The Plant Press

Art by Alice Tangerini: Vallisneria spiralis L.

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

Humanistic Botany (1977), an undergraduate textbook co-authored by Bill Stern (1926-2021), was illustrated by Alice Tangerini. Among her illustrations is a drawing of eel grass, Vallisneria spiralis, chosen for its unusual reproduction process. Tangerini was recently able to match a photocopy of the plant habit that she used to a specimen dated 1880, ex herb. G. Genevier s.n. For the flowers, she used details from an old engraving, source not defined. The unusual composition was made to wrap around the description. The book includes a passage from the essay, "The Intelligence of Flowers," by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), poet, dramatist, and Nobel Laureate in literature:

Vallisneria is a rather insignificant herb, possessing none of the strange grace of the Water-lily or of certain submersed verdant tresses. But it would seem as though nature had delighted in imbuing it with a beautiful idea. Its whole existence is spent at the bottom of the water, in a sort of half-slumber, until dawns the wedding-hour, when it aspires to a new life. Then the female plant slowly uncoils its long peduncular spiral, rises, emerges and floats and blossoms on the surface of the pond. From a neighbouring stem, the male flowers, which see it through the sunlit water, rise in their turn, full of hope, towards the one that rocks, that awaits them, that calls them to a fairer world. But, when they have come half-way, they feel themselves suddenly held back: their stalk, the very source of their life, is too short; they will never reach the abode of light, the only spot in which the union of the stamens and the pistil can be achieved!

Science to Go features a lesson in botanical illustration

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

A page from the Science to Go lesson plan, “Making a Marsh,” provides students with instructions on how to draw Lobelia cardinalis. (image courtesy of Smithsonian Environmental Research Center)

Alice Tangerini participated in on online STEM event, “Science to Go,” organized by Karen McDonald, Education Director at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, Maryland. On December 8, 2021, Tangerini presented a drawing segment live to students on botanical illustration featuring the marsh plant, Lobelia cardinalis. She worked with color pencils on paper and referred to digital photos which were supplied to the students. The activity, presented in Spanish and English, uses common household items to understand how marshes work. Tangerini was joined by SERC scientist Genevieve Noyce. The lesson plan is available at <https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/science-to-go-marsh-plants-teachers-students/rtI92wVkAPgnCSBi>.

“Science to Go” was created with the aid of grants by the Smithsonian Institution and the Smithsonian's American Women's History Initiative. The Science to Go project was designed to bring science to students, where they are, during the pandemic. Science kits were provided to students to use during live and recorded video. Each event featured a woman scientist at SERC or a scientific collaborator. Roughly 2,000 free kits were distributed to Anne Arundel and Baltimore public libraries, where students picked them up. The grants had also allowed SERC to host teacher professional development, offering kits to Prince Georges County Schools.

Award & Honors

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

Ken Wurdack is the recipient of the National Museum of Natural History’s 2020 Science Achievement Award. NMNH began awarding Science Achievement Awards in 2003. The awards recognize exceptional scientific publications in natural history. In close consultation with the museum’s Senate of Scientists, an interdisciplinary review committee recognized the outstanding work of staff scientists for five scientific papers and a book each published in 2020. The awards were announced during a virtual NMNH All-Science meeting on November 10, 2021.

Wurdack was recognized for his co-authored paper, “Pseudoflowers produced by Fusarium xyrophilum on yellow-eyed grass (Xyris spp.) in Guyana: A novel floral mimicry system?” (Fungal Genetics and Biology 144: 103466; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fgb.2020.103466). The paper was written by Imane Laraba, Susan P. McCormick, Martha M. Vaughan, Robert H. Proctor, Mark Busman, Michael Appell, Kerry O'Donnell, Frederick C. Felker, M. Catherine Aime, and Kenneth J. Wurdack.

Xyris surinamensis inflorescences comparing similar flowers (left) and fungal pseudoflowers (right). (image by Ken Wurdack)

The paper presents a novel plant-fungus association where a newly described parasitic fungus, Fusarium xyrophilum, produces “fake flowers” that mimic its hostplant’s flowers. These pseudoflowers are apparently adaptive to deceive pollinators which spread fungal spores and facilitate outcrossing (bringing together mating types). It is very different from any previously described fungal floral mimicry, especially in the plant and fungal species involved, with the pseudoflowers being composed of fungal tissues rather than host-plant modifications. The paper uses morphological, genomic, and biochemical data to support the ecological narrative, and has captured the attention of the popular science press.

Registration now open for the 2022 Smithsonian Botanical Symposium

The Smithsonian’s Department of Botany and the United States Botanic Garden will hold the 19th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, “Life on the Edge: Exceptional Plants in Exceptional Places,” on 13 May 2022.

Plants live in seemingly inhospitable environments that exhibit extremes of light, temperature, altitude, drought, and substrate. To survive in the driest deserts, on mountaintops, without soil or with toxic soil, numerous adaptations have evolved to enable specialized plants such as succulents, epiphytes, and alpines to exploit these environments. The 19th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium will explore current research on plants in extreme environments, examining their natural history, evolution, and value for human survival, in the face of climate change and increasing pollution. Speakers will include scientists specializing in conservation, ecology, systematics, and genetics whose research explores plant survival in extreme parts of the natural world.

In addition, the 19th José Cuatrecasas Medal in Tropical Botany will be awarded at the Symposium. This prestigious award is presented annually to an international scholar who has contributed significantly to advancing the field of tropical botany. The award is named in honor of Dr. José Cuatrecasas, a pioneering botanist who spent many years working in the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian and devoted his career to plant exploration in tropical South America.

The Symposium will be virtual. If COVID-restrictions are lifted, it will transition to a hybrid event -- virtual on Zoom and in-person in Washington, DC. The event is free; there is no registration fee to attend the Symposium.

Register now at https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_l7QFKW9BSZ-ss6uyWW9Erg.

Tentative Schedule (all times are Eastern Daylight Time):
1:00 pm Welcome
1:08 pm Cuatrecases Medal
1:15 pm First speaker
1:45 pm Second speaker
2:15 pm Break
2:45 pm Third speaker
3:15 pm Fourth speaker
3:45 pm Break
4:15 pm Fifth speaker
4:45 pm Round-table discussion
5:15 pm Wrap-up

The names of the speakers will be announced soon.