The Plant Press

Curating the Collections of José Cuatrecasas Arumí (1903-1996)

From Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 1 from January 2006.

By Vicki A. Funk

 A new project spearheaded by Vicki Funk has begun to make available in herbaria and through hard copy publication (and eventually documents on the web), the specimens, photographs and notebooks of José Cuatrecasas A. The goal of this specific sub-project is to curate 75 percent of the remaining specimens of the Cuatrecasas collections and to complete work on organizing the photographic slides. Cuatrecasas, a prolific collector and world renowned scientist, died in 1996 and although some progress has been made, three-fourths of his material remains to be processed. Many of the collections and slides of Cuatrecasas are central to ongoing research projects in Colombia and are greatly needed by researchers. Because of funding constraints this project must be done in stages.

Jose Cuatrecasas in Spain in 1923.

The career of Cuatrecasas extends from his birth, 19 March 1903, in Campodrón (Gerona), Spain, through his studies in Barcelona and Madrid (1924-1931), graduate work in Berlin (1930-31) where he knew Adolph Engler, time at the Jardin Botánico de Madrid (1933- 39), the years in Colombia (1939-47) and in Chicago (1947-1955) to his years in Washington at the Smithsonian Institution (1955-1996). In 1939 he was on a trip to South America and if he had not been warned about the Spanish Civil War, before returning to Spain, his botanical career might have ended almost 60 years earlier. Cuatrecasas never returned to Spain until after the death of Francisco Franco. Since the death of Cuatrecasas, the Herbario Nacional Colombiano (COL) in Bogotá, located at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, has been named in his honor, and the library from his home has been reconstructed and is on display at the Institut Botánic de Barcelona (BC) in Spain.

The Return of the Titan

From Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 1 from January 2006. 

The glorious Amorphophallus titanum at maximum opening on 20 November, 2005 (Photo by G. Sword, US Botanic Garden)

A big, rare, stinky event has happened—again! The gigantic plant, Amorphophallus titanum (commonly known as “titan arum”), part of the living research collection of the Department, was put on display in full flower at the U.S. Botanic Garden (USBG) Conservatory, the Department’s “Botanical Partner on the Mall.” On the morning of 8 November, the plant was brought from the Smithsonian Botany Research Greenhouses in Suitland, Maryland, to the USBG Conservatory, where it was provided with the optimal environment for growth (very warm, bright, and humid). The titan arum began its opening the evening of 19 November and slowly began to close 21 November. The spadix collapsed on 26 November. Raised from seed by Michael Bordelon, Manager of Living Collections in the Department, this was the first time that this particular plant had bloomed. Pollen collected from the 2003 flowering specimen (USBG) was used to pollinate the plant. Pollination was successful and seeds are now developing. Pollen was also collected and preserved by Dan Nicolson.

“This plant is a true wonder of nature,” said W. John Kress, who was interviewed by several media outlets. “The flower is a feast for the plant lover’s eye and will delight the olfactory senses when in full bloom.” Kress continued, “The plant is extremely rare and has only been seen by a few botanists in its native Sumatra. However, the titan arum is a spectacular example of the evolutionary diversity of complex organisms in the tropics. Investigations of such species can help us understand the processes that have shaped biodiversity on the Earth. And like many species on the planet, we must preserve the titan arum’s rain forest habitats if it is to survive.”

Titan arum fruit on 17 January 2006 (photo by G. Sword, US Botanic Garden)

The renown of the titan arum comes from its great size – it is reputed to have the largest known un-branched inflorescence. The plant is native only to the tropical rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. Since the first recorded bloom in the United States in 1937, titan arums have been exhibited in this country on just a few occasions. Many will recall that a titan arum owned by the USBG bloomed, for its second time, while on display at the Conservatory in July 2003, generating an enormous response of about 10,000 visitors on the peak day. As small seedlings, the USBG plant and the Smithsonian titan arum were given to the two institutions in October 1993 by Maryland arum enthusiasts Craig and Fanny Phillips. The Phillipses had grown the plants from seed collected in 1991 by California physician James R. Symon, now deceased, who had searched for the titan arum during several journeys to Sumatra. (Symon later traveled in Sumatra with Sir David Attenborough in 1993, to find the plant for the filming of the BBC production The Private Life of Plants.)

