Botany Profile

New Series - Vol. 5 - No. 1 January-March 2002

The Plant Press

Department of Systematic Biology - Botany & the U.S. National Herbarium

The Herbarium: A �Case� StudyBy Robert DeFilipps

It would almost seem that the instinctto understand our environment, bymeans of classifying the various

things in it, arose in part as a basicsurvival mechanism. For example, theYanomami Amerindians of Brazil, investi-gated by W. Milliken and B. Albert, areable to recognize at least 198 species ofplants and fungi used for treating variousdisorders. In societies with less earth-bound and more westernized systems ofculture, modern herbarium collections ofdried plant material play a major role inclassifying the organisms around us andunderstanding their interrelationships.Botanists are finding ways of assessingand responding to conditions caused bymajor extirpations in the world�s flora, andexamining the biodiversity and potentialusefulness of plant germplasm.

Fortunately, an extensive nationalresource for addressing the biologicalconcerns of the nation, and the world atlarge, is available for consultation. Inaddition to research aspects, it is also acornucopia of readily accessible teachingmaterials for new generations of students.Since the 1800s it has been considerablybuilt up from federally sponsored explor-ing expeditions, and therefore might becalled �the people�s herbarium.� TheUnited States National Herbarium oc-cupies the 4th and 5th floors of the westwing of the National Museum of NaturalHistory in Washington, D.C. It containsmillions of specimens in several thousandmetal cases, which are divided inside intoshelf spaces called �pigeonholes.�

Along the perimeter of the herbarium,and often provided with window views of

the Smithsonian Castle, the WashingtonMonument, or the massive InternalRevenue Service building, are located theoffices and research laboratories ofadvanced staff scientists, known ascurators. �Curator� comes from the Latinword �curare� meaning �to take care of,� aderivation unrelated to the other �curare,�an arrow poison used by some SouthAmerican tribes, originating from the Caribword �kuriri.�

The curators use theherbarium collections toperform research on thetaxonomy, systematics,floristics, cladistics, andevolution of plants fromaround the world, andoften work on projectshaving an impact on, ora facet pertaining to,the disciplines of plant conservation,ecology, or behavioral studies of animalsin relation to plants. Verified, authenticspecimens of rare and endangered species,required for determining their originalgeographical range and former habitatpreferences, are found among the collec-tions. The herbarium maintains approxi-mately 90,000 �type� specimens, which arethe irrevocable basis for the scientificnames of species, subspecies and variet-ies, and are used for comparison inrevisions and monographic work entailinghighly critical identifications. Recourse totype specimens in daily work is not alwaysnecessary: many experienced botanistsremember, over a period of decades, thescientific names of hundreds of speciesthat they know on sight; seldom, however,

does a routine identification sessionbecome a festival of total recall.

The U.S. National Herbarium is anentity administered by the Section ofBotany in the Department of SystematicBiology. The herbarium�s currentappellation was established in 1894 asthe name for the joint plant collections ofthe U.S. National Museum and the U.S.Department of Agriculture. The real basis

for the nationalherbarium, asreported in acomprehensivehistory by C.V.Morton and W.L.Stearn (PlantScience Bulletin12(2):1-4.1966), wasformed by theabundant collec-

tions of the 1838-1842 U.S. South PacificExploring Expedition, commanded by Lt.Charles Wilkes of the U.S. Navy. Thecharacter �Captain Ahab� in Moby Dick,by Herman Melville, is said to bemodeled after Wilkes. Backgroundinformation on the official botanist of theexpedition, William Rich, is largely un-obtainable, since he soon �dropped out�of botany and became a shell collector inMexico. A total of 50,000 specimens of10,000 plant species were accessionedinto the national herbarium from theWilkes Expedition.

