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.