The titan arum emerges from, and stores energy in, a huge underground stem called a “corm.” The plant blooms on an unpredictable schedule, when sufficient energy is accumulated, usually after several years. The developing inflorescence initially appears as a pale green, bud-shaped structure composed of a spathe enclosing a central spike-like spadix. At first hidden inside the spathe, the spadix is revealed as the entire structure swells. At full bloom, the spathe is fully unfurled to reveal a crimson interior. The ultimate height of the spadix depends on the energy accumulated in the corm, and the speed of the development depends on day and night temperatures. The average recorded height of an inflorescence is about 5 feet, and the largest one in cultivation was 9 feet, 7 inches. In their natural habitat, titan arums can grow up to 12-feet tall. The maximum height of the Smithsonian’s titan arum was 52.50 inches (4 feet, 4.5 inches); its corm weighs over 100 pounds. At full bloom the inflorescence is well-known for smelling like rotting meat, hence it has another common name, “corpse flower.” The odor is released in pulses and attracts carrion beetles and other pollinators in the plant’s native Sumatra. 

Amorphophallus titanum fruit (photo by G. Sword, US Botanic Garden)

 

 

Global Partnership for Plant Conservation

From Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 1 from January 2006.

The Global Partnership for Plant Conservation (GPPC), established to support the worldwide implementation of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), held its first conference “Plants 2010” at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin from 22 - 25 October. Cristián Samper presented the keynote address, “The Challenge of Implementing the GSPC a National and Regional Levels.” The GPPC is composed of 20 member organizations, including the National Museum of Natural History. W. John Kress and Gary Krupnick represented the Department at the meeting.

The Global Strategy was adopted by the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in April 2002, with the long-term objective of halting the current and continuing loss of plant diversity. The most innovative element of the Strategy is the inclusion of 16 broad outcome-oriented targets, aimed at achieving a series of measurable goals by 2010. After the GPPC conference, Kress and Krupnick attended the Plant Talk editorial board meeting at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in London, UK. The Department is a sponsoring partner of Plant Talk, a magazine that provides information, encouragement, and advice on global plant conservation, supporting the GSPC by addressing Target 14, which covers the promotion of education and public awareness about plant diversity.

Kress was recently appointed to the Plant Conservation Committee of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. The Committee consists of botanical experts from around the world that work together to provide a plan for conserving plants and their habitats. In particular, the Committee will address the completion of the conservation assessment of all species of vascular plants as well as in situ conservation measures. One outcome of the meeting is that Kress and Krupnick will work in partnership with IUCN and other key botanical institutions around the world (e.g., Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Missouri Botanical Garden) on Target 2 of the GSPC, which is to assign preliminary global level assessments of the conservation status of all known plant species by 2010.

Botanist Taps Rubber Relations

From Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 1 from January 2006.

By Gary Krupnick

Three generations of euphorbiologists: Kenneth J. Wurdack (right) with Grady Webster (center) and Gordon McPherson. Taken 6 October 2005 at the Monsanto Center, Missouri Botanical Garden three weeks before Webster passed away. (photo by Zach Rogers)

In September 2005, Kenneth J. Wurdack joined the Department as Research Scientist and Assistant Curator of Botany. As the second new curator hired in 13 years, he joins the Department just a month after Jun Wen (see Plant Press, vol. 8, no. 4; 2005). His research interest is mainly the systematics and evolution of the rubber family, Euphorbiaceae, in the broad sense (sensu lato), but also the order Malpighiales (to which euphorbs belong), Thymelaeaceae, horizontal gene transfer, and ant-plant interactions. In what is perhaps the first occurrence in the Department, a curator’s offspring has been hired as a curator. Wurdack is the son of John J. Wurdack (1921-1998), Melastomataceae specialist in the Department for 38 years.

Born locally in Washington, D.C. to two botanists (his mother was a plant physiologist by training), Wurdack was immersed in botany from the beginning but turned to it rather late as a career. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1990. He started graduate work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the lab of Mark W. Chase and received his M.S. in Biology in 1994. After a two-year hiatus and the relocation of Chase to the Jodrell Laboratory at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Wurdack returned to UNC to continue graduate studies under Clifford R. Parks and William Dickison, receiving his Ph.D. in 2002. His doctoral dissertation focused on the molecular systematics and evolution of Euphorbiaceae.

Wurdack has a long history associated with the Department. In addition to roaming the halls when he was a child, he was a formal volunteer from 1985 to 1990. During his final years as a graduate student (2000-2002), he worked as the Laboratory Manager in the Cullman Program for Molecular Systematic Studies at the New YorkBotanical Garden. He then returned to the Smithsonian Institution where he held a postdoctoral fellow position in the Department of Botany and the Laboratories of Analytical Biology for a year, and after that, with support from the National Science Foundation, continued his research at the Smithsonian as a Visiting Scientist and a Research Associate.