The most notable plant discovered onthe extended Wilkes voyage was thecarnivorous California pitcher plant or

Plants from historicvoyages and treks

of discovery arehoused with 4.6

million specimens

Continued on page 9

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Travel

Head of BotanyW. John Kress(kress.john@nmnh.si.edu)

EDITORIAL STAFF

Co-EditorsGary Krupnick(krupnick.gary@nmnh.si.edu)Robert DeFilipps(defilipps.robert@nmnh.si.edu)

Circulation ManagerShirley Maina(maina.shirley@nmnh.si.edu)

News ContactsMaryAnn Apicelli, Robert Faden, EllenFarr, George Russell, Alice Tangerini, andElizabeth Zimmer

The Plant Press is a quarterly publicationprovided free of charge. If you would like to beadded to the mailing list, contact Shirley Mainaat: Department of Systematic Biology -Botany, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box37012, NMNH MRC-166, Washington, DC20013-7012, or by e-mail: maina.shirley@nmnh.si.edu.

Web site: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/botany

The Plant Press

New Series - Vol. 5 - No. 1

Mark Littler (10/8-10/11) traveled toFort Pierce, Florida for a meeting of thesearch committee for a new chief scientistat the Smithsonian Marine Station (SMS).Mark and Diane Littler (12/27-2/23) trav-eled to Fort Pierce to continue research atSMS and in the Florida Keys.

John Kress traveled to Durham, NorthCarolina (10/10-10/12) to lecture at DukeUniversity and attend a graduate studentcommittee meeting; to New York City (11/9�11/12) to participate in a morphobankworkshop at the American Museum ofNatural History; and to Miami, Florida (11/14-11/16) to chair a Coalition for Excellencein Tropical Biology (CETroB) meeting andto be guest speaker at a World WildlifeFund reception.

Wagner Wagner traveled to St. Louis,Missouri (10/11-10/15) to attend theMissouri Botanical Garden SystematicsSymposium, and to search the herbariumfor additional Caryophyllaceae for hisresearch on phylogeny of the family; andto Vienna, Austria (10/16-10/22) to attend

Chris Lea, National Park Service,Assateague; Carex of Maryland (10/24).

Jun Wen, Field Museum of NaturalHistory, Chicago; Apiaceae, Panax (10/26).

Jasivia Gonzales, University of Goet-tingen; Sticherus (Gleicheniaceae) (11/7-11/14).

Rhoda Love, private; Collections andarchives of L.F. Henderson (11/8-11/12).

Daniel Stancik, Charles University; Fes-tuca (11/17-12/19).

Todd Willis, PlantGarden.com; Plant imageresources (11/27).

Tom Frankovich, University of Virginia;Epiphytes of Florida seagrasses (12/4-12/7).

Florence Caplow, Washington NaturalHeritage Program; Rare taxa of Washing-ton State (12/07).

David Frodin, Royal Botanic Gardens,Kew; Araliaceae (12/13).

Susan Frisch, California State University -Fullerton; Caulerpa (Algae) (12/18-12/20).

Mingli Zhang, Academia Sinica/HarvardUniversity; Papaveraceae of China (1/3-1/7).

Christopher Hardy, Research Associate,Institute for Systematic Botany; Researchcollaboration (1/4).

Ingrid Pol-Yin Lin, private; Botany Webprojects (1/4).

Gery Allan, Arcadia University; Fabaceaeand Rutaceae (Melicope) (1/7-1/14).

Seth Bennett, private; Botany Web pro-jects (1/7).

Alexander Krings, North Carolina StateUniversity; Asclepiadaceae (1/14).

Raven Morris, private contractor; Plantimages (1/22).

Sally Guy-Brown, private; Scientific illus-trations (1/23).

the International Association for PlantTaxonomy Symposium.

Dan Nicolson traveled to Vienna,Austria (10/14-10/22) to attend, as presi-dent of the International Association forPlant Taxonomy, the IAPT Symposium.

Paula DePriest traveled to Vienna,Austria (10/21-10/27) to attend the Inter-national Association for Plant TaxonomySymposium, and to Durham, North Caro-lina (12/10-12/11) to attend a graduatestudent committee meeting at DukeUniversity.

Robert DeFilipps (11/30-12/8) traveledto Dominica. A discussion of the need forcrop diversification in the island was heldwith former Prime Minister Dame EugeniaCharles and Dominican agricultural econo-mist Bernard Yankey; they were presentedwith a copy of DeFilipps� �Useful Plants ofthe Commonwealth of Dominica, WestIndies.�

Laurence Skog (1/1-1/17) traveled tothe United Kingdom to visit the herbaria inEdinburgh (E), Oxford (OXF), Manchester(MANCH), and Kew (K).

