The Plant Press

Art by Alice Tangerini: Sanchezia fosteri Wassh.

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.

Sanchezia fosteri Wassh.

Robin Foster, the 15^th recipient of the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany, collected the type specimen of Sanchezia fosteri (Acanthaceae) in Peru, east of Puerto Inca, Huánuco, on September 11, 1982. Dieter Wasshausen described this species in 2007 (Ann. Naturhist. Mus. Wien, B 108: 180-182), and dedicated the name of the plant in honor of Foster “for his outstanding tireless fíeldwork contributing to our knowledge of taxonomic botany.” Alice Tangerini prepared the illustrations of S. fosteri and eight other new species of Peruvian Acanthaceae collected from the Cerros del Sira for Wasshausen’s publication.

Are Pressed Plants Windows into World History?

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.

By Gary Krupnick

The following article appeared on the web blog, Smithsonian Voices, on May 19, 2017. Smithsonian Voices provides a sampling of the unique voices of scholars, researchers, and curators that make up the chorus of ideas at the Institution. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2017/05/19/are-pressed-plants-windows-world-history/:

The botanical specimens housed in the U.S. National Herbarium (USNH) at the National Museum of Natural History have been assembled over the course of several centuries and the collection continues to grow today. Currently, the herbarium contains over 5 million plant specimens and serves as an encyclopedia of the Earth’s flora. These specimens are irreplaceable sources of information regarding the diversity of species and the habitats they come from. They play a critical role in taxonomy, systematics, anatomy, morphology, ethnobiology, paleobiology, and conservation biology. The specimens can be used to discover and confirm the identity of a species new to science. They provide locality data for conservation assessments. They can document the effects of climate change on flowering phenology. They also provide material for DNA analysis and conservation genetics.

For world history buffs, these specimens provide a peek into the past, not only into the expeditions in which the plant was collected, but every so often they document major social events. The clues are usually found on annotation labels attached to the herbarium sheet. Most often these annotation labels tell us of the changing understanding of which species you’re holding. But every now and then you get a glimpse into history.

Before its residence at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, this pressed plant (Cyananthus macrocalyx subspecies spathulifolius) was housed at London's Natural History Museum where it survived a bombing during World War II. (photo by Ingrid P. Lin)

Take for instance USNH specimen 2318036 pictured above. The preserved plant attached to the sheet is a species in the bellflower family (Campanulaceae) named Cyananthus spathulifolius (which has now been renamed Cyananthus macrocalyx subspecies spathulifolius). The collection label, which details the collection event, tells us that it was collected on July 27, 1936, from the rocky hillslopes of Tibet at 14,000 feet by the English/Scottish team of explorers, Frank Ludlow and George Sherriff. The sheet has a stamp telling us that it currently resides in the U.S. National Herbarium. The collection label indicates that it was previously held in the herbarium of the British Museum (“Ex Herbario Musei Britannici”).

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Herbarium Receives Personal Gift of Swedish Specimens

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.

Ulla Dixon with her husband William displaying a donation to the U.S. National Herbarium of 178 pressed specimens collected throughout Sweden during her childhood. (photo by Erika Gardner)

This spring the U.S. National Herbarium was offered a small but deeply meaningful collection of Swedish wildflowers by a private donor. On April 24, 2017, Ulla Smedberg Dixon and her husband William made a special trip to Washington D.C. They hand-delivered 178 vascular plant taxa from 54 families collected from 1948 to 1950. As a child, Dixon was inspired by her Aunt Edith to learn about botany. She grew a deep appreciation for the flora of her hometown in Sweden and began pressing specimens for her personal collection. Dixon collected these specimens during her teenage years from various locations throughout Sweden and kept them in a leather bound herbarium which was decorated by her sister with a hand painted illustration of Anemone nemorosa. In 1951 the Smedberg family emigrated to the United States. She recalled having to get special permission from her mother in order to transport her special specimens to their new home in New York State. Dixon decided to donate her personal herbarium to the Smithsonian Institution where their historical and botanical significance will long be valued.

