The Plant Press

New Herbarium Cases: Protecting the Collections for Future Generations

From Plant Press, Vol. 17, No. 4, October 2014.

By Meghann Toner

The Labor Force team of the National Museum of Natural History moves the new herbarium cases into position. (photo by Ken Wurdack)

The first line of defense in protecting the U.S. National Herbarium collections from the agents of deterioration is the cases that house them. In the past, these cases were handmade in the Smithsonian craft shops from wood and glass. In the 1940s these cases cost $29.00 to create. Today metal cases cost considerably more. The wood and glass half cases first used in the Smithsonian Castle were transferred to the Natural History Building in 1965. In 1968, metal cases were purchased to replace the wooden cases a little at a time. As conservation technologies have improved, so has the housing around our collections.

Over the decades a greater percentage of our wooden cases have been replaced. This massive effort to replace all the wooden cabinets has required funds that have ebbed and flowed over the years. This year, with the generous help of the Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF), we are able to purchase 160 new herbarium cases from Viking Metal Cabinet Company. These new cases will replace 138 wooden cases.

As a result of this new configuration, there will be additional space. For every new metal case, we gain at least two pigeon holes of space. We will be gaining 848 pigeon holes or 32 cases. Unfortunately, this also means the loss of counter space which is partially offset by the fact that each new case has two pull out shelves.

All these cases are planned to be delivered during the fall of 2014. The tasks of installation of cases will require the assistance of, not only the Botany Department’s staff, but also the Museum’s craft shops and labor force. This will be a team effort and one that will make it possible to improve and protect our collections into the future.

Linder Receives Cuatrecasas Medal

From Plant Press, Vol. 17, No. 4, October 2014.

At an October 2014 seminar, H. Peter Linder from the University of Zurich was presented with the 2014 José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany. The Cuatrecasas Medal is typically given during the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, but Linder was unable to attend the Symposium in April 2014. At his October seminar he spoke about “The Evolution of African Plant Diversity.” In receiving the award, Linder was recognized for his valuable contributions to identifying biogeographical patterns in the Southern Hemisphere and especially in Africa.

Honors & Awards

From Plant Press, Vol. 17, No. 4, October 2014.

In 1963, the Council of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (earlier known as ATB) established the election of Honorary Fellows as “persons of long distinguished service to tropical biology.” This is the highest award given by the Association. To date more than 80 Honorary Fellows from over 15 countries have been elected by the Council. In July 2014, at the ATBC annual meeting in Cairns, Australia, W. John Kress received the ATBC Honorary Fellows Award for his past contributions to the Association.

Alain Touwaide and Emanuela Appetiti were awarded the “Golden Fleece of Medicine” for their contribution to the History of Medicine, conferred during the closing ceremony of the 44^th Congress of the International Society for the History of Medicine, in Tbilisi, Georgia, on September 14, 2014.

Departures

From Plant Press, Vol. 17, No. 4, October 2014.

In October, Andrew Clark, a member of the Core Collections Management team, left the Department to take a new job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. A member of the CCM team since 2008, Clark’s responsibilities included all aspects of collection management, with his primary responsibilities being Loan Officer for the Department. Clark was instrumental in negotiating and establishing Museum Transfer Agreements (MTA) between the Smithsonian Institution and over 40 Brazilian institutions. This allowed the processing and acquisition of roughly a decade’s worth of exchange and gifts sent to the Department of Botany that had been suspended due to the lack of an MTA. Other accomplishments included working closely with the Seeds of Success program under the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). A protocol was constructed for the collection, pressing, labeling, and shipping of vouchers by various BLM outposts so that all collections are made in a standardized manner and arrive at the herbarium safely and well documented.

New Faces

From Plant Press, Vol. 17, No. 4, October 2014.

Amanda Grusz joined the Botany Department as a postdoctoral fellow in May 2014, working with Eric Schuettpelz. Grusz received her undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and she recently completed her Ph.D. in Biology and Genetics at Duke University. Her dissertation research focused on the evolution and systematics of the desert-adapted fern genus Myriopteris (Pteridaceae). Specifically, she explored how hybridization, polyploidy, and apomixis influence the evolution and diversification of this ecologically extreme lineage. Following the completion of her degree, Grusz coordinated the 2014 Tropical Plant Systematics Course offered by the Organization for Tropical Studies (San Jose, Costa Rica), alongside Mauricio Bonifacino (previously of the NMNH Botany Department). Now, as a Smithsonian postdoctoral fellow, Grusz is working to develop phylogenomic resources with which to explore the evolution of extreme rates of molecular substitution exhibited by the vittariod ferns, a lineage of tropical epiphytes in the Pteridaceae.

