From Plant Press, Vol. 22, No. 2, April 2019.
By Julia Beros
From the Smithsonian Castle to the National Museum of Natural History, the fifth floor to the third, the Bryophyte collection at the U.S. National Herbarium has seen many homes, but is now settling into a more permanent and modern residence. With many specimens still in newspaper and shipping boxes, it is high time that these collections get some extra attention. Through a Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF) award for fiscal year 2017, the Department of Botany received funds to curate and rehouse two groups of specimens: the bryophytes and the algal wet collections.
A bit like packing for a big move, Smithsonian contractors Karen Golinski and Zuvayda Abdurahimova have begun to clear out and inventory the bryophyte cases to prepare and accurately evaluate the collections, which include all of the mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. Beginning just this past October, much has already been discovered about the Smithsonian’s long tucked-away bryophytes.
With a legacy set in place by curator emeritus Harold Robinson and his predecessor Bob Ireland, the bryophyte collection has been longing for further curation in the current decade. Though they have not yet been counted, there are an estimated 125,000 total bryophyte specimens in the herbarium, with approximately 10,000 specimens housed in the off-site Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland.
Treasures abound among the bryophytes, including a handful of specimens collected by naturalist Edgar Mearns for the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African expedition of 1909-1910 (while Theodore Roosevelt, in search of specimens for the new Natural History Museum, hunted elephants, Mearns, a naturalist and ornithologist, fervently collected more than 3,000 natural history specimens during this historic expedition). Aside from material collected under the auspices of Smithsonian sponsored expeditions such as the Roosevelt Expedition, the bryophyte collection at the US Herbarium also houses a great many exchange vouchers, including numerous specimens from Wilfred Schofield’s many explorations of the Pacific Northwest. For Bryologists across the globe, the information housed at the Smithsonian has been largely shrouded and overlooked because of its inaccessibility and lack of exposure, and thus the collections have been massively understudied, while the research potential in these collections is huge considering that many are still unidentified.
One such example of an understudied assemblage is a stack of boxes filled with collections made by Walter Koelz. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Koelz made multiple excursions throughout the Himalayas and surrounding regions. Today many of these places are inaccessible because of contentious political conditions, making the specimens extremely valuable for botanical research. Robinson worked on several boxes of this material, noting that the specimens from Kashmir have so much work to be done, “it’s enough for an entire career in these boxes alone,” after already describing multiple new species and one new genus from the specimens he examined. Much of the work requires, Robinson notes, careful curation because the collection has been so understudied (and undisturbed). Though past retirement, Robinson, like many researchers at the Smithsonian, continues to produce new work and publish articles at an exponential rate and recently came in to the herbarium Monday through Friday for several weeks to determine his long-ago collected material from Dominica.
For much of his career, Robinson’s focus was on research and taxonomic work as opposed to collecting in the field. He has published papers into the hundreds, and named many new species, with his greatest contributions to bryology being taxonomic work on the families Brachytheciaceae and Hypnodontaceae. A prolific “namer” Robinson gives careful thought to each new specimen he describes: Nephrophyllus for “cloud lover,” Ochrobryum crumii after renowned bryologist Howard Crum, Mitrobryum koelzii after one of Koelz’s collections, and even the more teasing Bryoandersonia (a “julaceous” genus) after his influential and beloved professor Anderson (the naming of which supposedly influenced Anderson to go on a diet). Despite such productive strides in Bryology the work still piled up in the Smithsonian (as with any plant group) and it continues to increase, which is precisely why the Bryophyte collection is due for maintenance.
Before submitting the request for CCP funds, the first task of the reorganization was determining the size of the collection, the general condition of the specimens and cabinets, and the space they occupied. Further strategizing, next was to determine the arrangement of the specimens and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the existing method of attaching the specimens to herbarium sheets and placing them in folders, in the style of other plant specimens. Former and current collections staff members Melinda Peters and Meghann Toner (respectively) assisted with the CCPF award request, and after Sue Lutz stepped in as acting Herbarium Manager, Golinski and Abdurahimova got to work. Forty-eight new cases were ordered and the Department of Botany purchased hundreds of archival storage trays.
