From Plant Press, Vol. 11, No. 2 from April 2008.
The National Museum of Natural History is going “blue” this year. At the end of September, the museum will open Ocean Hall, a one-of-a-kind interpretive exhibit, extraordinary in scale, presenting the global ocean from a cross-disciplinary perspective, highlighting the biological, geological, and anthropological expertise and unparalleled scientific collections of the museum, as well as ongoing research in marine science.
The Department of Botany has a very rich history in aquatic botany. The first historical cryptogamic collections of the U.S. National Herbarium date back to the U.S. Exploring Expeditions and were initially maintained by curator Mason Hale. In 1965, Elmer Yale Dawson (1918-1966) came to the Smithsonian Institution to accept the newly established position of curator of Cryptogamic Botany. He brought with him thousands of specimens. Dawson’s research specialties included benthic marine algae, especially Rhodophyta of the tropical and subtropical Pacific. Unfortunately, his position was short-lived due to a fatal diving accident in the Red Sea a year and a half into his career at the Smithsonian.