The Plant Press

Florence Nightingale's Gift Examined

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

Examining fragments form an 1894 wedding bouquet are, from left, Aaron Goldberg, Dan Nicolson, Deborah Bell, Nancy McCall, Janet Draper, and Lauranne Nash. (Photo by James DiLoreto)

The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions archivist Nancy McCall contacted Botany to identify the remains of a 19th century floral bouquet, sent by Florence Nightingale to Isabel Hampton, the first director of the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins, on the occasion of Hampton’s wedding.

            Botany invited representatives from Horticultural Services to contribute their expertise in history, construction and flower composition when the plant remains were brought to the Botany Branch library on February 9.  Smithsonian botanists Deborah Bell, Robert Faden, Aaron Goldberg, Greg McKee and Dan Nicolson huddled over the plant fragments and identified three ferns (Adiantum, Asplenium, Dryopteris), flowering carnations and roses, three  flowering plants used for foliage effects (Asparagus, Myrtus, Mahonia), and Sphagnum moss used in construction.  Lauranne Nash (Horticultural Services) observed that the plant material in each small bundle wrapped with moss and wired, would be representative of the composition of the entire bouquet, and thus the flowers-to-greens ratio could not be discerned. The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing wishes to recreate the bouquet for exhibition.

Walker Exhibit Opens in Okinawa

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

 

Yoshihiro Hanashiro, right, hosts the visit of John Kress and Deborah Bell at an exhibit celebrating Egbert H. Walker's botanical work in Okinawa, Japan.

W. John Kress and Deborah Bell were invited guests for an exhibit entitled "A Retrospect of Okinawan Scenes in 1950's and Egbert H. Walker, a Smithsonian Botanist in Okinawa", which was shown in Okinawa on February 10 ‑ March 31.  The Department of Systematic Biology’s Botany Section and the Smithsonian Archives worked for two years with the Okinawan Steering Committee who conceived of the exhibit, and Dr. Tetsuo Koyama from the Makino Botanical Garden who supervised it.

            Walker worked in the U.S. National Herbarium for 30 years, from 1928‑1958.  During World War II  he was in charge of a Serviceman’s Collecting program, which received specimens from various areas, but in particular from men in the army of occupation of Okinawa. He collected in Okinawa in the 1950's, which led to the publication of  Flora of Okinawa and the Southern Ryukyu Islands (1159 pp.) in 1976.

            Walker’s daughter Jeanne provided over 300 kodachrome slides documenting not only botanical subjects, but everyday life of Okinawa.  The color slides are some of the only known ones of their kind remaining in good condition after 50 years.  The exhibit attracted over 1,000 people a day, for the first 3 weeks.  Some who went  remembered Dr. Walker and had stories to tell; others recognized homes, friends and family in the photos displayed.

            During the exhibition period, two documentaries were broadcast on local television. One was filmed in the U.S. National Herbarium, the National Museum of Natural History, the smithsonian Institution Archives, and Virginia (including interviews with his daughter and his 97 year‑old wife Dorothy).  The other documentary was shot in Okinawa. The Egbert Walker exhibit may be displayed in Washington, D.C. in 2002. 

Invited Comments by the Participants

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

Theodore M. Barkley

Botanical Research Institute of Texas

Some journalist once told a critic that "We live in a complicated world and there are no simple answers." Taxonomy is complicated, with expectations from numerous groups of users. There is no denying that Linnaean taxonomy has served well as a system to manage huge amounts of information, but it is notably flawed in presuming that species are "real things." Despite the best of efforts, there remains an element of guess work in circumscribing species. Re-casting the taxonomic scheme to rest upon evolutionary lineages is attractive because, presumably, it would yield a system that is more "rational" and freer from subjectivity. And here's the rub. The Linnaen system is magnificently adapted for use by the consumers of botanical information, e.g., the agronomists, ecologists, horticulturalists, and the whole of the general public. These are people who expect referable and stable names, and who have some toleration for revised generic concepts, name changes, and other deviations from tradition. We systematists have encouraged the use of the Linnaean scheme as the way to provide stable names in a system that is rich in content. Probably the chief difficulty with a system based on evolutionary lineages is its unfamiliarity. There is the sneaky suspicion that the names would vary freely with the current understandings of relationships, thereby losing the pretense of stability. Another possible difficulty is the uncertainty about how the new system would work for information recall, as is expected in the extensive files required for floristic studies. I could listen seriously to proposals for a more rational and objective taxonomic system, provided that I am convinced that it will be of good utility to the consumers of the products of our science. Until such a system is better developed, I am prepared to move forward in the Linnaean tradition.