A continually debated issue, the method of storing the Bryophytes is now transitioning from packets glued on sheets to a system where packets are stored upright in archival trays. Each institution has its preference, but at the Smithsonian the change to storing packets in trays will reduce the physical space the collection takes up by half. As well it will eliminate the need to replace very old sheets that are non-archival and highly acidic (which over time leaches out and contributes to the decay of collections). This approach will also reduce the costs in the long-term for replacing packets and will make the collections much more easily accessible. Instead of having to pull an entire sheet with multiple specimens glued to it, scientists and collections staff can pull only what they need and easily open the packets without disturbing material in other packets attached to a sheet. Sending loans becomes much more efficient and reduces the possibility of losing multiple packets if a loan goes astray (also making the other specimens that might have been attached readily available for examination by other scientists).
With the new system and up-to-date curation in place, duplicates can be sent on exchange through dormant and newly established programs and the Smithsonian has ample space to continue welcoming excellent material with this modern and up-to-date facility, hopefully inciting greater exchange among institutions. Though Robinson still has a preference for the sheet system, he pointed out that he never learned to properly mix paste and water as a child, and to this day remains an ineffective gluer (perhaps foreshadowing the easy removal of these less-than-glued packets to one day be housed in trays).
Since before Robinson was hired, the collection was arranged according to the Engler & Prantl system of classification outlined in Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, which was published near the turn of the 20th century. Though subsequent editions have been revised, the arrangement of the bryophytes in the US collection continued to follow the system set forth in the first edition because the newer treatments did not include hepatics, an opportunity that still remains open for any enterprising hepaticologist with a nostalgia for Engler & Prantl to take on. While rehousing the specimens, it is only fitting that the collection be curated according to a modern phylogenetic system of arrangement. Families are being arranged phylogenetically, based on broad consensus among contemporary evolutionary bryologists. Within families, genera and species are being arranged alphabetically. The existing geographical divisions within the species will largely be retained but will be modified slightly to establish consistency with the recently reorganized Pteridophyte collection.
While bryophytes are historically understudied, Golinski and Abdurahimova can attest to the significance of moss and hepatic research. Despite their small size, bryophytes constitute a large part of the Earth’s biota and act as sensitive indicators of air quality and climate change, store carbon, keep soil moist, and, as important components of biological crusts, initiate soil formation. Under the microscope their beauty and intricacy is on full display—large and unmissable. A specialist in sphagnum mosses, Golinski was initially awarded a contract to inventory and distribute the extensive backlog of bryophyte specimens that had accumulated atop the fifth floor herbarium cabinets and was subsequently invited by former Department Chair Laurence Dorr to succeed Bob Ireland as a bryological Research Associate in 2017.
Already a contractor at the Smithsonian, Abdurahimova, the second lichenologst in Turkmenistan, came to the Smithsonian on a Fulbright fellowship over 15 years ago and has continued working in the herbarium ever since. Specializing in the small composite organisms, she also has a keen eye for the delicate details of bryophytes. Golinski and Abdurahimova can be found between the fifth and third floors of the Museum’s West Wing, cutting packets off sheets, folding packets, gluing labels, examining specimens under the microscope, updating taxonomic names, taking a quick sip of tea, and opening mysteriously dusty boxes. They are assisted by volunteers Julia Beros, who has helped with multiple aspects of the work on Mondays and Fridays for several months, and Zelda McDonald, who comes in on Tuesdays and focuses on removing the liverwort packets from the sheets. Most recently, during breaks in her regular duties, long-term Botany contractor Pat Jones has been trimming large pieces of archival quality paper that the specimens were previously attached to into divider cards to be printed with species names and repurposed as dividers to separate groups of specimen packets.
With the ambition to curate and safely rehouse the collections, reignite institutional exchange relationships, and invite curiosity and research activity in the Bryophyte collection, there is hope that the legacy of productive research will continue and that the Collections Care and Preservation Fund may continue to support overlooked collections in the US National Herbarium. There is also the intention that this project will lay the groundwork for continuing enhancement of the Bryophyte collection, by creating digital specimen records, making the collections more globally accessible and enduring.
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