The Plant Press

A momentary thought in time: a letter from Siberia

From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 2022.

By Julia Beros

Opening a letter lends an excitement unlike most paper-related activities. Perhaps through a pen pal, writing with an old friend, or even just a short anecdote on a pre-fab birthday card, letters beget a form of communication that sort of repels time and space; it is written in one scene, with a momentary intention and oblivious to the goings-on outside, and is then received in this very state in an entirely new place, for an intended (or accidental) audience who prepares to enter a brief hiatus from the goings-on of their surroundings. Something akin to time travel. 

On one day this year, I am helping a friend with some old family letters that need to be organized, and I lightly unfold an envelope that is not addressed to me, and it has not been opened or read for many years. In 1964 this envelope was sealed in western Siberia and sent to Los Angeles, California, where it was received as part of an ongoing personal correspondence between two Esperanto enthusiasts seeking to enrich their language skills. Reaching in to pull out the letter I find a few dried leaf bits that crumble out and I begin to carefully unpack the contents. Folded in lightly stained papers are two pressed plants, clung to each other by the pressure of time in this packed envelope. 

European white birch, Betula pendula, as photographed by R.A. Seelig at the State Arboretum of Virginia, Boyce, Virginia. Its native range extends from Europe into Siberia, China, and southwest Asia. It has been introduced into North America. (image courtesy of Smithsonian Institution)

With nothing else attached I carefully pry them off each other and look for familiar characteristics. Among them are some catkins and small serrate leaves that look almost undoubtedly like a Betula. I am fascinated by the layers of knowledge through the exchange of language and daily life in this penpalship that this correspondence developed, particularly in inspiring the curiosity of the natural world spanning continents and significant cultural divides.

With better investigation, I thought, maybe I could learn more about these mysterious birch “specimens” and I went to reference the Smithsonian collections. With a database of over 4,600 images of specimens flagged as “Siberia” there is a lot of diversity to view: alliums, poppies, geraniums, ferns, grasses, and some elusive Indets. “Siberia” is quite a broad search term (and could have many erroneous flags) and a very large region with different ecosystems spanning much of northern Asia.

Many Smithsonian researchers have worked and collected in areas of Siberia, but from very different regions within. Notable Smithsonian curator Stanywn Shetler (1933-2017) left among a long list of accomplishments a legacy of research in Russia setting a precedent for building international relationships through scientific endeavors. Known most for his contributions in Arctic North American flora, his interest in Russian language ultimately developed into a career long exploration of Russian flora. Having traveled to Russia and the former Soviet Union multiple times, he made significant contributions to the U.S. - U.S.S.R. Botanical Exchange Program (commencing in 1972 as a bilateral agreement to address mutual environmental concerns to override the terse political relationship of the time) and served as an editor of English translations of Russian floras. His work in Russian botany led him and fellow botanists David Murray and Thomas S. Elias to collect plants in Tuva in the remote Russian Far East (one of the “obscure” places that Nobel physicist Richard Feynman had joked wanting to be the first American to ever visit, but didn’t get permission until after his death in 1988; Shetler, Murray, and Elias visited first in 1983 for fieldwork).

National Seed Strategy provides native seed progress

From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 2022.

-Adapted from USGS

The Plant Conservation Alliance, a coalition of federal agencies and their Tribal, state and non-governmental partners with the goal to protect and restore resilient native plant communities, released a five-year progress report detailing coordinated efforts to increase the pace, quality and scale of native seed development and use in restoration efforts across our Nation.

Image courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey

The Plant Conservation Alliance published the National Seed Strategy Progress Report online to present progress towards meeting the increasing demand for native seeds to restore plant communities altered by natural or human-caused events on both public and private lands. The report is available at https://go.usa.gov/xMvtA.

Resilient native plant communities protect America’s lands, mountains, streams, vulnerable coastal communities, and infrastructure from the effects of climate change and extreme weather events. Native plants are key to a restoration economy that engages our next generation of farmers, conservation professionals, scientists, and land managers. Like timber, our native plants and the Nation’s native seed supply should be recognized, valued, protected, and managed as crucial natural resources. The National Seed Strategy provides a framework for a coordinated approach for planting the right seed in the right place at the right time.

"We're proud of the work that's been done since 2015 to accomplish the goals of the National Seed Strategy," said Molly McCormick, an ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and lead author of the report. "We’ve made important inroads to meet the great demand for native seeds; however, there is much work to do, with an estimated 74% of U.S. plant species seeds still unavailable in the quantities needed for restoration."