 

Vicki Funk

Smithsonian Institution

There has been much discussion concerning the difficulties that are created by the combining of monophyly and the Linnean system of classification. I have three thoughts on the subject.

First, in the 1970s there were three tenants of Cladistics: apomorphy, monophyly, and parsimony. Since then, two of the three have been set aside by many cladists: parsimony has given way to maximum likelihood which can produce trees that have branches unsupported by synapomorphies. I think the most important of the three tenants is the concept of apomorphic characters; monophyly is merely a naming convention that results from the method of grouping by synapomorphies. If the systematic community has abandoned apomorphy and parsimony, then they have no grounds for insisting on monophyly, for where is the justification of monophyly without apomorphy?

Second, what do we know about evolution? We know that organisms change through time and that individuals within lineages give rise to new lineages. IF the rate of change is constant, branching within lineages occurs at the same rate, and there are no extinctions, then all trees would look the same. None of the above statements is true and so there are many different types of trees. For instance, extinction produces long branches, differential rates of evolution produces an array of grades, clades and unresolved nodes, hybridization produces unresolved nodes as well as incorrect branch placement, etc. The practice of telescoping groups until we reach sister taxa that have well-defined branches signals that areas of the tree that have experienced extinction and accelerated evolution are more worthy of recognition in our classification than parts of the tree where other phenomena have taken place.

News from the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics (LMS)

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

Sterling Keeley, Chair of Botany at the University of Hawaii, is visiting the LMS and Botany from April 9-May 4th, continuing her NSF-funded POWRE project on molecular systematics of Vernonieae (Asteraceae).

Rachel Levin, a recent Ph.D. graduate of the University of Arizona with Lucinda McDade, is joining Botany and the LMS as a postdoctoral fellow with Warren Wagner and Elizabeth Zimmer this April to work on molecular systematics of Onagraceae.

Hyi-gyung Kim, former postdoctoral fellow at LMS,  joined the Department of Biology at Vanderbilt University as a postdoctoral fellow with Olle Pellmyr  in October 2000, to work on yucca-yucca moth co-evolution. 

Heller Types Found in U.S. National Herbarium

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

Arnold (“Jerry”) Tiehm, who formerly worked at the New York Botanical Garden, visited the U. S. National Herbarium on February 12-15, in connection with studies of the collections of Amos Arthur Heller (1867-1944).  As an undergraduate student, Tiehm had seen Heller specimens in the RENO herbarium, and his later work on the Nevada Vascular Plant Types project (Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 77: 1-104. 1996) involved Heller material, as well as Tiehm’s extensive curating project in the RENO herbarium, which turned up a number of Heller types, including holotypes.   

            In connection with a project on Heller, including a bibliography, biography, and list of his types, Tiehm has used the herbaria and archives at CAS, DS, GH, NY, UC-JEPS, and US.  At the U.S. National Herbarium (US), Tiehm examined Heller specimens that should be holotypes.  Several of these appeared to be unicates and others were more probably isotypes.  A check of the type registry showed that some Heller types had not been recognized, so Tiehm looked for them in the general herbarium and found and annotated 52 specimens.

Staff Honors

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

In February 2001, Elizabeth Zimmer was inducted as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for contributions to development of ribosomal genes as markers for plant phylogenetic studies and for molecular studies addressing the origins of flowering plants.

