From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 3, July 2021.
Alice Tangerini was the recipient of the Linnean Society’s 2020 Jill Smythies Award. The award is given annually to a botanical artist for outstanding, diagnostically relevant published illustrations. Due to the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 award ceremony was postponed, and a decision was subsequently made to hold the 2021 event via Zoom. Although Tangerini was unable to travel to receive the award in person, she accepted the award during a Linnean Society Medals Ceremony held on 24 May 2021. Sandra Knapp, president of the Society, presented the award to Tangerini during the ceremony.
The following accolade was given to Tangerini by the Linnean Society:
For the excellence of her depictions of plants for scientific use, including the detailed portrayal of their diagnostic characteristics, Alice Tangerini is our 2020 winner of the Jill Smythies Award. In addition to illustrating new species, Alice has illustrated multiple taxa from the same group for the same publication, such that the details of the drawings can be used to distinguish the species.
Since 1972, Alice has made diagnostic illustrations for over 1,000 plant species in pen and ink, graphite, and more recently in digital media, for a variety of publications. Using mainly herbarium specimens as her resource material, she has prepared these illustrations to portray the species in a realistic manner with necessary reconstruction to remove the artefacts of drying and physical damage. Significant taxonomic characters have been enlarged with the aid of a microscope to facilitate their use in species descriptions.
Over the years, the detail and accuracy of her drawings and examinations of the specimens have resulted in authors changing descriptions, based on details observed by Alice that had escaped the botanists’ notice. For instance, her detailed examination of a proposed new species of bromeliad resulted in the production of a newly written, enhanced description. As a result, the authors, Lyman B. Smith and Harold Robinson, decided to name the new species Navia aliciae in her honour. Such collaboration with scientists in describing a taxon is the hallmark of exemplary botanical illustration.
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