New Insights into Plant Species that Invade the West Indies

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.

In the July 2017 issue of Ecology and Evolution, Julissa Rojas-Sandoval, Pedro Acevedo and colleagues analyze the distribution and spread of invasive species across nine islands in the West Indies, and found that anthropogenic disturbance and economic development seem to be the major drivers facilitating the spread and predominance of invasive species over native species. They found a total of 516 alien plant species are invasive on at least one of the nine islands, with between 24 to 306 invasive species per island. The most widely distributed alien plant species is Leucaena leucocephala (Fabaceae), occurring on all nine of the examined islands.

Leucaena leucocephala (Fabaceae) on the island of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Compared to other plant families, Fabaceae has the largest number of invasive species on nine islands in the West Indies, and L. leucocephala is the most widely distributed. (photo by Pedro Acevedo)

Their database of invasive species compiled by published literature covered the islands of Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, St. Lucia, St. Martin, and Trinidad and Tobago. Cuba has the highest number of invasive species, and St. Martin has the highest density of invasive species. They found low similarity in invasive species diversity between islands. The largest fraction of invasive species come from Asia, followed by continental America and Africa. They found that 75 percent of all invasive plants are species that have escaped from cultivation, most commonly due to ornamental use.

Island area and economic development are strong drivers of invasive species diversity. Their data suggests that gross domestic product per capita and the kilometers of paved roadways are favoring the establishment of invaders of native species. The authors suggest that their dataset can be used as a blacklist of unwanted species to help manage the spread of invasive plant species among the islands of the West Indies.

Earth Optimism Summit Celebrates Conservation Success Stories

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.

The Smithsonian Institution’s inaugural Earth Optimism Summit took place over Earth Day weekend at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC, on April 21-23, 2017. Earth Optimism is a global initiative that celebrates a change in focus from problem to solution, from a sense of loss to one of hope, in the dialogue about conservation and sustainability. More than 1,480 registrants, including thought leaders, scientists, environmentalists, artists, civic leaders and international media, attended the summit, while hundreds more walked through the Innovation Commons public space and enjoyed 20 interactive exhibits. Department of Botany’s John Kress and Gary Krupnick were among the 237 presenters that spoke in 7 plenaries and 35 “deep dives.” Beyond the conference, via live stream and social media, the Summit reached and inspired hundreds of thousands of people online.

Featured content at the Summit included species survival, solutions for pollution, success in the city, people and communities for change, food, working land and seascapes, saving wild spaces, and energy innovation. Kress moderated the deep dive session “Apps for the Planet” and Krupnick moderated the session “At Home with Conservation.”

Beyond the summit, 19 Earth Optimism events were held in museums and galleries of the Smithsonian in Washington, New York, Anacostia and Panama City, Panama. In 10 countries around the world – from Colombia to New Zealand – sister organizations hosted 26 events celebrating their own success stories and inspiring hope for the planet.

Videos of all plenary sessions along with the deep dive sessions that were held in the Center’s amphitheater were captured via Facebook Live and are archived and available for viewing at https://earthoptimism.si.edu/live-stream/. All other sessions were recorded and will be added to the website in the coming weeks.

Earth Optimism is one of four strategic conservation areas of the Smithsonian Conservation Commons, a new initiative to unite scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, the National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, as well as the Smithsonian’s rich cultural and public-facing assets and long-standing partnerships, to tackle complex conservation problems on a global scale.

See videos of the sessions “Apps for the Planet” and “At Home with Conservation” after the jump...

“Cultivating America’s Gardens,” Opens at National Museum of American History

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.

A new exhibit on the history of American Gardening opened May 4, 2017, at the Smithsonian Libraries Exhibit Gallery of the National Museum of American History (NMAH) entitled “Cultivating America’s Gardens.” Items from the U.S. National Herbarium and the Botany-Horticulture Library are part of this exciting new exhibit.

Included in the exhibition, Cultivating America’s Gardens, is a specimen of Clarkia pulchella (Onagraceae) collected in 1946 east of Frenchglen, Oregon.