            Schismatoglottis nicolsonii A. Hay, Telopea 9: 95 (2000) was recently named for Dan Nicolson, collector of the type specimen and “mentor of contemporary Malesian arologists.”  The type was collected at Bako National Park in Sarawak in August, 1961 while Nicolson was doing field work on the genus Aglaonema  for his doctoral thesis.  The species is one of numerous herbaceous aroids growing in deep shade, often with variegated leaves.

Taxonomy and Science Friction

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

By Robert DeFilipps 

Edward O. Wilson speaks about "The Future of Life" at the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium. (Photo by Leslie Brothers)

            Once you start assuming that the disciplines of “Taxonomy” and ”Cladistics” are in a state of peaceful coexistence, you will probably encounter their fusion product, the gremlins of “Science Friction.” They exhibit a certain amount of hybrid vigor. Gremlin Number 1 might ask herbarium curators to consolidate, and then re-file alphabetically by genus, all their specimens of Cactaceae and Portulacaceae into a single family, in keeping with precepts of current evolutionary thought. Gremlin Number 2 might seek out individuals obsessed with plant identification, and suggest the prospect of finding uninomial clade names on annotation labels. A recent symposium in Washington, D.C. provided botanists and zoologists a major opportunity to dispel mythologies and bring a wide variety of opinions to a forum where the relations of taxonomy and cladistics could be fully explored.

             The first Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, on “Linnaean Taxonomy in the 21^st Century,” was convened at the National Museum of Natural History, 30-31 March 2001. After introductory remarks by Scott Miller, Chairman of the Department of Systematic Biology, the approximately 260 attendees were welcomed by W. John Kress, Head of Botany, who proceeded to award the Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany to Rogers McVaugh. The deeply moved audience rose to a standing ovation for the accomplishments of this senior specialist of Myrtaceae, Rosaceae and the Mexican flora (see related article, page 7).

            It was then time to begin an all-day examination of standard Linnaean taxonomy in the milieu of increasingly pro-active phylogenetic considerations. One of the several Byzantine books on exhibit at the symposium, a 1483 Latin copy of “De Historia Plantarum” by Theophrastus (fl. 400-300 B.C.), served to transport us back to a time when plants were divided into four categories: trees, shrubs, subshrubs and herbs. Theophrastus must have truly believed “less is more.” To provide a historical framework including the 18^th century work of Carl Linnaeus, Dan H. Nicolson (Smithsonian Institution) presented the first paper, entitled “Stone, Plant, or Animal?” Linnaeus inclusively treated the known natural world, and placed “animals” at the apex of a three-level pyramid of existence, with “vegetables” (plants) below animals, and “stones” (Lapidum) at rock bottom. The Swedish sage employed four levels of classification: class, order, genus, species: no families, and his prescient generic description of genus Homo was “You know yourself.” Linnaeus’ utilization of binomial (binary) nomenclature has been retained into modern times, although his curious “Sexual System” was later abandoned. Nicolson urged the audience to remember, for purposes of differentiating taxonomy and systematics, that your name is not the same as who you are.

            Richard K. Brummitt (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew), who is currently involved with the Species Plantarum Project, presented “How to Chop Up a Tree,” which accorded a major role to paraphyletic taxa in the conduct of modern taxonomy. He ventured support for opinions that taxonomic systems and evolutionary schemes are separate and incompatible; that every taxon makes another taxon paraphyletic; and that cladistics is a “counterintuitive” exercise in “futile mental gymnastics” while “the pursuit of monophyly has become an obsession.” Brummitt’s final plea was for taxonomists to avoid hopelessly confusing taxonomy (classification) with evolutionary phylogenetic schemes.

McVaugh Receives First Cuatrecasas Medal

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

Rogers McVaugh, center, receives the Jose Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany from John Kress, left, and Laurence Dorr at the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium. (Photo by Leslie Brothers)

José Cuatrecasas was a pioneering botanist and taxonomist who spent nearly a half-century working in the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian Institution. His research, especially in the flowering plant family Asteraceae, was devoted to the classification, biogeography, exploration, and ecology of plants of the paramo and subparamo regions of Andean South America. Out of enduring respect and admiration, the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) has established the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany. This medal is presented annually to a botanist and scholar of international stature who has contributed significantly to advancing the field of tropical botany. The award will serve to keep vibrant the accomplishments and memory of this outstanding scientist.