Depatures

New Faces

Two new volunteers will be assisting withimaging projects and Web development.Ingrid Pol-Yin Lin is a graduate of theCalifornia Institute of the Arts and theUniversity of Southern California. She iscompleting a master�s project infilm-making while helping with Habitat forHumanity. She is fluent in Mandarin. SethBennett graduated cum laude from St.Michael�s College in northern Vermontwith a degree in computer science and aminor in mathematics. He has previouslyworked for a minor league baseball teamand a ski resort. Their assistance is muchappreciated.

John Pruski, former research assistant toLaurence Dorr, has accepted a position atthe Missouri Botanical Garden as Assis-tant Curator. He can be reached by email atJohn.Pruski@mobot.org.

Visitors

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Chair

With

A

View

W.John

Kress

The Convention on Biological Diversity: The Globalization ofNatural History Science (Part I)

The challenge and intellectual responsibility ofnatural history scientists working in museums,botanical gardens, and universities is to accu-

rately and thoroughly discover, document, and describethe biological diversity of the Earth. Over the last threehundred years of botanical and zoological exploration,naturalists have traveled the world over in the quest forunderstanding the diversity and origin of life. Thesevoyages of discovery have been local as well as globaland have contributed to the documentation of over 1.4million species of plants, animals and microorgansims.Yet much is left to be discovered and named. In thepast, the majority of this work was conducted bywestern scientists, but today this effort has becometruly international.

After centuries of exploration, we universallyacknowledge that Nature in general does not recognizepolitical frontiers and boundaries. For example, thedistribution patterns of the rich flora and fauna of theChocó region on the Pacific slopes of the northernAndes do not conform to the national borders ofEcuador, Colombia, and Panama. Similarly in the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot populations of plants andanimals routinely cross the frontiers of Thailand,Myanmar, Bangladesh, China, and India. Most pub-lished checklists and inventories of plant species (e.g.,Flora of Ecuador, Flora of Thailand) encompass areasdefined by political boundaries, but in fact alwaysinclude species found in adjacent countries. In manycases our understanding of the diversity and distribu-tion of plants and animals has been significantlyhindered by these national borders and boundaries.

In the 21st century we clearly recognize that thebiological resources of the Earth are besieged by anunprecedented level of social and economic develop-ment that threatens massive levels of species extinctionand environmental change. In the midst of this globalcrisis one would expect that every attempt would bemade to overcome the obstacles to understandingbiodiversity resulting from national boundaries. Indeed,ten years ago in Rio de Janeiro representatives frommany nations met to discuss just this problem. As aresult of that meeting one of the most profound politicalresponses to the environmental crisis emerged as theUnited Nations Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD).

The CBD was formulated as an affirmation that theworld�s biodiversity is a common concern of human-kind. The three central objectives of the Convention are1) the conservation of biodiversity, 2) the sustainableutilization of biodiversity, and 3) the equitable sharingof the benefits to humans arising from biodiversity; the42 articles contained in the CBD outline how theseobjectives are to be met. To date over 170 nations

worldwide have signed and ratified the CBD; the failureof the United States to ratify is a glaring omission.

As a response to the biodiversity crisis the nearuniversal ratification of the CBD seemed to support arenewed and invigorated effort to document anddescribe the biological world. The �cause of bio-diversity� was transformed from a local issue to aninternational concern: the globalization of biodiversitywas achieved. And as part of this globalization, naturalhistory researchers worldwide were poised to providethe scientific information necessary for understandingand conserving the plants and animals of the planet.Never before had museum scientists been faced withsuch a clear and immediate mandate to understand thenatural world as was given by the CBD.

Unfortunately the political meaning of the CBD forbiologists and natural product researchers is thataccess to nature for basic biodiversity investigationshas become intensely regulated by local and nationalgovernments worldwide. The universal acceptance thatnations and local communities have intellectualproperty rights to their biological diversity has changedthe climate in which we conduct research as taxono-mists and systematic biologists. Although taxonomistsfor centuries have been the recorders and historians ofthe uses of biodiversity by local and indigenouspeople, we are now also faced with rules and regula-tions that have been primarily set up to regulateactivities that may exploit the environment, such asbiodiversity prospecting, and not scientific research. Itis alarming that since the Rio meeting the respected andscientifically sound investigations of biodiversityresearchers have even been equated with biopiracy insome instances. This misunderstanding necessitates amajor education campaign on the value of a basicunderstanding of nature to society.

