evolutionary biologist, a field and herbarium botanist, a pure taxonomist, and an enthusiastic mentor of many students and early career scientists which  included a special emphasis on women in science. Her career hallmarks included prolific and transformative research, innovations to the ways we do systematic botany, including early emphasis on the use of cladistics and biogeography, in addition to significance of field work, use of herbarium collections, and a lifelong interest with many significant contribution to the evolution of the largest angiosperm family, the Compositae.

Lamentably, Funk passed away on 22 October 2019. She will be greatly missed, but leaves an enduring legacy of unwavering research and mentorship. The Plant Press will feature an expanded article on her life and contributions in the next issue.