From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 4, October 2022.
On September 7, John Kress gave an invited presentation, “Biodiversity exploration, species discovery, and new technologies: Plant humanities in a rapidly changing world,” at the Plant Humanities Conference at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. The conference explored the deep, complex, and asymmetrical relationship between plants and people. Plants are indispensable to our bodily needs—food, shelter, clothing, medicine—and weave themselves into our experience through ritual, religion, and art. Yet anthropogenic change threatens two out of five plant species with extinction. These pressing environmental challenges make an urgent call for a new dialogue between the humanities and science to point us to vital future directions for scholarship and action. Kress’ presentation was one of three during a panel on the environment and biodiversity. The 3-day event was open to the public and livestreamed.
On August 22, 2022, Alice Tangerini gave a lecture, “Botanical Illustration, Then and Now,” to the Nantucket Conservation Foundation of Massachusetts. She covered a brief history of botanical illustration leading up to present and showing images from the collection of the NMNH Department of Botany. She presented a summary of collecting plants for the herbarium and the drawing process. The audience included gardeners, artists, and architects. After Tangerini explained the use of architectural tools in scientific illustration, one of the architects in attendance offered Tangerini her tools of the trade since she had retired and was looking for an interested party to take them. The next day the architect bicycled to the home where Tangerini was staying and delivered a bag of a variety of leads and holders which Tangerini very much appreciated.