Natural history scientists in both developed anddeveloping countries in addition to their efforts todocument biodiversity now must also legitimatelyaddress such issues as: How do we best share with theentire world our taxonomic data on species identifica-tion and distribution? How do we protect the intellec-tual property rights of the holders of the specimens aswell as the countries of origins of those species? Howdo we best provide universal access to specimen data?How do we treat sensitive data on rare and endangeredspecies?

Finding answers to these questions as well asrecognizing how our science and research activitieshave changed in the ten years since Rio is a challengethat we all must now tackle. To address this issue theNational Museum of Natural History has assembled aroster of internationally recognized speakers and

Continued on page 5

Page 4

StaffR e s e a r c h

Stanwyn Shetler recently finished readingthe page proofs of the final volume (Vol.30, 700 pp.) of the English translation ofthe �Flora of the USSR.� This concludeshis work, begun in 1994, of editing the lasteight volumes of the translation. Only thegeneral index is yet to follow.

W. John Kress presented an illustratedBotany Seminar Series lecture on �TheEvolution of the Zingiberales (Gingers,Bananas and Relatives): A Tropical ModelGroup for Studies in Ecology, Phylogenyand Classification� on 15 January. Resultsof cladistic analyses, and recent botanicalexploration for gingers in Myanmar, wereshown. Animal pollinators of variousmembers of the order include SouthAfrican sunbirds visiting Strelitzia, WestIndian hummingbirds for Heliconia, SouthAmerican bats on Phenakospermum, andMadagascan lemurs on Ravenala (seerelated �Art by Alice Tangerini,� page 12).

Staff Activities

Talks Presented

On 18-21 October, Dan Nicolson, PaulaDePriest and Warren Wagner attendedthe International Association for PlantTaxonomy (IAPT) Deep MorphologySymposium at the University BotanicalGardens in Vienna, Austria. The overridingidea of the symposium was how structural(morphological) data can be coordinatedwith the burgeoning macromolecular data,particularly if presumed to have arisendeep in evolution.

Nicolson also worked on Engler�sAraceae Exsiccatae et Illustratae in theUniversity herbarium, and submitted thefinished Nicolson and Fosberg manuscript�The Forsters and the Botany of theSecond Cook Expedition (1772-1775)� forpublication in IAPT�s Regnum Vegetabileseries. He and Wagner also attended the2nd annual open meeting of the IAPTofficers and councilors. DePriest alsoworked with students and colleagues atthe University of Graz.

In connection with the symposiumthere was a trip to the National Library ledby Walter Lack, who had mounted a majorexhibit of botany books there, rangingfrom the Anician Codex (an illustratedherbal, ca. 512 A.D.) to the typed doctoralthesis of Walter Gams on an organism thathe subsequently (1971) published as a newunispecific genus Tolypocladium inflatum.This species is the source of cyclosporin,a drug that prevents rejection in humanorgan transplants, including Gams� ownheart implant.

Robert Faden chaired the Eastern WinterStudy Weekend for the North AmericanRock Garden Society that was hosted bythe Potomac Valley Chapter and held at theFairview Park Marriott Hotel in Falls

Church, Virginia, 25-27 January. Atten-dance was approximately 220 guests. OtherBotany attendees were Aaron Goldberg,Mike Bordelon, Leslie Brothers andLinda Hollenberg.

On 3 March, David Lellinger, whoarrived at the Smithsonian Institution inAugust 1963, retires as Curator of Fernsand Fern Allies in the U.S. NationalHerbarium. Details of his attainments inresearch, herbarium management, andcuration of ferns were reported in �Pinnaefor Your Thoughts,� The Plant Press n.s.

