The Plant Press

Art by Alice Tangerini: Lecanora sp.

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 4, October 2021.

Alice Tangerini drew this graphite on film drawing of a lichen, Lecanora sp., for Mason Hale in November 1977. Her use of the polymer pencils started by following Jack Schroeder’s drawings of lichens and Eupatoriae in the early 1970s. Most of Tangerini’s original lichen drawings for Hale’s How to Know the Lichens, a Pictured Key Nature Series (Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers, 1979) have been missing since publication. Lecanora sp. was supposed to have been described as a new species but was never published. Mason delivered the Lecanora specimen to Tangerini in a petri dish with no collection data provided. His instructions on drawing the lichen thallus were “to make it look exactly like the specimen” and “do not try to reconstruct it”. The hope was that the drawing could be matched in the future with a digital image of the specimen. Wading through hundreds of undescribed digital images of lichens, however, might be a chore for another specialist.

Staff activities

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 4, October 2021.

On March 16, Alice Tangerini gave a presentation on “Botanical illustration at the National Museum of Natural History” to the Baltimore City Master Gardeners for their first meeting of 2021. The initial request was from Master Gardener and beekeeper, Chris Turett. An audience of 40 plus gardeners attended the virtual Zoom meeting. Tangerini’s 40-minute presentation included scenes from the Botany Department and the drawing process including field collection, mounting plants, and curating the collections. The program was well received, and Turett sent Tangerini two jars of his very own harvested honey.

Kazoo Magazine, a subscription magazine, published an article, “Drawing Upon Nature”, featuring Alice Tangerini and her work as a botanical illustrator at the National Museum of Natural History in its Fall 2021 issue. The magazine, aimed at pre-teen girls, has themed issues; this issue was “The Wild Issue” with nature-oriented topics. The magazine printed Tangerini’s illustrations including a color Globba, a Sampera in graphite, and a sample of inked leaf shapes for a drawing project. The story on her work was based on an interview by the editor, Erin Bried.

Botany grieves the loss of two cherished plant mounting volunteers

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 4, October 2021.

Rosalie “Roz” Elliott, age 76, a beloved plant mounting volunteer from New York, passed away on August 9, 2021. Elliott had been battling several health issues since 2018. She had to take a break from volunteering, and members of the Botany Department were hoping to see her back in the specimen preparation room when she regained her health. Tragically she was unable to recover from her complications. Botany is deeply saddened to lose such a wonderful, sweet, and cheery person who always had a warm smile and charming story to share. She lived every day to the fullest and she loved quilting and, most of all, her granddaughter and family. Elliott was always scouring the gift shop for her granddaughter and she loved showing off the treasures she had found. Elliott was a talented quilter; she was always eager to share her knowledge about sewing. One time Elliott took Melinda Peters, former Plant Mounter Supervisor, under her wing and offered one-on-one sewing instructions at her home. She was so generous with her time and knowledge. She will be deeply missed, and Botany will always cherish her sweet demeanor and kind spirit.

Kathleen “Kathy” Ann Kowalczyk, age 74, a beloved plant mounting volunteer from Chicago, passed away on August 3, 2021. The best way to describe Kowalczyk in one word would be a “firecracker”! Kowalczyk was a force to be reckoned with. She was boisterous, outspoken, and fierce. She was very passionate about her family, crafts, and politics. Kowalczyk loved to learn about everything under the sun, from history and art, to sports and science. She was a big fan of Carl Linnaeus; so much so, she made a special binder dedicated to interesting facts about him. Kowalczyk loved sports and she especially loved the sports teams from DC and Chicago. Kowalczyk was the life of the party, she always found a reason to celebrate no matter how large or small the achievement. She always remembered everyone’s birthdays and during the holidays she would pass out little special handmade gifts. Kowalczyk was everyone’s mom. She could be often overheard offering advice, usually unsolicited, but she would tell you exactly how she saw things—whether you liked what she had to say or not. She always stood firm on her positions and if you didn’t agree with her, she would listen but never waver from her standpoint. The Botany Department will especially miss her spunky and fiery spirit, but we will continue to celebrate life’s little achievements because that is what she would want us to do in her memory.

New faces

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 4, October 2021.

José Anibal Medina Vega is a postdoctoral fellow with ForestGEO and NGEE–Tropics working to develop a pantropical analysis of nutrient controls and their impact on tropical tree recruitment, growth, and mortality. He began his fellowship in August 2021. His office is located in the Department of Botany at the National Museum of Natural History. Medina Vega received his B.S. at Pan-American School of Agriculture, Zamorano in Honduras and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Forest and Nature Conservation at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Prior to coming to ForestGEO, he had a postdoctoral fellowship in Stefan Schnitzer’s lab at Marquette University in Wisconsin. Medina Vega collected the data for his doctoral dissertation using canopy cranes of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama from 2015 to 2017.

