The Plant Press

Art by Alice Tangerini: Schiedea adamantis H. St. John

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 3, July 2013

In 1993 Alice Tangerini traveled to University of California at Irvine to illustrate species of Schiedea from living material for a monograph of the genus authored by Warren Wagner, Stephen Weller and Ann Sakai (Systematic Botany Monographs 72: 1-169; 2005). The Sakai/Weller lab is interested in the evolution of breeding systems in the Hawaiian endemic Schiedea (Caryophyllaceae), and they were growing several species in the UC Irvine research greenhouses. A few species were in stages of flowering during the month of September when Tangerini arrived. Schiedea adamantis, a critically endangered plant endemic to Diamond Head, Oahu, was one of the species that she drew. The trick was to capture the moment when the stamens had extended but not gone beyond anthesis. This could take place within an hour or less, so Weller monitored the blooming time and brought the potted plants from the greenhouses to Tangerini to draw in the lab. Her sketches from this trip resulted in 34 finished drawings of Schiedea.

The Ornaments of Life

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 3, July 2013

The average kilometer of tropical rainforest is teeming with life; it contains thousands of species of plants and animals. As ‘The Ornaments of Life: Coevolution and Conservation in the Tropics’ (Fleming and Kress 2013) reveals, many of the most colorful and eye-catching rainforest inhabitants—toucans, monkeys, leaf-nosed bats, and hummingbirds to name a few—are an important component of the infrastructure that supports life in the forest. These fruit-and-nectar eating birds and mammals pollinate the flowers and disperse the seeds of hundreds of tropical plants, and unlike temperate communities, much of this greenery relies exclusively on animals for reproduction.

Synthesizing recent research by ecologists and evolutionary biologists, Theodore H. Fleming and W. John Kress demonstrate the tremendous functional and evolutionary importance of these tropical pollinators and frugivores. They shed light on how these mutually symbiotic relationships evolved and lay out the current conservation status of these essential species. In order to illustrate the striking beauty of these “ornaments” of the rainforest, the authors have included a series of breathtaking color plates and full-color graphs and diagrams.

Wait, is that the Original?

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 3, July 2013
Reprinted from Biodiversity Heritage Library

By Adriana Marroquin and Robin Everly, Smithsonian Libraries

Recently, the librarians at the Smithsonian Libraries’ Botany-Horticulture Library uncovered a “mini-mystery” involving one of our titles. It started when Alice Tangerini, botanical illustrator in the Smithsonian’s Department of Botany, got a call from a colleague asking why a work on the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) website was appearing with black and white illustrations rather than the beautiful color originals. James Bryant, Curator of Natural History at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum and manager of the Clark Herbarium, was curating an exhibit on botanical illustration, where several of the original paintings by Mary Eaton are on display. He wondered if the Eaton paintings had been reproduced in color for the publication, instead of the black and white illustrations he found online.

Opuntia atrispina, Opuntia phaeacantha, and Opuntia engelmannii, from Vol. 1.
Color image from BHL. Black and White image in Internet Archive

Notes from the Plant Mounting Room

From Plant Press Vol. 16 no. 3, July 2013

By Melinda Peters

Specimen US 3487444 is a bromeliad collected by botanical artist Margaret Mee

The Plant Mounting Program at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History continues to flourish as we enter the summer months. With some volunteers away for summer fun, we are still meeting the needs of the Botany Department with regards to newly acquired material and material from the backlog. During this quarter, staff, volunteers and contractors have mounted some 3,500 specimens for the permanent collection.

We have recently hosted Terrie Chan, a volunteer in Paleobotany, who is working on preparing Ginkgo specimens for Conrad Labandeira and Jorge Santiago-Blay for their study of herbivory on Ginkgo through time. She has enjoyed the project so much that she will be joining our Plant Mounting Program as a new volunteer. We are also helping to train some volunteers who will be charged with working on botanical specimens for the museum’s education center, entitled Q?RIUS, slated to open later this year.

We have had many new acquisitions so far this year. We have received approximately 3,000 specimens as exchange, 1,240 as gifts, and 280 as gifts for identification.

Learn about three noteworthy newly mounted acquisitions below the fold...