From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 3, July 2018.
By Kayleigh Walters and Gary A. Krupnick
Speakers, conveners, and award recipients at the 2018 Smithsonian Botanical Symposium at the National Museum of Natural History (from left): Laurence Dorr, Sir Peter Crane, Alan Graham, Kirk Johnson, Selena Smith, Surangi Punyasena, Andrew Leslie, Jonathan Wilson, Susana Magallón, Saharah Moon Chapotin, and Mónica Ramírez-Carvalho. (photo by Ken Wurdack)
This year's Smithsonian Botanical Symposium explored the deep time of botany with the theme, “Plants in the Past: Fossils and the Future.” Seven speakers presented a whirlwind of information over the course of a day, focusing heavily on the benefit brought by developing technologies to the field of paleobotany. The symposium, held on 18 May 2018, convened at the Warner Bros Theater at the National Museum of American History, a change in scenery from past symposia as Natural History’s Baird Auditorium undergoes renovations.
Leslie Overstreet and Allie Newman give background information about the Botanical fossil books on display at the Cullman Rare Book Library. Overstreet also talked about the library and the services they offer. Questions are encouraged, so when asked where the best donations to the library have come from, the group was surprised to find out that most are acquired from retired Smithsonian Institution researchers. Oftentimes these donors know little of the history of the book. (photo by Rose Gulledge)
Herbarium diluviarum by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer was first printed in 1709. Scheuchzer theorized that fossils were leftovers from the Great Flood of Noah’s Ark fame, which is depicted on this title page. (photo by Rose Gulledge)
Before the symposium began, the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History opened its doors to attendees for special tours of the library's paleobotany books. The Library put on display a wide selection of publications that highlight fossil plants, from Boccone's Recherches (1674), through the editions of Scheuchzer's Herbarium diluvianum (1709, 1723), to Brongniart's works in the 19th century, and more. Attendees learned the tale of Johann Beringer, a professor in 1725 who was made a fool when two of his colleagues planted fake fossils for him to find and research. Fortunately, this was the only fakery of the day.
The symposium began with opening remarks by Kirk Johnson, Sant Director of the National Museum of Natural History and Laurence Dorr, Chair of the Department of Botany. Johnson was pleased with the theme of the symposium this year, as the symposium coincides with the development of the Natural History Museum’s Deep Time exhibition, a major overhaul of the National Fossil Hall, which is scheduled to open to the public in June 2019.
Before the speakers’ talks began, Kenneth Wurdack presented the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany to Alan Graham, a paleobotanist from the Missouri Botanical Garden. Graham recalled his time as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and his “first social responsibility” in hosting a dinner for José Cuatrecasas and his wife. He was honored to be able to do that then, and now 56 years later, thrilled to be receiving an award in Cuatrecasas’ name.
Sir Peter Crane concludes that many of the seed-plant lineages we now treat as independent may be closely allied. (photo by Gary Krupnick)
Sir Peter Crane opened the symposium with a talk on the origin of flowering plants called “The Enigmatic ‘Mesozoic Seed Ferns.’” He introduced the complexity of studying the topic by discussing how the field of paleobotany has changed in recent decades. In the 1970s, paleobotany was a field that was literally frozen in stone due to a lack of high-quality fossils and tools to study them. Sir Peter demonstrated how far the field has come when he showed a digital reconstruction of a fossilized flower “bloom” for the crowd. Technology such as this allows scientists to study internal structures of fossilized plants.
Having demonstrated the advantages conferred by recent advances in technology and their impact on paleobotanical research, Sir Peter launched into his updated theory on seed ferns. He presented a new understanding of the origin of angiosperms based on his research of fossils collected from the Early Cretaceous in Mongolia. He explained that the origin of the outer integument and the carpel are two key questions for understanding the origin of angiosperms. He argued that the curvature responsible for the second integument in angiosperms has deep evolutionary roots. He explained that the origins of this curvature could be seen in diverse seed plants of the Mesozoic, such as Caytonia, corystosperms, and similar plants. Curvature results from the curvature of a seed-bearing axis that sometimes also bears modified bracts. Sir Peter explained that in pre-angiosperm seed plants, this curvature might be associated with a flotation based pollination mechanism involving saccate pollen, which appears to be basic in all but the very earliest diverging seed plant lineages. He concluded that many of the seed-plant lineages we now treat as independent may be closely allied.