Eocene grass spikelet found preserved in Baltic amber

From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 2022.

-Adapted from Oregon State University

Research from the Oregon State University College of Science and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History has produced the first definite identification of grass in fossilized tree resin from the Baltic region, home to the world’s most well-known amber deposits.

Side view of Eograminis balticus. (photo by Poinar & Soreng)

The specimen studied by George Poinar Jr. (OSU) and Robert Soreng (NMNH), named Eograminis balticus, also represents the first fossil member of Arundinoideae, a subfamily of the widespread Poaceae family that includes cereal grasses, bamboos and many species found in lawns and natural grasslands.

Findings have been published in the International Journal of Plant Sciences (182: 808-816; 2021 http://doi.org/10.1086/716781).

Blown or shoved against a resin-producing tree, the fossil grass lost one of its spikelets some 40 or 50 million years ago, along with an accompanying insect that had been feeding on it.

A spikelet is one unit of inflorescence, or flower arrangement, and consists of two glumes and one or more florets. A glume is a leaflike structure below the flower cluster, and a floret is one of the small flowers in the cluster.

The fossil spikelet is the first definite evidence that grasses were among the various plants in the Baltic amber forest.

“The discovery not only adds a new plant group to the extensive flora that have been described from Baltic amber but provides new insights into the forest habitat the amber came from, a controversial topic in this field of study,” said Poinar, an international expert in using plant and animal life forms preserved in amber to learn more about the biology and ecology of the distant past.

A remembrance of Bill Stern

From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 2022.

Illustration of tulip (Tulipa) by Alice Tangerini, for Bill Stern's textbook, Humanistic Botany.

My first acquaintance with Bill Stern came through Edward Ayensu, the Chairman of Botany back in the 1970s. Dr. Stern was looking for an illustrator for his book, Humanistic Botany, which he co-authored with Oswald Tippo. Dr. Ayensu introduced us. In 1975 I had only been a Botany staff member for 3 years, but Bill arranged for me to take on the job as illustrator for the book although I was a complete novice at academic university books. Bill would joke around about topics in botany, and he showed his sense of humor when he allowed me to illustrate the “Names and Naming Chapter” of the book with a horse wallowing among Equisetum culms. It was a learning experience which ended up improving my drawing skills as I had deadlines to meet. Bill always demonstrated his patience with me and encouraged me when I was questioning my ability to finish. We had the most fun going up to New York one weekend to meet the publishers, stopping at the Howard Johnson’s, and going to Carnegie Deli. I will always remember Bill as having a hidden humorous side behind the occasional serious exterior.

- Alice Tangerini

William (Bill) Louis Stern (1926-2021)

From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 2022.

William (Bill) Stern joined the Smithsonian’s Department of Botany in 1960 as the first Curator in the Division of Woods, a newly formed division that soon merged with the Division of Plant Anatomy. He was recruited by the Smithsonian from Yale University where he had been an instructor in the School of Forestry. “Instructor” may be a misnomer since it does not adequately convey the full breadth of his activities at Yale. He taught courses in wood anatomy and identification, tropical forestry, and plant microtechnique; edited the journal Tropical Woods; curated what was at the time the world’s largest collection of wood (the Samuel J. Record Memorial Collection); and conducted research in wood anatomy as it related to angiosperm phylogeny. Also, while at Yale, he made two field trips to the Darien of Panama in 1957 and 1959.

William (Bill) Stern (photograph courtesy of The Washington Biologists’ Field Club)

A significant consequence of Stern coming to the Smithsonian was the concomitant acquisition of "The Archie F. Wilson Wood Collection." While studying for his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, Stern had become acquainted with Wilson (1903-1960), a businessman, research associate of the Field Museum, and principal in the International Wood Collectors Society (IWCS). Wilson’s collection of 4637 wood specimens and its supporting library were arguably the finest private collection of wood and associated library in the world. The friendship and overlapping interests of Stern and Wilson resulted in Wilson's gift to the Smithsonian, at his death in 1960, of his extensive collection. This gift made the Department of Botany’s wood collection the second largest in the U.S.A. and vastly improved its supporting library, now intercalated into the Botany and Horticulture Library. The Wilson wood collection remains the largest single donation from a private collector to our wood collection, which now holds more than 43,000 specimens and ranks among the largest and most significant such resources in the world.