The Plant Press

Notes from the Plant Mounting Room: Lima Beans

From Plant Press Vol. 17 no. 2, April 2014.

I have been here over a year now and it is thrilling to see the plant mounting program continue to grow and contribute to the permanent collection of the U.S. National Herbarium. It was a long winter with many snow days, but the plant mounting crew forged on and prepared some 1,876 specimens for the collection. We also have a number of additions to the plant mounting crew this year. Our new volunteers are Sara Ulfhielm Rekic, Ardith Harle, Pat Zangrillo, and Kenneth Fitzpatrick.

US 3669621 is a recently mounted specimen of Phaseolus lunatus var. limenanus (Fabaceae), collected from São Paulo, Brazil, in 1935

We have been working hard on mounting curator material, plus some interesting material from our legacy collections. Due to Andrew Clark’s hard work on helping the Department obtain Material Transfer Agreements with various Brazilian institutions , we have been able to accession more material from Brazil and are working on getting it mounted for the permanent collection. We have stressed how important these agreements are, and being able to add this material to the collection is demonstrated in the following example. The featured specimen here is a specimen of Fabaceae that one of our new curators Ashley Egan studies. Egan put together the following story:

Lima Beans! These two simple words are usually followed by a silent or audible ‘ew!’ – at least by kids. It seems that most children universally hate lima beans – how and where such loathing originated is – I believe – impossible to trace. And yet, it is portrayed in the literature again and again. Perhaps all kids have read the book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” in which poor Alexander experiences a number of trying things, only to be served lima beans for dinner. Or maybe kids just can’t overcome the image of “The Lima Bean Monster” conjured by Sammy’s repeated attempts to slyly rid his dinner plate of the endless lima beans put there by his mother for dinner day in and day out. And yet, it was only after Camilla Cream admits her love of lima beans that she is cured of her colorful illness brought on by conformity and peer pressure in “A Bad Case of Stripes.”

China Expedition 2013: A Tale of Typhoon-Tossed Kudzu

From Plant Press Vol. 17 no. 2, April 2014.

By Ashley N. Egan

Plants can eat things – large things! Well – figuratively anyway. One of the hungriest plants in the United States is kudzu (Pueraria montana (Lour.) Merr. var. lobata (Willd.) Maesen & Almeida), a large leguminous vine that can grow up to 60 feet in a growing season, and is often seen engulfing whole structures and damaging forest margins. I first became interested in kudzu while working as a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University studying the phylogenetics and systematics of Phaseoloid legumes, a group of nearly 2,000 species mostly comprised of vines. During a phylogenetic investigation of subtribe Glycininae, we confirmed massive polyphyly within Pueraria. It was then that I determined to study the genus.

Kudzu was introduced into the United States in the late 1800s and touted by the U.S. government as an excellent forage crop and soil erosion solution. However, after escaping cultivation, efforts soon turned from advocacy to eradication, but with little success. Even today, kudzu continues to make headway across the American landscape, now occupying more than 15,000 square miles, costing the U.S. government hundreds of millions of dollars annually in control measures.

This invasive species, along with 20 or so congeners, is native to Southeast Asia where it grows from sea level to around 2000 m in elevation in temperate and (sub)tropical climes. To investigate the introduction history and genetic diversity of kudzu in the U.S. as compared to native ranges, and to decipher the extent of polyphyly in the genus, I set out on my second Asian expedition to collect Pueraria.

On 1 September 2013, just two weeks after starting as an Assistant Curator at the Smithsonian Institution, I and my Ph.D. student, Matthew Hansen, flew to Beijing, China – the first stop on a three month expedition that would cover three countries. In Beijing, we met up with Liu Luxian, a first-year Ph.D. student from Zhejiang University studying in Chengxian Fu’s lab. After two days of preparations, we boarded a train towards Anshan, Liaoning Province, one of the most industrial cities of China, at the northern edge of kudzu’s native range. There, we collected our first kudzu population of the season in the Qianshan Mountains. After returning to Beijing by train and preparing our specimens for travel, we flew to Xi’an, Shaanxi province for the second leg of the expedition.

Native Orchids Need Their Pollinators

From Plant Press Vol. 17 no. 2, April 2014.

The week of June 16-22 has been designated as Pollinator Week to mark a necessary step toward addressing the urgent issue of declining pollinator and plant populations. Each year the Pollinator Partnership, along with a wide range of partners (including federal agencies, non-profits, and for-profits), design and distribute an educational pollinator poster to promote Pollinator Week. The posters are one of the most popular outreach material items offered. The Pollinator Partnership is the largest non-profit organization in the world dedicated to the protection and promotion of pollinators and their ecosystems. It manages the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC), a consortium of more than 120 affiliated organizations, working to implement, promote and support a clear, continent-wide coordinated action plan to coordinate projects in the areas of pollinator research, education and awareness, conservation and restoration. The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) has been a partner of NAPPC since its inception in 1999, and NMNH conservation biologist Gary Krupnick serves on the NAPPC Steering Committee.

This year NAPPC has teamed up with the North American Orchid Conservation Center (NAOCC) to promote Pollinator Week. The 2014 Pollinator Week poster features illustrations of seven native orchid-pollinator interactions with the theme “Native Orchids Need Their Pollinators.” Included among the illustrations is a mosquito, Aedes communis, pollinating the blunt-leaved orchid, Platanthera obtusata, a wildflower found in wet forests, sphagnum bogs and true tundra of Alaska, Canada, and New England. Krupnick, co-chair of the NAPPC orchid-pollinator Task Force, led the scientific advisory team in overseeing the production and scientific content of the poster.

