The Plant Press

A Sowerby surprise: Specimen digitization project finds original hand-painted engravings

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 4, October 2021.

By Julia Beros.

They were found within the herbarium case of lichen specimens, following name and geographic order and next to cases of other lichen specimens. Then in a single cubby above and below other cubbies filled neatly by folders with CLADONIA marked on them, were a stack of lichen reference material filed right where it -could likely- belong. As digitizing the vast holdings of the U.S. National Herbarium makes its rounds of the collection, accruing over 3.5 million images, the conveyor project’s circumstantial overhaul of the Herbarium’s vast holdings has unearthed some one-of-a-kind objects.

Etching of a lichen by James Sowerby, with a species name annotated as “lanatus” and print series number “846” in upper corner, published 1801. The etching was recently found in a folder in the lichen cabinets during the digitization process of lichen specimens.

Sometimes you discover a stray specimen or two and maybe some out-of-place photo slides or glass plates are apt to get misplaced in the herbarium. Museum Specialist Carol Kelloff recalls the time when Emeritus Curator Harold Robinson accidentally refiled a stack of specimens with his unfinished manuscript at the bottom of the pile—and after finding it much later, he published it, post haste! So it is not unlikely, although still surprising, when a stack of beautifully hand-painted original engravings are found amongst packets of aging lichens. Nearing the final cases of imaging and cuing up the Bryophytes and Algae, the digitization project has just imaged the lichen collection, transcribing the label data for inclusion in the database and to be more easily accessible. Including all parts of the herbarium in this project not only rounds out the database, it gives a clearer picture of our holdings, prioritizing needs amongst the collections, and renewing focus in underutilized parts of the collections. In the lichen cabinets, pages delicately torn from original publications of James Sowerby’s engravings are stapled tidily to specimen sheets and annotated with new or confirmed names at the bottom. 

The artist James Sowerby (1757–1822), an innate naturalist, studied at the Royal Academy in London and in combining these two passions “decided to be a painter of flowers.” He worked first with botanist William Curtis, who helped Sowerby develop a scientific eye which laid the foundation of his career as a scientific illustrator. His first published engravings that he hand-painted were plates in Curtis’ Flora Londinensis. A prolific illustrator, his work was published in many floras, mineralogy, and zoology books, and his sons, learning the trade from childhood, continued the Sowerby legacy of scientific illustration.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Pseudarthria panii R.Zhang, T.S.Yi & B.Pan

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 3, July 2021.

The diversity of plant symbioses and the relationships plants have with insects, fungi, bacteria, and even other plants was the theme of the 18th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium held virtually in May 2021. One presentation focused on nitrogen-fixing symbiosis between legumes and rhizobia. Alice Tangerini has illustrated several nitrogen-fixing legumes. One such plate of hers remains unpublished. When Tangerini received an unidentified plant specimen from Ashley Egan (Assistant Curator 2013-2017), it was possibly a new species of Desmodium. Tangerini made the drawing from dried unmounted material and some digital images of the flowers and habit. The drawing was done in two plates and combined. One plate contained all floral dissections and habit and a second plate had the adaxial and abaxial leaf surfaces. The hooked hairs on the pedicel were important to show. In a 2018 paper, a team from Kunming Institute of Botany named this plant as a new species of Pseudarthria from Asia.

Research & Activities [Video]

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 3, July 2021.

On May 19, Research Associate John Wiersema presented a webinar entitled, “A Taxonomist’s View on the Essence of Waterlilies that Inspired Claude Monet,” to the membership of Marie Selby Botanical Garden in Sarasota, Florida. In this virtual botanical briefing, Wiersema asked, “What is it about the nature of waterlilies that provided the inspiration for Claude Monet’s gardens and so many of his impressionist paintings?” Wiersema’s webinar examined the role of waterlilies in the aquatic landscape, explored the relationships among the various forms of waterlilies throughout the world, and probed the aesthetic qualities that have made them the ultimate aquatic ornamental. He also spoke about the early history of waterlily hybridization in Europe in relation to the waterlilies available to Monet when Monet established his water garden in Giverny in the late 19th century, with a closer look at those that successfully established on Monet’s estate. Wiersema also finds an appreciation in the sheer beauty and serenity of pristine waterlily settings and a Monet impressionist rendering of it.

In John Wiersema's webinar, "A Taxonomist’s View on the Essence of Waterlilies that Inspired Claude Monet," Wiersema provides a chronology of Monet's paintings and looks closely at the botany behind the artist's inspiration.

Wiersema, a specialist on the taxonomy of the waterlily group, focuses his research on the waterlily genus Nymphaea. He has studied and collected these plants in both temperate and tropical countries on six continents, personally cultivating at least 60 such gatherings for direct observation over the last four decades, and examined thousands of global water lily herbarium specimens. He has discovered and described several new species and has participated in over 30 scientific publications on the group. Retired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service after more than 30 years, he now serves as a Research Associate in the Botany Department of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Wiersema gained global standing as a specialist in plant nomenclature, and now has direct editorial involvement with both the botanical and cultivated plant codes of international nomenclature and the international journal Taxon. Over his professional career, he has contributed to some 125 scientific publications.

The presentation is available online at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxlJQwp0N-U>.

Awards & Honors

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 3, July 2021.

Alice Tangerini was the recipient of the Linnean Society’s 2020 Jill Smythies Award. The award is given annually to a botanical artist for outstanding, diagnostically relevant published illustrations. Due to the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 award ceremony was postponed, and a decision was subsequently made to hold the 2021 event via Zoom. Although Tangerini was unable to travel to receive the award in person, she accepted the award during a Linnean Society Medals Ceremony held on 24 May 2021. Sandra Knapp, president of the Society, presented the award to Tangerini during the ceremony.

Sandra Knapp, president of the Linnean Society, presents the 2020 Jill Smythies Award to Alice Tangerini during the Society’s virtual medals ceremony on 24 May 2021.

The following accolade was given to Tangerini by the Linnean Society:

For the excellence of her depictions of plants for scientific use, including the detailed portrayal of their diagnostic characteristics, Alice Tangerini is our 2020 winner of the Jill Smythies Award. In addition to illustrating new species, Alice has illustrated multiple taxa from the same group for the same publication, such that the details of the drawings can be used to distinguish the species.

Since 1972, Alice has made diagnostic illustrations for over 1,000 plant species in pen and ink, graphite, and more recently in digital media, for a variety of publications. Using mainly herbarium specimens as her resource material, she has prepared these illustrations to portray the species in a realistic manner with necessary reconstruction to remove the artefacts of drying and physical damage. Significant taxonomic characters have been enlarged with the aid of a microscope to facilitate their use in species descriptions.

Over the years, the detail and accuracy of her drawings and examinations of the specimens have resulted in authors changing descriptions, based on details observed by Alice that had escaped the botanists’ notice. For instance, her detailed examination of a proposed new species of bromeliad resulted in the production of a newly written, enhanced description. As a result, the authors, Lyman B. Smith and Harold Robinson, decided to name the new species Navia aliciae in her honour. Such collaboration with scientists in describing a taxon is the hallmark of exemplary botanical illustration.