From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.
By Gary A. Krupnick
The 15th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium was held at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and the U.S. Botanic Garden (USBG) on May 19, 2017. The symposium, titled “Exploring the Natural World: Plants, People and Places,” focused on the history of plant expeditions. Over 200 participants gathered to hear stories and learn about what motivated botanical explorers of the Western Hemisphere in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Eight speakers presented talks that took the audience on a trip across the Americas, from Canada in the north to Brazil in the south, and the islands of the Caribbean and the Galápagos.
A day before the talks, several attendees joined behind-the-scenes tours of the Smithsonian Libraries’ Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History at NMNH. For the Symposium guests, the library displayed a wide selection of publications produced by scientific voyages of exploration. From early Renaissance travels (Belon, Tournefort, and others), through the great age of exploration (Cook, Dumont d’Urville, von Humboldt, Darwin, et al.), to the government-sponsored expeditions across the North American West in the mid- and late 1800s, these books are held for study and research. In addition, there were a few examples of “directions for collecting” that reveal how plants were gathered, prepared, preserved, documented, and transported as specimens (living or dried) in centuries past.
The symposium began with Laurence Dorr (Chair of Botany, NMNH) giving opening remarks. Since the lectures were taking place in Baird Auditorium, Dorr took the opportunity to talk about the theater’s namesake, Spencer Baird. A naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, and dedicated collector, Baird was the first curator to be named at the Smithsonian Institution and eventually served as Secretary of the Smithsonian from 1878 to 1887. Among his successes, Baird dramatically expanded the Smithsonian’s natural history collections by obtaining specimens from the many U.S. exploring expeditions.
Kenneth Wurdack (NMNH Botany Curator and Chair of the Cuatrecasas Medal Committee) presented the 15th José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany to Robin Foster. This prestigious award is presented annually to a scholar who has contributed significantly to advancing the field of tropical botany. Foster, a Senior Conservation Ecologist at the Field Museum, was commended for his innovative efforts in cataloging the flora of Barro Colorado Island in Panama. Wurdack also spoke of Foster’s explorations of remote regions of Ecuador and Peru. In his acceptance speech Foster expressed his gratitude and thanked numerous mentors, collaborators, support staff, and his rapid assessment teams. He also encouraged field explorers to continue what they are doing.
The morning session began with a series of talks focusing on the 18th century explorations of Canada and the United States. Jacques Cayouette (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) presented the first talk, “Moravian Missionaries as Pioneers of Botanical Exploration in Labrador (1765-1954).” He explained that missionaries of the Moravian Church, one of the oldest Protestant denominations, established missions along coastal Labrador in Canada in the late 1700s. The first mission was established in Nain in 1771. Within two years the first plant list, including 37 vascular plant species, was written, most likely by the missionary Christoph Brasen.
Cayouette spoke about the Kohlmeister period (1790-1824), named for Benjamin Gottlieb Kohlmeister who collected medicinal plants while traveling along the coast from Okak to the Ungava Bay with a vision of evangelizing the Inuit. During that period, J.C.D. von Schreber and Franz von Paula von Schranck published the first flora of Labrador (1818) which included 12 new species among the 93 vascular plants listed. Cayouette also discussed the “golden era of Moravian botanists” (1824-1880), the most productive period which produced 16 plant collectors, and the Moravian missionaries of the 20th century (1880-1954), which produced 9 collectors. He spoke of Brigitte Schloss, a scholar, university teacher, Moravian Bishop, and the last Moravian plant collector in Labrador. Overall, Moravian missionaries wrote nine floras of Labrador, with a peak of 325 plant species (written by Eduard Wenk in ca. 1835-1873).
The next set of talks focused on another naturalist who explored North America during the late 18th century. In 1785 André Michaux, a royal botanist appointed by King Louis XVI, was sent to the U.S. to bring trees back to France to replenish forests that were stripped bare because of shipbuilding. Eliane Norman (Stetson University) and Charles Williams (The André Michaux International Society) discussed these expeditions in their co-authored talk, “André Michaux, Intrepid Naturalist in America: 1785-1796.” Norman first focused on the history of Michaux’s 11 years in America. Upon arriving in North America, Michaux first set up a 29-acre nursery in New Jersey. Norman noted several significant people Michaux interacted with, such as Benjamin Franklin, who wrote letters of introduction on Michaux’s behalf, and George Washington, who gave seeds to Michaux. Michaux met with Thomas Jeffereson who was interested in sending him on an expedition out west to the Pacific. Edmond Genet, however, wanted him to go to Kentucky instead as a political agent to help form a militia to rid Mississippi of Spaniards. Norman also discussed how a visit with Carl Wadstrom, a Swedish abolitionist, impressed upon Michaux that he then began tutoring a young African boy how to press plants, stuff animals, and pin insects. After Michaux returned to France, he published two major contributions: Histoire des Chênes, a monograph of 20 oak species (written in French), and Flora Boreali-Americana, the first treatment of the plants of North America, including Latin descriptions and localities of each species.