A Visit from a Schomburk

From Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 1 from January 2006.

Richard M. Schomburgk

The Schomburgk brothers, M. Richard and Robert H., organized large expeditions into the hinderlands of Guyana from 1835‑1843. Their botanical collections are one of the most important contributions to the exploration of the Neotropics. After Guyana, Richard Schomburgk moved to Australia and became the Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens (1865‑1891). This October, while in Guyana, Carol Kelloff met a group of Australian’s retracing the footsteps of the Schomburgk brothers in the southern Rupununi area. One member of the expedition was Ian Schomburgk (age 72), the great-grandson of M. Richard Schomburgk. Since he was passing through Washington, D.C., on his return trip, Kelloff invited Ian Schomburgk to visit the Department. Schomburgk met and spoke with Vicki Funk, Laurence Dorr, Dan Nicolson, Pedro Acevedo, Mark Strong, and John Clark.

Richard Schomburgk's great-grandson Ian Schomburgk. (Photo by Marjorie Knowles)

 

 

Significant Botany Collections of 2005

From Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 1 from January 2006.

The U.S. National Herbarium acquired more than 13,500 botanical specimens during 2005. Some of the more significant acquisitions are worth noting.

An unfortunate result of administrative shuffling at the University of Nebraska was the immediate availability of large parts of the well established herbarium there – unfortunate because well distributed collections better serve the botanical community and provide more learning opportunities for students. Because tropical collections are an especially important research focus in the U.S. National Herbarium, Vicki Funk made special arrangements to acquire 9,413 plant specimens (lichens, bryophytes, ferns and flowering plants) that had been collected in the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Philippines and China. These collections significantly improve already strong collections from the Philippines and the South Pacific, whiles others provide important resources for new research initiatives in Southeast Asia and China.

 In November, 2001, a momentous work on lichens, The Lichens of North America, was published by Irwin Brodo, and Steve and Sylvia Sharnoff. In support of their work, 1,600 lichen samples were collected across the continent over many years. Last year, this entire collection was donated by the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Ottawa, Canada to the US National Herbarium. These collections form the foundation of their research on every lichen species reported in their publication. As such, these specimens are critical links that allow one to revisit the time, and place, and possible mindset of the authors years from now. Providing historic reference services to researchers is an important function of the U.S. National Herbarium.

An extremely important strategy in the Department’s current collecting plan is to focus on acquiring plant collections through field collecting that significantly impact both the collections and our high quality research projects. One very important program is the Catalogue of New World Grasses, a multi-year effort by Paul Peterson and collaborators to provide a comprehensive list of grass species from the Western Hemisphere. Last year, Peterson traveled to Peru to focus of the grass flora of that highly diverse country, collecting 475 specimens that will provide important data to the Catalogue and contribute to one of the largest and most complete grass collections in the world.

Since 1988, Deborah Bell has been collaborating with the National Cancer Institute (NIH) on a multi-year program to collect and test plant species for cancer-active and AIDS-active compounds in a search for effective treatments using natural products. Thousands of plant species have been collected by NCI contractors and, for each bulk sample, a voucher specimen has been produced to provide physical, unambiguous evidence of the plant species being collected. A single, complete reference collection of all these voucher specimens is currently housed in the USNH. Last year an additional 139 collections were made and provided by Doel Soejarto, a pharmacognosist from the University of Illinois-Chicago collaborating with the Field Museum. These specimens have been integrated into the existing NCI collection of over 25,000 that is managed at MSC by Linda Hollenberg.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Tragia guayanensis

From Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 1 from January 2006.

In addition to Alice Tangerini, other illustrators, such as Cathy Pasquale, are often contracted out to do special projects for the Department. Tragia guayanensis was uncovered among unidentified Euphorbiaceae collections and recognized as undescribed by Kenneth J. Wurdack. Lynn Gillespie (now at the Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa) was studying Tragia and its allies while as a post-doctoral fellow at the US National Herbarium and found this plant was unusual enough to deserve placement in a new monotypic section of Tragia (see Gillespie, Novon 4: 330-338; 1994). Drawing by Cathy Pasquale.

Science on a Roll

From Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 1 from January 2006.

“Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.” So concludes the Memorandum Opinion issued by Judge John E. Jones III on 20 December 2005 in the Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. (Plaintiffs) v. Dover Area School District, et al. (Defendants) court battle over teaching creationism in the schools.