Posters are available to order for free (except for shipping and handling) on the Pollinator Partnership website, http://pollinator.org/posters.htm. The website also has a downloadable PDF of the poster. Posters are for educational purposes only and are not intended for resale. The website also features information about the important role of pollinators and the dangers they face. Further information on the orchid species represented in the poster can be found on NAOCC’s Go Orchids website, a tool to explore orchids native to the U.S. and Canada.

NMNH and other members of NAPPC will also be hosting events at their institutions to mark Pollinator Week. NMNH will feature a variety of public programs including lectures and family friendly activities that will focus on orchids and their pollinators during the week of June 16. Be sure to check the museum’s calendar of events for the latest information.

Progress is made in Agreements to Transfer Material between Smithsonian and Brazil

From Plant Press Vol. 17 no. 2, April 2014.

Of all the issues encountered on a daily basis over the past decade while attempting to expand and refine the collection at the National Museum of Natural History, one issue stands out for its complexity: How does a museum establish legal title to the genetic material housed within its own collections or collections the institution wishes to acquire? The issue of legal title and commercial property rights has entered the very cutting edge of collections management, and the growing pains are significant. According to the Smithsonian Institution’s policy on museum acquisitions, the licit quality of an accession should be as complete as possible and should be a matter of public record. Objects with incomplete provenance should not be acquired. The guidance is very clear—either the institution owns the object clearly and without encumbrance or it does not.

After years of watching their natural wealth benefit others, many developing nations have become more proactive in establishing a legal framework by which they can protect their diverse biological patrimony. Many of these countries contain some of the world’s most naturally diverse areas on the planet, and as a result are a hotbed of research and potential exploitation.

Identifying the Grasses of Washington, D.C.

From Plant Press Vol. 17 no. 2, April 2014.

Kamal M. Ibrahim and Paul M. Peterson have recently authored “Grasses of Washington, D.C.” (Smithsonian Contributions to Botany 99: 1-128. 2014). This new publication was written for anyone who has an interest in learning the names of local grasses, and includes a vegetative key, glossary of terms, descriptions, and illustrations for the identification of 182 native and naturalized grasses that are known to occur in the District of Columbia.

The grass family includes more than 12,000 species worldwide and is a ubiquitous feature of many ecosystems. The most accurate way to identify grasses is to use floral characteristics; however, it is often necessary to identify grasses without mature plants or only portions of those plants without complete spikelets. Under such conditions conventional botanical manuals offer little assistance. Moreover, identification using floral characteristics requires special training in grass taxonomy that is not available to most agronomists, technical field staff, and interested amateurs.

Floras offer a snapshot of the current knowledge about plants from a particular region. The last major work for grasses for the Washington area was completed by Albert Spear Hitchcock and Paul C. Standley in the Flora of the District of Columbia and Vicinity (Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 21: 1-329 & 42 plates.1919). Recently, the topic of plant conservation has gained acceptance by the public to preserve biodiversity since a ‘morphological form’ or species has an intrinsic value based on ethical, moral, ecological, and economic grounds. Ultimately, the preservation of a suitable habitat is paramount to preserving a species. Most of the grasses in this new flora occur in and among the least disturbed habitats left in DC, primarily along the Potomac and Anacostia drainages and their tributaries. The easy to use keys coupled with illustrations of all the grasses allows an uncomplicated way for amateurs and trained biologists alike to perform a basic science inventory.

American Botanicals: Mid-Atlantic Native Plants

From Plant Press Vol. 17 no. 2, April 2014.

Alice Tangerini is one of 41 artists with her work on display as part of the exhibit, “American Botanicals: Mid-Atlantic Native Plants” at the U.S. Botanic Gardens from February 15 through June 15, 2014. As a member of Botanical Artists for Education and the Environment she submitted two works, Dirca palustris and Yucca filamentosa as a contribution to the book produced to accompany the exhibit. The book features 60 original works of juried art from 41 artists, including text describing each plant and how each plant and insect is beneficial to gardeners and the environment. Proceeds from the sale of the book will go to non-profit organizations working on native plant education, conservation and horticulture.

 

Bean Sprout Interns Bloom at National Conferences

From Plant Press Vol. 17 no. 2, April 2014.

Over the past year University of the District of Columbia student interns, Christopher Wellman and Samira Khan, have been conducting research on legume systematics with Department of Botany Research Associate, Karen Redden. These students are part of the NSF-HBCU-UP (Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program) funded STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Center for Research and Development. The UDC STEM Center is designed to enhance the quality of undergraduate STEM education and research at UDC, and serves as a means to broaden participation in the nation’s STEM workforce.

Research Associate Karen Redden (center) with student interns Christopher Wellman and Samira Khan.

Using the botanical collections and the molecular facilities at both UDC and the Laboratories of Analytical Biology at the National Museum of Natural History, Wellman and Khan used morphological and molecular characters to better understand the evolutionary relationships of two genera within Leguminosae subfamily Caesalpinioideae. Using a phylogenetic approach, Khan has been exploring the floral morphology of the diverse genus Eperua while Wellman has been investigating the diversity and distribution of Dicymbe.

Both interns presented their results at two national conferences: Emerging Researchers National Conference in STEM in Washington, DC, and the National Institution of Science/Beta Kappa Chi Honor Society Annual meeting in Houston, Texas. Both students received travel awards to the two meetings and Khan placed second in the Biological Sciences oral presentation section at the Houston conference. Khan is a graduating senior and will continue her research at the graduate level. Wellman is a junior and will be continuing his research at UDC and the Smithsonian this summer and the next academic year.