Charles Williams talk narrowed in on 10 noteworthy journeys of Michaux. Each journey departed from Charleston, South Carolina, and took him to 10 of the original 13 U.S. states, Kentucky, Tennessee, territories that would later become Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, Spanish Florida, Quebec, and the Bahamas. Williams examined Michaux’s first wilderness journal written in 1787 in Georgia and the headwaters of the Savannah River, where he recorded 108 species of plants. Michaux encountered many plants unknown to science, including Shortia galacifolia, a species later described by Asa Gray after Gray found a specimen in Michaux’s collection in France. In 1789, with fear of being sent back to France, Michaux took three journeys—to the Bahamas, on horseback to Philadelphia and New York City, and to the mountains of northwestern North Carolina, where he discovered Magnolia macrophylla. His last big 360-day journey, in 1795-1796, took him to the Mississippi river, where he discovered the oak, Quercus macrocarpa, and a new tree with commercial potential, yellowwood (Cladrastis kentuckea). Michaux’s discovery of the yellowwood tree later led to the designation of the tree as Tennessee’s Bicentennial tree in 1991, and a tree with a historical marker sits on a square in Gainesboro, Tennessee.
Pamela Henson, Smithsonian Institution Archives, next spoke about expeditions farther south during her talk, “‘What Holds the Earth Together’: Agnes Chase and Latin American Agrostology.” Henson explained that as Agnes Chase began local botanizing trips in her home state of Illinois, Chase grew an interest in grasses, a plant that “holds the earth together.” Henson traced Chase’s career from illustrating plants at the Field Museum to securing a job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry first as a botanical illustrator and then as a scientific assistant under Alfred Hitchcock (1906), assistant botanist (1909), associate botanist (1925), and, after Hitchcock’s death, senior botanist (1936). Even though she was an employee of USDA, her office was located in the Smithsonian Castle where she was an unpaid custodian of grasses and honorary curator in the National Herbarium. After retirement in 1939, she continued working in the herbarium until her death in 1963.
Henson explained that women at that time found it difficult to secure financial support for fieldwork, and thus Chase had to fund her own expeditions. Henson discussed Chase’s field trips throughout the northeast and southeast of the U.S., Puerto Rico, Mexico, Panama, and later Brazil and Venezuela. Chase met resistance from the Smithsonian, where officials were reluctant to send a woman on field trips of these kind. Henson explained that without institutional support for field work, Chase pursued alternative pathways and built relationships with Latin American botanists. On her trip to Brazil, for instance, she turned to a network of missionary woman for support to facilitate her research, including transportation, housing, and moral support. Henson talked about many of the Latin American students and collaborators who flourished under Chase’s training and guidance, each receiving advice on collecting techniques, collections management, note-taking, and manuscript writing.
The afternoon sessions began with Megan Raby, University of Texas at Austin, continuing the discussion of tropical explorations with her talk “Tropical Biology and the History of ‘Biodiversity’.” She opened her talk by discussing the 1986 National Forum on Biodiversity, a televised meeting that introduced the concept of biological diversity to the policy world. She was struck by how each of the conference participants developed their own understanding of biodiversity through their individual research programs in the tropics. The modern concepts of biodiversity and conservation have their foundation in both taxonomic and ecological approaches to tropical field work. Raby focused her talk on three case studies—three important field sites for early-20th century botanists in North American: Cinchona in Jamaica, Soledad in Cuba, and Barro Colorado Island (BCI) in Panama.
Raby explained that Cinchona was initially important because of three key features: it was an English-speaking locality, frequent steamships for the fruit trade traveled from Boston and New York to Jamaica, and the flora was relatively well known. At the turn of the century, a field station was initially set up for basic research in ecology since plants must be studied in the field to fully understand their physiology and ecological relationships. The research coming from the site began to challenge assumptions of tropical environments. In contrast, the Harvard Station in Soledad began as a sugar experiment station. While it attracted many agricultural breeders, the Harvard Station grew important as a botanic garden and arboretum. It soon became a good training ground for North American biologists. The only station more important in introducing tropical biology in the first half of the century was BCI. Unlike the agricultural research at Soledad, basic research thrived at BCI due to the unmodified landscape, concentrated research due to isolation, and a focal point for long-term studies. There was a desire for a complete inventory of the fauna and flora, and the flora of the island was published in 1927. By the end of the century, a 50-hectare permanent tree plot was established to census every tree. Raby argued that tropical biologists at each of these three field sites laid the foundations of biodiversity research.