His current fellowship is to develop a pantropical analysis of nutrient controls on lowland tropical forest structure and functional composition. This analysis will be synthesized into a suite of model testbed sites used to evaluate and benchmark model nutrient cycle representations. Medina Vega will use long-term ForestGEO data coupled with recent detailed soil surveys. For his future research, Medina Vega would like to advance the current knowledge of the mechanisms that regulate the dynamics of natural ecosystems, particularly in the tropical forest biome, by incorporating the study of largely ignored life forms, such as lianas and/or palms, to the already more advanced tree research. He aims to investigate their associations and interactions within each other and with the biome. His hope is that his work can provide a more complete understanding of the dynamics of tropical forest systems.

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David Wickell is conducting a 10-week graduate student fellowship in the Department of Botany during the fall of 2021. He is working with Liz Zimmer using genomic methods to elucidate the evolutionary history of allopolyploid speciation in the genus Isoetes. During his time at the Smithsonian Wickell hopes to use Isoetes as a window into how polyploid lineages form and persist within the range of their well-established diploid parents. In addition to his research into polyploidy, Wickell studies the convergent evolution of CAM photosynthesis in Isoetes as part of his doctoral research in Fay-Wei Li’s laboratory at Cornell University. Prior to starting his PhD, he studied asexual biogeography of apomictic ferns with James Beck at Wichita State University where he received his Master’s degree in Biology. Wickell’s current research interests include fern and lycophyte phylogenetics and niche evolution in nascent polyploids.

Spotlight interview: ForestGEO’s David Kenfack

From Plant Press, Vol. 24, No. 4, October 2021.

David Kenfack has been involved with the Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) network since 1996 when he began as Field Manager for the Korup, Cameroon Forest Dynamics Plot (FDP). Since 2010 he has been coordinating the ForestGEO Africa Program, and he is currently a co-Principal Investigator of the Korup (Cameroon), Mpala (Kenya), and Ngel Nyaki (Nigeria) FDPs. In 2020 he was elected as a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. Kenfack’s office is located in the Department of Botany of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. When he’s not discovering and describing new species, he enjoys playing drums and guitar, as well as promoting his traditional culture through Lemou Bafou USA.

David Kenfack studying Grewia flowers at Mpala Forest Dynamics Plot

When did you realize you wanted to be a scientist/work in forest ecology? How did you decide to go down this career path?

I grew up in Bafou, one of the most prosperous villages located in the highlands of the western region of Cameroon. As the son of hardworking farmers, I spent most of my childhood practicing mixed farming in coffee plantations, pruning trees that made live hedges on our properties, and extracting raffia palm wine from the stems of the swampy valley’s monodominant Raphia hookeri. I was therefore very close to nature early in my life, and by the time that I completed high school and moved to the University of Yaoundé, I could easily name most of what remained of the plant and animal diversity in my village. With this background, I didn’t hesitate to choose biology over other disciplines at the university. After my BSc in botany, I carried out a botanical inventory of a small hill in the vicinity of Yaoundé for my “Maitrise Ès Science” and later worked on the revision of the genus Striga for my “Doctorat 3^ème Cycle.” Pursuing a career in forest ecology and botany, therefore, became obvious for me, not only because it involved being close to nature, but also lots of travel, another one of my passions.

What led you down the path to your current job? What has been your biggest challenge in getting to this point in your career?

The short answer will be “luck”. A few months after graduation from the University of Yaoundé, I got a position with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Yaoundé to carry out botanical inventories in southeast Cameroon. Unfortunately, only two months later, the entire program closed because of a disagreement with the government of Cameroon, and I was jobless.

In the process of closing the program, my boss advised me to accompany a consultant named Duncan W. Thomas (currently one of the PI’s of the Korup plot) to carry out a biodiversity assessment of the Tchabal Mbabo in northern Cameroon. I accepted the offer and spent three weeks collecting and documenting the flora of this beautiful mountain. What I didn’t know was that this was in fact an interview. Prior to our departure from Yaoundé, the consultant informed my (WCS) boss that he was looking into recruiting a young biologist for a long-term monitoring program in Korup National Park. When we returned to Yaoundé, Dr. Thomas told me about the 50-ha plot program, and a few months later, in August 1996, I was recruited as Field Manager of the Korup Forest Dynamics Plot.

After completion of the first census of the plot, I took on the positions of Herbarium Curator at the Limbe Botanical Garden, and then, later, Botanist at WWF-Cameroon, while still managing the KFDP field program and attending CTFS [Center for Tropical for Forest Science, now ForestGEO] workshops.

In 2002, I obtained a scholarship for my PhD at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, and later a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan. Throughout this time I continued to be involved with CTFS and the KFDP. In 2010, I officially joined the network as postdoctoral fellow and CTFS Africa Program Coordinator, based at the Harvard University. In 2012 I became a STRI Staff Scientist.