Kuang-chi Hung, a Smithsonian Fellow in the History of Science and Technology, was in Washington through August 2014. He was exploring the role that the Smithsonian Institution played in advancing research in biogeography and allied fields (e.g., paleontology and archaeology) in Asia during the first half of the 20^th century. Although much of his research was in the Smithsonian Institution Archives and the Freer and Sackler Gallery Archives, he was no stranger to the Department of Botany. Hung recently received his Ph.D. from Harvard University with a thesis entitled “Finding Patterns in Nature: Asa Gray's Plant Geography and Collecting Networks (1830s-1860s).” Janet Browne in the Department of the History of Science was his major advisor. Laurence J. Dorr (Botany) and Pamela Henson (Smithsonian Institution Archives) served as Hung’s hosts. He has since taken a professorship in Taiwan.

Sonja Walch, currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Contemporary History, University of Vienna, Austria was awarded a Smithsonian fellowship from the History of Science and Technology pool and is in residence in Washington from August through November 2014. She is interested in the history of post WWII botany (and science) in the Pacific and the interactions of American and exiled European botanists whose careers intersected in the Philippines. She will continue to research the activities of the Austrian botanist Mona Lisa Steiner who lived in the Philippines in exile from 1938 onward and Steiner’s interactions with the late F. Raymond Fosberg among others. Laurence J. Dorr (Botany) and Pamela Henson (Smithsonian Institution Archives) are Walch’s hosts.

2015 Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, 1-5 June, to Explore Lycophyte and Fern Research

From Plant Press, Vol. 17, No. 4, October 2014.

UPDATE: Registration is now open.

The United States Botanic Garden and the Smithsonian Institution Department of Botany will convene the 13^th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, “Next Generation Pteridology: An International Conference on Lycophyte & Fern Research,” to be held at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., on 1-5 June 2015. This meeting will also mark the 12^th Symposium of the International Organization of Plant Biosystematists.

The past decade has seen remarkable advances in our understanding of fern and lycophyte biology. New sources of data have emerged and novel methods for analyzing these data are being developed. At the same time, many traditional approaches have been revitalized as their unique and specific contributions are more fully realized. With a recent influx of students and early career researchers, the international pteridological community continues to grow. Through more widespread and far-reaching collaborations, the pace of scientific discovery is accelerating, new parts of the globe are being included, and the conservation of these important species in a rapidly changing world is being investigated. This conference aims to bring together the world's pteridologists to celebrate the progress to date and to forecast developments still on the horizon.

The conference will feature an opening symposium on 1 June, plus three additional days of focused scientific talks, workshops, a poster session, a reception, and a conference dinner. A local field trip is also being organized.

Global Plants, New Beginnings

From Plant Press, Vol. 17, No. 4, October 2014.

In September 2014, Sylvia Orli and Rusty Russell attended the 7^th annual meeting of the Global Plants Initiative (GPI) in Panama City, Panama. GPI is an international partnership of more than 330 herbaria in 75 countries with the goal to digitize, unite, and provide access to type specimens of plants, fungi, and algae. These specimens are available through JSTOR Global Plants, and as of September 2014, 2 million digital objects can be found in the Global Plants Database, by far the largest online repository of biological type specimen data. In addition to over 110,000 type specimens, the U.S. National Herbarium has provided micro-imaging of the lichen type specimens and an inventory of the type fragment collection. We have also provided almost 25,000 images of specimens collected on various 19^th century expeditions to the western United States.

Some of the topics discussed at the conference included addressing the data gaps in the Global Plants database, minimizing errors in the metadata, and recruiting new herbaria to the GPI. In addition, suggestions for improvements or additional functionality for the JSTOR Global Plants website and database were discussed. Partnerships, priorities and communication strategy discussions for the GPI were particularly important as 2014 was the end of funding from the Mellon Foundation. The U.S. National Herbarium will continue to provide additions and updates to the type data in Global Plants as part of the important global effort to aggregate type materials and make them accessible through one online portal.