Daniel Stone, National Geographic Magazine, presented the first of two talks focusing on the explorations of David Fairchild with his presentation, “The Botanical Adventures We Live Every Day.” Stone explained that as plant viruses and pathogens took a toll on the U.S. economy in the late-19th and early-20th century, the goal of many explorations was to bring back new crops to liven the economy through agriculture and botany. Stone’s talk focused his talk on the origins of several domesticated crops and the influence of Fairchild’s journeys from 1900 to 1917. Some significant Fairchild discoveries that Stone spoke of include the avocado from the Caribbean, new varieties of wheat and garlic from Italy, new cotton from Egypt, and cherry trees from Japan.
Stone spoke at length about Fairchild’s close relationship with his travel colleague, Charles Marlatt. He explained that the friendship became fractured after Fairchild brought Japanese cherry trees to Washington, DC. Marlatt objected to the trees because of risks in importing invasive insects and diseases. Their escalating battle was written out in the pages of National Geographic in 1911, where Marlatt published an article about “Pests and Parasites” while Fairchild published an article later that year about exciting “New Plant Immigrants.” Marlatt was able to claim victory in their feud when U.S. Congress enacted plant quarantine regulations. Stone concluded his talk by talking about the frontiers in food crop discoveries that remain. He highlighted Fairchild’s favorite fruit, the mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), a crop Fairchild failed to successfully import into the U.S.—a tropical fruit with a rind too thick, which bruises too easily, and ripens too quickly.
Javier Francisco-Ortega, Florida International University, gave the second Fairchild talk with “David Fairchild and His Expeditions to the Caribbean Islands.” Funded by two wealthy businessmen, Barbour Lathrop and Allison Armour, Fairchild traveled to the West Indies first in 1931-1932 and on a second trip in 1933. Francisco-Ortega explained that Fairchild’s expeditions consisted of meticulous plant recordings, detailed in his pocketbooks, collection books, and travelogues. Fairchild’s collecting team included Armour, Leonard Toy, and Fairchild’s wife Marian and daughter Nancy. Other noted collectors on his expeditions include ornithologist James Greenway, herpetologist Thomas Barbour, and botanist Harold Loomis. One notable in-country collaborator is Brother León of Havana, Cuba.
Francisco-Ortega explained that Fairchild’s expeditions had very clear objectives. For instance, in his 1933 expedition to Jamaica, Fairchild traveled to three botanical gardens on the island in search of early collection germplasms introduced to the West, including breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) and fish poison tree (Barringtonia asiatica) that Vice Admiral William Bligh introduced from the Pacific in the late 1700s. Francisco-Ortega discussed Fairchild’s rich collection of photographs, herbarium specimens, and germplasm accessions, and its impact on botany. For instance, he recounted the 1966 story of how Robert Read, a Curator of Botany at Smithsonian, was able to describe a new species of palm, Coccothrinax inaguensis, based on material originally collected by Fairchild in the Bahamas in 1932 and planted near Miami, Florida.
Janet Browne, Harvard University, closed the afternoon lectures with her presentation, “Plants, People and Places: Charles Darwin’s Botanical Work.” Browne began by asserting that during the voyage of HMS Beagle in 1831, Darwin considered himself a novice in the field of botany. He sent his collected plant specimens to his mentor John Stevens Henslow for identification, and in Darwin’s correspondences with Henslow, he urged him to hurry along with the plant identifications. He also asked Henslow for advice on how to properly preserve pressed leaves. Browne explained how Darwin’s later correspondences reveal that he often sought out specialists and recruited knowledgeable people.
Browne discussed several of Darwin’s numerous botanical collections from the Galapagos Archipelago that now reside in Cambridge University Herbarium. All plants that he collected were in flower, but Browne explained that Darwin was not impressed by “wretched weeds.” Even though he perceived himself as a collector, his frame of mind began to shift into seriously exploring the causes of variation within species. His shift was triggered by finches and tortoises; plants were not part of that shift mainly due to the lack of expert plant identification. After the voyage, Darwin became a dedicated botanist. He built a greenhouse and had many correspondences with other botanists, such as Asa Gray, Joseph Hooker, and George Bentham. His work later in life focused on experiments and observations in his greenhouse, and he became an astute plant physiologist. He published significant works on orchids, insect pollination, insectivorous plants, climbing plants, hybridization, and tropisms. Browne feels that Darwin’s love and interest in plants was developed though the Beagle voyage.
The Symposium ended with a closing reception and poster session in the Conservatory of the U.S. Botanic Garden. Next year’s 16th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium is scheduled to take place on Friday, May 18, 2018, with a theme yet to be determined. Be sure to check the symposium website for updates.
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