When I changed my major from philosophy to biology as an undergraduate at Harvard, I never expected that thirty years later as Chairman of Botany at the world’s largest natural history museum I would be confronting the same debate that had taken place in my own mind as a student. When I changed majors I decided to pursue a career that would allow me to explore the natural world and the origin of life from a scientific perspective rather than one based on belief and philosophical evaluation. These two approaches to understanding the world were both valid, but separate avenues of inquiry. My time discussing with other philosophy majors questions such as “What is the purpose of life?” and “How do we know?” came to an end. I fled to the biology labs to answer the same questions, but this time using the scientific method to understand evolution. I have continued to this day with that line of inquiry.

Botany's Type Collection

From Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 1 from January 2006.

By Rusty Russell

In the world of plant taxonomy, type specimens are fundamental to understanding the link between a plant species and its published name. They are the physical manifestations of authors’ species concepts and they allow us to revisit the work of earlier scientists as new information or newer technologies become available. The Department has assembled one of the finest collections of type specimens in the world and it has been the subject of many innovative developments over the years.

In 1966, under the stewardship of Mason Hale (deceased) and Stanwyn Shetler (emeritus), a groundbreaking effort was begun to digitally collect all the taxon and collection information from the tens of thousands of type specimens. This careful and methodical enterprise included an effort to confirm the type status of each specimen by checking the published original description of each species name. The result, in 1983, was a fully verified, completely databased collection of 82,500 plant type specimens that became a standard for systematics collections around the world. Each year between 500 and 1000 new type specimens are added to the Type Collection.

A couple of years later, Rusty Russell, initiated the first use of bar codes in any systematics collection. Tracking, reconciliation and accountability was improved as a result and, again, the museum was leading the way among biology collections.

In 2000, Russell outfitted a digital imaging studio in the Department and began to create high resolution digital images of each type specimen. The goal, since realized, was to make these images available on the Internet so that scientists, researchers and students around the globe would have immediate access to these critical resources. Through the support of the a National Science Foundation grant awarded to W. John Kress and colleagues at Columbia University and the University of Maryland to develop an electronic field guide to plants based on the type images, the task was completed in the spring of 2005. About 80,000 scaled-down type images of vascular plants are now available on the Department’s Web site <http://www.nmnh.si.edu/botany>. Additions occur every week as new type specimens are included and older types are returned from loan. One unexpected outcome of this project is that the lending of our type specimens has been reduced by about 80% as more scientists find the answers to their questions online. With reduced handling, the Department is better able to preserve each specimen while continuing to provide a high level of access. The Department can also fulfill requests for the full size digital image, which is now a 62mb TIF file. These large image files become even more critical in the event of any unfortunate specimen loss or damage.

As soon as the imaging project was complete, Russell began to assemble country subsets of the high resolution images so that he could send them directly to the countries in which they were collected. The first sets of type images are being sent to Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines and image sets will be distributed on DVDs to the world’s herbaria and biodiversity centers. 

Island Archipelagos: Cauldrons of Evolution

From Plant Press, Vol. 9, No. 1 from January 2006.

“Artocarpus altilis” from the Society Islands by John Frederick Miller, from Captain James Cook's first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) © The Natural History Museum, London

Island archipelagos have long been recognized as unique biological laboratories by
evolutionary biologists. The classic observations by Charles Darwin on adaptive radiation in
finches were made in the Galápagos archipelago and more recently ecological and evolutionary
investigations in the Hawaiian Islands, Eastern Caribbean, and Azores have increased our
understanding of evolutionary processes and the generation of biological diversity.
Characterized by different degrees of isolation from continental floras and faunas, by equable
maritime climates, and by often reduced biodiversity and trophic structure, islands often
contain unique biotas that experience different selective pressures from those that dominate
mainland ecosystems.

Added to this mix of biological richness are two kinds of storms – physical storms in the
form of hurricanes that regularly pass through the island chains and the “storm” of human
population growth and development. The former storms, along with other types of natural
disturbance such as volcanic activity, have played an important role in the evolution of the
biota. The latter “storm” now threatens the continued existence and ecological integrity of both
terrestrial and marine ecosystems of island archipelagos. The Symposium will explore the role
that island archipelagos have played in our understanding of ecological and evolutionary
processes as well as the future conservation of these unique ecosystems.

The speakers at the Symposium will be Bruce G. Baldwin (University of California at
Berkeley); Javier Francisco-Ortega (Florida International University); Ole Hamann (Botanic
Garden, University of Copenhagen); Mike Maunder (Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden);
Robert Ricklefs (University of Missouri-St. Louis); and Warren Wagner (National Museum of
Natural History).