The recipient of the Cuatrecasas Medal is selected by a committee made up of staff botanists at NMNH, in consultation with other local plant scientists in the Washington area. This year the committee was composed of Larry Dorr (Chair), Pedro Acevedo, Alan Wittemore, and Pat Herendeen. Nominations for the medal are accepted from all scientists in Botany at NMNH. The award consists of a bronze medal bearing an image of Cuatrecasas on the front with the recipient’s name and date of presentation on the back.

In reviewing nominations for the inaugural recipient of the medal, the selection committee was confronted by a long list of candidates. However, one esteemed botanist quickly rose to the top of the list: Rogers McVaugh.

McVaugh has made many important contributions to tropical botany over his long and distinguished career. He was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1909 and was trained at Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania earning his Ph.D. there in 1935. He has taught at the Universities of Georgia and Michigan as well as worked as a botanist for the Division of Plant Exploration and Introduction at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He is currently enjoying an active and full retirement in the herbarium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has received both the Asa Gray Award from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists and the Henry Allan Gleason Award from the New York Botanical Garden.

With over 200 publications in botany, his breadth of taxonomic expertise is enviable. Although his publications on temperate zone taxa are extensive, McVaugh is being honoured for his work in the tropics. His monographic work in the Lobeliaceae and the taxonomically-difficult Myrtaceae, his contributions to various tropical floras in Panama, Guatemala, and the Guyana Highlands and particularly his ambitious and highly-regarded floristic work in Mexico, especially the Flora Novo-Galiciana, the exhaustive untangling of the taxonomic muddle created by the Sessé and Mociño Expedition to Mexico from 1787-1803, and biographies of various botanists, are among the many contributions that led the committee to the inescapable conclusion that McVaugh is the scientist most deserving of being the inaugural recipient of the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany.

McVaugh is considered the taxonomists’ taxonomist and is applauded for the inspiration that he has provided all botanists in the exploration for tropical plants around the world.

The Conservation Column

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

Centres of Plant Diversity: A Guide and Strategy for Their Conservation—Volume 3: The Americas, published in 1997 by WWF and IUCN, has been recreated into a user-friendly website, available at http://www.nmnh.si.edu/botany/projects/cpd/. The book and website were prepared under the coordination of the Department. The website is part of a three-volume work that contains accounts of nearly 250 major sites for conservation of plant diversity worldwide. Volume 3 deals with the Americas, and contains six sites in North America, 20 in Middle America, 46 in South America, and three in the Caribbean. The web version of the printed volume contains all the same material, including tables, figures and additional pictures.

The rationale for the project is the international concern about the rapid global loss and degradation of natural ecosystems and the urgent need to highlight areas of pristine botanical importance, with the hope that these will receive adequate levels of resources to ensure their protection. The 75 sites have been selected partly on the basis of floristic studies, but especially with reference to the detailed knowledge of over 100 botanists familiar with this region. Each site is set within a regional context, outlining wider patterns of plant distributions, threats and conservation efforts. Regional overviews include very useful tables giving information on species richness and endemism, floristic diversity and endemism by region, degree of threat, and an analysis of the conservation status of the sites.

This work is essential reading for all those concerned with planning land use strategies for conservation and appropriate development. It is hoped that this global assessment will be followed by further assessments at the local level, so that the vital tasks of conservation of plant diversity can be well integrated in detail into national and regional conservation and development strategies.

New Faces

From Plant Press, Vol. 4, No. 2 from April 2001.

Mary Ann Apicelli is the new secretary to the Head of Botany. Previously, she worked as an office manager and medical assistant for a private medical practice for nine years in Woodbridge, Virginia. Prior to that she held an administration position with the federal government for ten years at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia.