The Plant Press

Artwork of Emily Dickinson Plants to Be Displayed outside Chair’s Office

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 4, October 2018.

A metalpoint drawing of Rosa carolina by Kandy Phillips. The drawing was inspired by the poems of Emily Dickinson.

A selection of metalpoint drawings by local artist Kandy Vermeer Phillips will be on display beginning October 10 outside the Department of Botany Chair’s office on the fourth floor of the West Wing, National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. These illustrations are the culmination of Phillips’ yearlong project to illustrate the plants associated with Emily Dickinson’s poetry. All of Phillips’ artwork represents specimens from the US National Herbarium collections with attention to choosing those in the area and time of Dickinson’s poetry.

Phillips’ work was supported by an Educational Grant from the American Society of Botanical Artists. The drawings are a generous donation by Phillips to the Botanical Art Collection in the Department of Botany.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Alpinia modesta F.Muell. ex K.Schum.

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 3, July 2018.

At the 2018 Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, “Plants in the Past: Fossils and the Future,” fossilized Zingiberales was among the many plant groups discussed. As part of the Zingiberales program at the Smithsonian spearheaded by Curator John Kress and colleagues, Alice Tangerini was sent to the Harold L. Lyon Arboretum in Hawaii in July 1997 to make preliminary drawings from living specimens of plants in the Zingiberales, including Alpinia modesta. It was a summer of sporadic rains so drawing in the Arboretum always meant bringing a large plastic tarp to throw over her work when a shower came. The floral details were illustrated at the education building in the evenings. Tangerini made additional sketches from specimens at the Smithsonian Botany Greenhouses the following summer.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Hymenoxys ambigens (S.F. Blake) Bierner var. neomexicana W.L. Wagner

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 2, April 2018.

Reported from southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, Hymenoxys ambigens is comprised of three local varieties. Variety neomexicana is known from the rocky slopes of the Animas and Peloncillo Mountains of New Mexico, and is ranked as imperiled (T2, NatureServe status). In the cover story in this issue of The Plant Press, Robert Edwards finds that soil pH is a strong environmental variable that is uniquely correlated with diversity in the tribe Heliantheae. Tangerini illustrated this variety for Warren Wagner in his treatment of the species in Brittonia (51: 79-86; 1999).

Tangerini Illustrations Featured in Three Exhibitions

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 2, April 2018.

Botanical illustrations by Alice Tangerini are currently on view in three different exhibitions. Tangerini shows her mixed media (graphite and watercolor on drafting film) of Camellia sasanqua in an exhibition of botanical and landscape art, “The Spirit in Bloom 2018,” at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The show, sponsored by the All Hallows Guild, opened on 15 April 2018. Artworks on display are by artists of the Cathedral Community and the Botanical Arts Society of the National Capital Region (BASNCR), of which Tangerini is a member. A number of staff members from Smithsonian’s Botany Department were present at the opening reception. The exhibit closes 18 May 2018.

Tangerini’s pen and ink illustrations of Pentagramma glanduloviscida and Hibiscadelphus stellatus are included in the exhibit, “Botanical Art Worldwide: America's Flora,” a juried exhibition of artworks of native plants, staged in the Conservatory Gallery of the U.S. Botanic Garden (USBG) opening 4 May 2018. A collaboration of the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA) and USBG, the exhibition includes 46 original contemporary botanical artworks, juried from a field of over 200 entries. On 18 May, the Worldwide Day of Botanical Art, USBG will host three programs for visitors; a lecture, Botanical Art Worldwide: 6 Continents, 25 Countries, 1 Worldwide Project; a public program, Meet the Artists: Botanical Art Worldwide: America's Flora; and a reserved program, Behind-the-Scenes: Botanical Art Worldwide: America's Flora. The exhibit will remain on view at USBG through October 2018, and then travel through the end of 2019. The exhibit website can be viewed at https://www.usbg.gov/botanical-art-worldwide-americas-flora.

Vernonia echioides by Alice Tangerini received a “Highly Commended” award in the 2018 Margaret Flockton Award contest at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.

Tangerini’s illustration of Vernonia echioides received a “Highly Commended” award in the 2018 Margaret Flockton Award contest held yearly at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia. The Margaret Flockton Award commemorates the contribution Margaret Flockton made to Australian scientific botanical illustration. This contest invites illustrators from around the world to submit scientifically accurate drawings that accompany the published taxonomic description of the plant, and are highly detailed black and white drawings primarily undertaken in pen and ink, pencil, or digitally rendered. The Maple Brown Family and the Foundation & Friends of the Botanic Gardens sponsor this annual, international award for excellence in scientific botanical illustration. Illustrations are on display at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney from 21 April to 6 May 2018, and travel to The Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan (May–July 2018) and to The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden Mount Tomah (August–September 2018). The exhibit website is https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/science/botanical-illustration/the-margaret-flockton-award-2017.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Dryopteris macropholis Lorence & W.L. Wagner

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 1, January 2018.