In the “Gardening for Science” exhibit case is a herbarium specimen of Clarkia pulchella (Onagraceae) collected in Oregon. This part of the exhibit highlights plant exploration in the New World and a time when European plant collectors were eager to obtain "exotic" American plants for their gardens back in Europe. Other parts of the exhibit tell the story of the rise of the lawn, gardens of the Gilded Age (1870-1900), World’s Fair gardens, World War II Victory and school gardens, the preservation and documentation of historic gardens, the seed industry, and plant breeding and sustainable gardens of today.

Prominently featured in the exhibit are books and journals from many of the branch libraries of Smithsonian Libraries and objects and graphics from Smithsonian Gardens’ Archives of American Gardens. Books by prominent botanists from the Botany-Horticulture Library include Asa Gray’s Botany for Young People and Common Schools (1858) and Charles S. Sargent’s 10 volume journal Garden and Forest: A Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art and Forestry (1888). Also featured is the World War I classic Charles Lathrop Pack’s The War Garden Victorious (1919), which features patriotic illustrations and where the phrase “victory garden” was coined. Contemporary books highlighting new gardening trends include Rick Darke and Douglas W. Tallamy’s The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden (2014).

The mobile Leafsnap app, the electronic field guide developed by botanists at the Smithsonian, Columbia University, and the University of Maryland, is mentioned in a section entitled, “Digging in at the Smithsonian.”

Smithsonian Libraries provides more information about Cultivating America’s Gardens on the exhibit website at https://library.si.edu/exhibition/cultivating-americas-gardens. The exhibition runs through August 2018.

Team Limu Participates in MarineGEO Hawaii Bio-Assessment 2017

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.

The Smithsonian’s Marine Global Earth Observatory (MarineGEO) hosted a two-week bioblitz in Kaneʻohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaiʻi, at the end of May. This was a large-scale inventory including researchers, students, and volunteers working to collect and observe all algae, micro- and macro-fauna, fish and samples from Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS). During the bioblitz all participants lived and worked on Coconut Island, a 28-acre island in the bay, a quarter mile off the windward side of Oahu.

Participants of the Bioblitz Team Limu (left to right): Barrett Brooks, Seaenna Correa-Garcia, Melinda Peters, Claire Lager, Celia Smith, and Scott Chulakote. (photo by Laurie Penland)

Barrett Brooks and Melinda Peters were part of the limu (the Hawaiian word for seaweed) team and the goal was to collect and record the algae found in the bay. They were joined by Celia Smith (University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa), who specializes in reef algae systems, and an amazing group of students—Laurie Penland, Emily Frost, Sarah Vasconcellos, Scott Chulakote, Nicole Yamase, Seaenna Correa-Garcia, Laica Arcibal, Eileen Nalley, Lindsay Tanabe, Megan Onuma, and Cory Pittman (KANI). The students helped collect and process samples each day.

Left: Participants of the Bioblitz Team Limu (clockwise from bottom left): Laica Arcibal, Sarah Vasconcellos, Barrett Brooks, and Seaenna Correa-Garcia. (photo by Emily Frost). Right: A sample of collected algae specimens during the Kaneʻohe Bay Bioblitz. (photo by Barrett Brooks)

To understand the diversity of species and abundance levels, the group collected some 440 samples from across the bay. The collecting methods employed the use of digging tools and standard bags. Samples were then sorted, documented, pickled in vials, and tissue samples stored in silica gel and liquid nitrogen. Pressed vouchers were made when possible. About 33 percent of the samples were identified to genus or species. Molecular data will help determine the identifications of the remaining samples.

Processing algae specimens during the Kaneʻohe Bay Bioblitz. (photo by Melinda Peters)

On the last day of collecting at the northern point of the bay, the team found the invasive, Avrainvillea amadelpha. The species has been found in other parts of Oah’u, but had not been previously documented in this bay. It establishes itself in tight clusters and out-competes native species such as the seagrasses (Halophila hawaiiana). This was a disappointing find, but also a positive example of why assessments like this are so important.