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.
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).
Continue reading "A momentary thought in time: a letter from Siberia " »