From Plant Press, Vol. 22, No. 4, October 2019.
John Kress retired on 31 July 2019 after 31 years of service at the Smithsonian Institution. He joined the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in 1988 first as an Associate Curator and then promoted to Curator. Kress was appointed Chair of Botany in 1997, and he served in that role for nearly nine years. In 2010, Kress was named the Director of the Consortium for Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet in the Office of the Under Secretary for Science at the Smithsonian. From 2014 to 2016, he served the Smithsonian as interim Under Secretary for Science.
A major focus of Kress’ research has been on the order Zingiberales. He has examined reproductive biology, allozyme and molecular variation, and phylogenetic relationships in the group and has been especially interested in the classification, evolution, and pollination biology of the Heliconiaceae. Additionally, Kress has produced a significant body of work on orchids, bromeliads, and other epiphytes. He is the author or co-author on over 300 scientific papers, books, and book chapters.
Kress’ research has led him to explore the Amazon, the Andes, Costa Rica, the West Indies, Madagascar, the South Pacific, tropical Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and Myanmar. He has authored or co-authored about 46 plant taxa and proposed about 150 new combinations. Kress authored The Weeping Goldsmith: Discoveries in the Secret Land of Myanmar, a first-person narrative of his scientific surveys in Myanmar’s teak forests, bamboo thickets, timber plantations, rivers, and mangroves. Kress is also the co-author of A Checklist of Trees, Shrubs, Herbs, and Climbers of Myanmar (Contr. US Natl. Herb. 45: 1-590; 2003), a work that updates four previous editions going back to 1912.
During his expeditions abroad, Kress often collected living plants in the field and brought them back to the Botany Research Greenhouses for further study. Over time, Kress had built one of the finest living collections of gingers and relatives housed in the greenhouses at the Museum Support Center (MSC) in Suitland, Maryland. Kress played a pivotal role in establishing the greenhouses, when in 1994 the Botany Department moved the living plant collection from the east courtyard of NMNH to the larger, more modern facility at MSC.
Kress’ interest in plant-pollinator interactions resulted in a paper in Nature about a flexible style in Alpinia that encourages outcrossing and a Science cover story about intricate evolutionary partnerships among Heliconia species and Caribbean purple-throated carib hummingbirds. With bat specialist Ted Fleming, Kress co-wrote the book, The Ornaments of Life: Coevolution and Conservation in the Tropics, which focused on tropical pollination and frugivory and probing the influences of vertebrate pollinators and seed dispersers.
His advocacy for conservation and sustainability can be seen in the co-edited book Plant Conservation – A Natural History Approach, which addresses the roles that museums and botanical gardens can play in the conservation of plants, and the co-edited book Living in the Anthropocene: Earth in the Age of Humans, a set of essays by scientists, humanists, and artists addressing the causes and effects of a changing planet.
In the early 2000s, Kress had the vision of an electronic field guide in which users could identify plant species simply by taking a photograph of an individual plant. In 2011, his idea came to fruition with the release of Leafsnap, a mobile app that helps scientists and the public identify tree species in the field by comparing digital photo images of leaves to a database of herbarium specimens.
Kress was instrumental in the early development of DNA barcodes in flowering plants (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 102: 8369-8374; 2005). DNA barcodes are a practical and standardized tool for plant species identification in biodiversity assessments, life history and ecological studies, and forensic analyses. His team has produced a DNA barcode library for plant species on Panama’s Barro Colorado Island (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 106: 18621-18626; 2009). His team is currently building a DNA barcode library for all medicinal plant species.
Kress’ artistic endeavors include Botanica Magnifica: Portraits of the World’s Most Extraordinary Flowers and Plants, a collaboration with Hasselblad Laureate Award photographer Jonathan Singer. Botanica Magnifica is an elegant art book with 250 stunning photographs of rare and exotic plants and flowers. The original edition of Botanica Magnifica, consisting of five lavishly hand-bound volumes, was limited to 10 copies, the first of which was donated to the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Rare Book Library at the Smithsonian Institution.
As Chair of the Department of Botany, Kress started the annual Smithsonian Botanical Symposia as recommended in the Botany strategic plan. He also initiated the Jose Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany, an award presented at the symposium to a botanist and scholar of international stature who has contributed significantly to advancing the field of tropical botany. He developed a memorandum of mutually beneficial understanding between the National Museum of Natural History and the U.S. Botanical Garden in Washington, D.C. He also oversaw the completion of one of the first fully imaged herbarium type collections with high-resolution digital images.
Kress has served as the Executive Director of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) and as the Chairman of the Board of the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS). He has been serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the botanical journal, PhytoKeys, since its inaugural issue in 2010. He has been an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University, George Washington University, and Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, China.
Among his awards and honors, Kress has received the Parker-Gentry Award for Biodiversity and Conservation from the Field Museum of Natural History, the Lifetime Achievement Award from Heliconia Society International, and the Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology Pioneer Award for co-development of Leafsnap. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an honorary fellow of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.
As Research Botanist Emeritus, Kress will be working on a guide to the common trees of North America.
So glad I happened upon an issue of The Plant Press while looking for info. on the Budapest Herbarium.
I was a house sitter for John Kress in 1987 when he was at Marie Selby and he provided a presentation at one of the Botanic Garden of Smith College's flower shows on his book The Weeping Goldsmith: Discoveries in the Secret Land of Myanmar.Please consider forwarding my congratulations on such a wonderful career seen from a bit of a distance. I do know that John influenced a few Smith students during the Smith-sponsored internship with the Smithsonian. Thank YOU!
Posted by: Elaine Chittenden | 02/14/2020 at 04:25 PM