The Plant Press

Art by Alice Tangerini: Muhlenbergia jaime-hintonii P.M.Peterson & Valdés-Reyna

From Plant Press, Vol. 26, No. 1, January 2023.

When first described in 1999 from collections from southern Aramberri in southern Nuevo León, México, Paul Peterson suggested Muhlenbergia jaime-hintonii resided in M. subg. Trichochloa, perhaps related to M. pubigluma since both species share a dense white pubescence below the basal nodes, short-leafy rhizomes, reddish-gray spikelets, and faintly-3-veined lemmas. However, after producing a phylogeny based on DNA sequence markers in 2010, 2018, and 2021, M. jaime-hintonii was found on an isolated branch embedded within species residing in M. subg. Pseudosporobolus near other wide-ranging species from the Great Basin and Eastern North America.

Alice Tangerini inked the plate using the Gillott crowquills on drafting film. The illustration marked the initial scanning at high resolution for artwork in the department. The drawing was scanned at 1200 dpi which was twice the former scan resolution of 600 dpi. Tangerini spoke with Barney Lipscomb, SIDA’s editor, and requested the high resolution for the page. Lipscomb agreed to 1000 dpi which was all they could handle and the file was then reproduced in bitmap to keep the file size small. The resulting reproduction in SIDA (18: 686; 1999) looked very sharp and set the standard for all following illustrations.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Vitis rotundifolia Michaux

From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 4, October 2022.

Vitis rotundifolia, or muscadine, is a grape species from the southern USA commonly used as fruits or for cooking and making jelly, juice, and wine. It is a close relative of Vitis popenoei from Mexico and adjacent regions. Alice Tangerini used a variety of herbarium specimens for her drawing, taking advantage of many specimens collected by Jun Wen. Images of the living plant and fruit were numerous on the web and were used to convey a more natural appearance of Vitis in the drawing. The illustration appears in The Flora of North America: North of Mexico (Vol. 12 Magnioliophyta: Vitaceae to Garryaceae). Tangerini was challenged to reduce the drawing to a small size to fit the FNA format. The illustration was also selected for the t-shirt design by the FNA group for Botany 2016.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Tibouchina fraterna N.E. Br.

From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 3, July 2022.

Found on tepuis, the table form mountains of the Guayana Shield, Tibouchina fraterna (Melastomataceae) is an exceptional plant from an exceptional place—the theme of the 19^th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, which was held at the National Museum of Natural History on May 13, 2022. Native to Guyana and south Venezuela, T. fraterna has been found on Mount Auyán, Mount Duida, and Mount Roraima. Tibouchina fraternal was one of a series of melastome drawings Alice Tangerini drew for John Wurdack in 1987, published in the Flora of the Guianas treatment of the Melastomataceae. The narrow page format encouraged Tangerini to illustrate many of the floral characters overlapping parts of the habit with leaf surface details placed underneath the habit. This format style continued until software allowed for scanning and layout digitally. A remark by a reviewer on one of the melastome drawing copies was, “A beautiful illustration! It would be nice to have additional species illustrated like this”.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Corytoplectus speciosus (Poepp.) Wiehler

From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 2, April 2022.

Corytoplectus speciosus is native to high-elevation cloud forests of northwestern South America and now in cultivation, grown for its colorful leaves and yellow and orange flowers. The plant was drawn by Alice Tangerini for the Gesneriaceae of the Flora of Peru project and published to illustrate the species in Rodríguez-Flores & Skog (Selbyana 29: 92-124; 2008). In drawing C. speciosus Tangerini used images from slides that were taken in the field. A pressed specimen (L.E. Skog, J.E. Skog, Lamas & Schunke 5168) was used for the flower, fruit, and seed details. The slide images provided valuable information on the leaf surfaces and patterns of coloration.

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.

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

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.

A Sowerby surprise: Specimen digitization project finds original hand-painted engravings

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

By Julia Beros.

They were found within the herbarium case of lichen specimens, following name and geographic order and next to cases of other lichen specimens. Then in a single cubby above and below other cubbies filled neatly by folders with CLADONIA marked on them, were a stack of lichen reference material filed right where it -could likely- belong. As digitizing the vast holdings of the U.S. National Herbarium makes its rounds of the collection, accruing over 3.5 million images, the conveyor project’s circumstantial overhaul of the Herbarium’s vast holdings has unearthed some one-of-a-kind objects.

Etching of a lichen by James Sowerby, with a species name annotated as “lanatus” and print series number “846” in upper corner, published 1801. The etching was recently found in a folder in the lichen cabinets during the digitization process of lichen specimens.

Sometimes you discover a stray specimen or two and maybe some out-of-place photo slides or glass plates are apt to get misplaced in the herbarium. Museum Specialist Carol Kelloff recalls the time when Emeritus Curator Harold Robinson accidentally refiled a stack of specimens with his unfinished manuscript at the bottom of the pile—and after finding it much later, he published it, post haste! So it is not unlikely, although still surprising, when a stack of beautifully hand-painted original engravings are found amongst packets of aging lichens. Nearing the final cases of imaging and cuing up the Bryophytes and Algae, the digitization project has just imaged the lichen collection, transcribing the label data for inclusion in the database and to be more easily accessible. Including all parts of the herbarium in this project not only rounds out the database, it gives a clearer picture of our holdings, prioritizing needs amongst the collections, and renewing focus in underutilized parts of the collections. In the lichen cabinets, pages delicately torn from original publications of James Sowerby’s engravings are stapled tidily to specimen sheets and annotated with new or confirmed names at the bottom. 

The artist James Sowerby (1757–1822), an innate naturalist, studied at the Royal Academy in London and in combining these two passions “decided to be a painter of flowers.” He worked first with botanist William Curtis, who helped Sowerby develop a scientific eye which laid the foundation of his career as a scientific illustrator. His first published engravings that he hand-painted were plates in Curtis’ Flora Londinensis. A prolific illustrator, his work was published in many floras, mineralogy, and zoology books, and his sons, learning the trade from childhood, continued the Sowerby legacy of scientific illustration.