Fern diversity is high on the Marquesas Islands in the southern Pacific. On a recent trip to two islands, Ua Pou and Hiva Oa, researchers from the Smithsonian Institution, National Tropical Botanical Garden, and French Polynesia encountered 82 of the 99 indigenous pteridophyte species (see cover article). Among them was Dryopteris macropholis, an endangered species restricted to the mountains of Ua Pou and Hiva Oa, as well as Nuku Hiva, Ua Huka, and Tahuata (also in the Marquesas). Alice Tangerini illustrated this species from the type specimen and field photographs for a 2011 publication (PhytoKeys 4: 5-51) in which 11 new fern species were described from the Marquesas Islands. This plate was illustrated primarily in pen and ink, but additional stippling was added and parts were rearranged in Adobe Photoshop. The frond and stipe (too large to fit in with the details) appeared on a separate plate.

Hidden Inca Treasure: Remarkable New Tree Discovered in the Andes

From Plant Press, Vol. 21, No. 1, January 2018.

-Adapted from Wake Forest News

Hidden in plain sight – that’s how researchers describe their discovery of a new genus of large forest tree commonly found, yet previously scientifically unknown, in the tropical Andes.

Botanist Kenneth Wurdack from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and Wake Forest University graduate student William Farfan-Rios detailed their findings in a study just released in the journal PhytoKeys.

Habit, with paired branching and staminate inflorescences, of Incadendron. (photo courtesy of Jason Houston)

Named Incadendron esseri (literally “Esser’s tree of the Inca”), the tree is a new genus and species commonly found along an ancient Inca path in Peru, the Trocha Unión. Its association with the land of the Inca empire inspired its scientific name.

So how could a canopy tree stretching up to 100 feet tall and spanning nearly two feet in diameter go undetected until now?

Art by Alice Tangerini: Scleria tropicalis M.T. Strong

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 4, October 2017.

Like Carex [see Plant Press 20(4): 1; 2017], Scleria is a sedge with unisexual flowers. It can be found up to 2000 meters elevation in the Andes Mountains in South America. Laurence Dorr, Basil Stergios, and Ramon Caracas collected the type specimen of Scleria tropicalis at 1800 meters in Guaramacal National Park in Venezuela in 2005. Mark Strong described the species in 2007 in a paper published in Harvard Papers in Botany (11: 199-201). Illustrating Scleria tropicalis presented an issue for Alice Tangerini who wanted to fit the habit on a page at life size. The 2-meter plant had been folded at several joints to fit on a herbarium sheet so portions had to be cut from the drawing for clarity of presentation. By drawing the inflorescence separately, it could be scanned, placed in the layout with the habit, and floral and leaf details in Adobe Photoshop, without obscuring important structures.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Sanchezia fosteri Wassh.

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.

Sanchezia fosteri Wassh.

Robin Foster, the 15^th recipient of the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany, collected the type specimen of Sanchezia fosteri (Acanthaceae) in Peru, east of Puerto Inca, Huánuco, on September 11, 1982. Dieter Wasshausen described this species in 2007 (Ann. Naturhist. Mus. Wien, B 108: 180-182), and dedicated the name of the plant in honor of Foster “for his outstanding tireless fíeldwork contributing to our knowledge of taxonomic botany.” Alice Tangerini prepared the illustrations of S. fosteri and eight other new species of Peruvian Acanthaceae collected from the Cerros del Sira for Wasshausen’s publication.

Saving Endangered Species Youth Art Contest Recipient Visits Smithsonian

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.

On May 24, Alice Tangerini hosted a workshop for the winner of the “Saving Endangered Species Youth Art Contest.” Tangerini, along with eight other artists, photographers and wildlife naturalists, were the judges for the national contest, which included all ages in the grades kindergarten through high school and required sifting through the artwork of 60 semifinalists by an online review. A conference call with all nine judges decided the winners in the four grade categories and the top grand prize went to a local Washington, DC native, seven-year-old Sanah Hutchins. Her winning entry, the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee, a species that had just retained status in the endangered species category shortly before the contest deadline. The prize for Sanah was a visit to Tangerini’s office and a private drawing lesson with Tangerini. Sanah, her parents, and grandparents in attendance, walked through the fifth floor hallway, encountering Greg McKee who gave a short and informed talk on botany and collecting.

Alice Tangerini gives painting tips to youth art winner, Sanah Hutchins. (photo by Nabeeha Kazi)

For the lesson, Tangerini supplied photos of bees pollinating, a collection of pinned bees provided by Sean Brady of the Department of Entomology and a sample painting on drafting film of a bee on Echinacea. Sanah, a disciplined young artist, followed directions making her own painting from the photos and even doing some back painting on the film. The family took many photos and posted them on social media sites, and the contest and event even had a feature in a local D.C. newspaper, The Northwest Current. A ceremony and reception took place in the evening at the U.S. House of Representatives Rayburn House Office Building where Sanah received a plaque and many accolades for her artwork.

Art by Alice Tangerini: Raveniopsis sp. nov.

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 2, April 2017.

In the new exhibition, “Objects of Wonder” at the National Museum of Natural History, new discoveries by museum scientists will be given a spotlight. Rotating on a regular basis, the display case debuts with a new plant species described by botanist Kenneth Wurdack. During a 2012 plant collecting expedition to Kamakusa Mountain, Guyana, an unusual shrub was discovered and subsequently identified by Wurdack to the genus Raveniopsis (Rutaceae). Alice Tangerini drew a scientific illustration of this species, and both illustration and plant specimen are currently displayed in the exhibition.