The Plant Press

A botanical cliff-hanger

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 2, April 2021.

By Nancy Khan and Warren Wagner.

Dramatic cliffs along the northern coast of Guam rise over 190 m to form a broad limestone plateau that encompasses the most diverse native plant communities of this small Micronesian island. Until recently the biological diversity of Micronesia was not fully understood, but it is now thought that this region contains a higher percentage of endemic plant species per square kilometer land area than any other hotspot of biodiversity. With an area of about 541 km² Guam is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands, but exhibits the lowest percent of endemism of the archipelago (Micronesica 43: 51–100; 2012). This bleak account inspired further investigation of an intriguing, yet unidentified specimen collected in 1994 as part of a floristic inventory for an environmental assessment of Andersen Air Force Base sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

Coastal limestone cliffs of northeastern Guam. (photo courtesy of Toni Mizerek, from Lorence et al. 2020)

Most of the Guam National Wildlife Refuge (GNWR), about 22,456 acres, is an "overlay refuge" (land that is under the primary jurisdiction of one Federal agency and the refuge purpose is superimposed as a secondary interest) formed by two units: Andersen Air Force Overlay and the Navy Overlay Unit. Although the military mission comes first on these overlay lands, the USFWS assists in protecting native species and habitats. Together with the 1,217 acre Ritidian Unit which is managed solely by the USFWS they comprise the GNWR which was established in 1993 when the area was determined to be critical habitat for six species of plants and animals listed as endangered pursuant to the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966.

Pogostemon guamensis Lorence and W.L.Wagner (Perlman & Wood 14266, holotype PTBG-061045)

A previous collection made within the GNWR by Derral Herbst (USFWS) in 1982 guided botanists Steve Perlman and Ken Wood (National Tropical Botanical Garden) to the unusual plant. The pair searched sharp, jagged cliffs along the coast, repeatedly rappelling down vertical escarpments, eventually locating five subpopulations totaling 113 individuals. Field identification tentatively likened it to patchouli, Pogostemon cablin (Lamiaceae), however it lacked the aromatic oils characteristic of the patchouli plant. Six new collections were made by Wood and Perlman to document the distribution and morphological variation of the subpopulations. Subsequent expansion of the military installation and development of cooperative but parallel conservation plans by the USFWS and the U.S. Air Force hindered opportunities to re-visit the site for further exploration.

The six specimens seemed likely to remain an enigma until Smithsonian Department of Botany lab technician Gabe Johnson became involved. He applied molecular techniques to determine the identity of the plant. Small fragments were removed from four of the specimens collected in 1994. Initial extraction indicated that the DNA was highly degraded, but the application of a precise and intricate methodology yielded two samples with 2 regions each of sequenceable DNA that could be compared to known sequences obtained from GenBank (Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 98: 184–200; 2016). A phylogenetic reconstruction of the genus Pogostemon revealed that while there is superficial resemblance to Pogostemon cablin, the mystery plant was a new species native to Guam and more closely related to three species with origins on the Indian subcontinent.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Stachycephalum asplundii H.Rob. & Tangerini

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 2021.

Illustration of Stachycephalum asplundii by Alice Tangerini

When Alice Tangerini was examining plant specimens for a series of Stachycephalum (Asteraceae) illustrations in 2006, she discovered some interesting features of the achene on a particular specimen. Her observations did not agree with what Harold Robinson had asked her to draw. Robinson concluded that the species that Tangerini was drawing was a new species. To give credit where credit is due, Robinson added Tangerini’s name as plant author with his. Stachycephalum asplundii H.Rob. & Tangerini is published in Flora of Ecuador 77(2): 125-127; fig. 55) (2006). The species is found in the Ecuadorian province of Napo, in the Rio Cosanga valley.

David Kenfack elected as a Fellow to the African Academy of Sciences

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 2021.

David Kenfack, ForestGEO staff scientist, has been elected as a Fellow to the African Academy of Sciences. This distinguished membership recognizes African scientists who have “attained the highest level of excellence in their scientific field and have made significant contributions to the advancement of science regionally and globally.” Begun in 1986, there are now more than 400 Fellows in the African Academy of Sciences.

David Kenfack

Kenfack is currently the coordinator of ForestGEO’s Africa Program and is a principal investigator of the Korup (Cameroon), Mpala (Kenya), and Ngel Nyaki (Nigeria) plots.

He was born in Bafou, Cameroon and completed both his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Yaoundé (1984-1995). In 1996, he was hired as a field manager for the first census of the Korup 50-ha plot. In 2002, he moved to the United States to pursue a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution and Systematics from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Upon obtaining his degree in 2008, he began a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2008-2009). Between 2010 and 2012 he served as a research fellow at Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum, and in 2012 he was hired as the Africa Program coordinator for the ForestGEO network. In 2016 he became a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute staff scientist.

Kenfack describes his work saying, “I use a combination of morphological, molecular, ecological and spatial data to explore plant groups with challenging taxonomy to understand their evolutionary history and biogeography.” He has authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications.

The African Academy of Sciences’ announcement of its 2019 class of fellows has been posted at https://www.aasciences.africa/news/african-academy-sciences-announces-election-2019-fellows.

János Xántus, a 19th century collector

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 2021.

By Julia Beros.

“There are thousands and thousands of ways to dig out a little plant, even if one has to resort to digging with his own nails,” such is the acumen of János Xántus, rather John Xantus, or perhaps Louis Vesey, or potentially and more accurately, J. Xántus de Vesey. A man enrobed by myth and lore Xántus was a famed Hungarian lawyer, then Lieutenant and then exile, but foremost a self-taught collector of plants and animals who contributed to the foundations of the Smithsonian Institution and the namesake to many novel species. Depending on where you look for information he is described as a zoologist, or an ornithologist, a naturalist, but never defined as a botanist. In a recent publication in Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. Hung. (111: 145-177; 2019) by Daniel Pifkó of the Hungarian Natural History Museum’s Botany Department, researchers endured a massive undertaking of finding and accurately cataloging Xántus’ early plant collections from the 1850s in North America, which were sent largely unidentified and with jumbled data, ultimately delivering clarity and placing his collections in context with its greater and mythic history.

Holotype of Mimosa xanti (Fabaceae) collected in Cape San Lucas, Mexico by János Xántus between August 1859 and January 1860.

Born in Hungary in 1825, Xántus finished his secondary schooling and promptly pursued a legal career. In 1848, the Hungarian Revolution spurred war and Xántus at age 23, equipped with cartographic skills, became a chief lieutenant. He was captured and sent to Austria to be enlisted in the army there, but was soon freed and while fleeing was arrested again in Prague, where he somehow escaped and absconded to the United States. Arriving with seven dollars, Xántus made a career of odd jobs, visiting different cities and leaving “after picking conflicts” with locals, and then enlisted in the U.S. army where his unlikely career in science began. Enlisting under the name “Louis Vesey” his first station was at Fort Riley in Kansas where he met William Alexander Hammond, military physician and neurologist who made a hobby of collecting biological specimens for naturalist friend Spencer Fullerton Baird (Smithsonian Curator who served as Assistant Secretary and then as the Smithsonian Institution’s 2^nd Secretary from 1878-87). The serendipity of this first assignment for Xántus gave him not only opportunity and motivation to collect biological specimens but training and mentorship from one of the world’s leading naturalists of the time as well. As one of Baird’s goals was to make the natural history collections more robust he was happy to enlist more collectors (keeping a vast list of contacts around the continent to solicit for collecting and sending material) and continue building the nation’s collections of a practically unstudied flora, essentially from scratch.