Retirement of PteridologistDavid Lellinger

Susan LouiseRichardson(1947 � 2001)

Susan Louise Richardson, who servedthe Department for more than 20 years,passed away on 18 November. After aperiod of employment with the NationalGallery of Art, she enrolled in GeorgeWashington University and studiedbotany under the late Kittie Parker, aformer Emeritus Curator of the U.S.National Herbarium. Upon graduation,Richardson was hired into the HerbariumServices Unit of the Department withprimary responsibility for the formergreenhouse in the east court, a positionshe held for over 13 years. When the newgreenhouses were constructed in SilverHill, Maryland, Susan returned to theherbarium full-time where, among otherthings, she was responsible for theIntegrated Pest Management (IPM)Program in Botany. One product of thiswork is an internal Web site <http://linnaeus.si.edu/insects> that providesdetails of four years of trapping data.

4(3): 1, 7 (July-September 2001). During histenure the fern collections at US becamethe largest and most diverse in theWestern Hemisphere. The Department issori that he is leaving the daily routine,but pleased that he intends to continueresearch in the herbarium on weekends.

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Botany Gets a New Address as Mail Gets IrradiatedFollowing the discovery of a letter

containing anthrax spores mailed to theUnited States Senate on 15 October,disruptions of United States Postal Service(USPS) mail delivery occurred at manyfederal agencies, including the Smith-sonian Institution. Interruptions of servicebegan in early October, and this soon ledto the complete curtailment of mail deliveryas of 19 October, when all incoming mailwas diverted for irradiation to outlyingfacilities. Mail service did not begin to berestored until 26 November, when the firstfew irradiated envelopes began to arrive.The flow of backlogged mail has been thinand sporadic ever since.

The central mail services branch of theSmithsonian has opened a new PO Box,effective 22 January. This PO Box is goodfor all first-, third-, and fourth-class mailenvelopes and packages, includingspecimen shipments. Mail delivered to thisPO Box will not be irradiated. Please usethe following new address immediately:

Correspondence and non-specimenpackages:

(Name of Recipient)Department of Systematic Biology -

BotanySmithsonian InstitutionPO Box 37012NMNH, MRC-166Washington, DC 20013-7012USA

All specimen packages:Collections ManagerDepartment of Systematic Biology -

BotanySmithsonian InstitutionPO Box 37012NMNH, MRC-166Washington, DC 20013-7012USA

The U.S. National Herbarium will gladlyaccept e-mail for loan requests and othertransaction-related communications. Loanrequests should be sent to russell.rusty@nmnh.si.edu.

Mail that has been irradiated includesall first-class letters and flats postmarkedsince 12 October and addressed to federaloffices in Washington, D.C. with ZIPcodes 20200 to 20599. Approximately tentruck trailer-loads of mail goes out daily

from the Brentwood mail facility in Wash-ington, D.C. to Lima, Ohio, but only twoloads� worth comes back to the districtdaily. Full delivery has thus not resumed.

The impoundment of all materials atBrentwood occurred on 21 October. Themailings trapped in the closure of theBrentwood facility consists of mail to andfrom the Smithsonian dating from 14-21October. All letters, flats, and packages atthe facility will be irradiated. At this time,two-thirds of these items remain to beprocessed.

The USPS is irradiating selected mail tosterilize it from possible anthrax contamina-tions using high energy electron irradiationtechnology. At this time, only letters andflats postmarked after 21 October are beingirradiated. Boxes (greater than 3 cm inthickness), third- and fourth-class mail,including bulk mail, are not being irradi-ated. Outgoing Smithsonian mail will notbe irradiated at this time, and will bedelivered normally.

Botany has already received maileditems that have been damaged by theirradiation process. Because electronicbeam irradiation can affect researchspecimens and museum collection items,the Smithsonian Center for MaterialsResearch and Education (SCMRE) pre-pared the following message as a serviceto the professional community:

The irradiation equipment produceselectrons with such a high energy thatthey have a relatively high penetratingpower. Summarizing the information asit pertains to typical collection speci-mens exchanged by museums andresearch laboratories and transportedby mail, the following concerns emerge:

� Living specimens (seeds, cuttings,etc.) will be killed by this irradiation.� Cellulosic materials will be seriouslyaffected, with the risk of embrittlement,discoloration and oxidation. Thisaffects paper (including labels) andother plant-based materials as well asbotanical specimens.� DNA is particularly at risk. Materialssent out for genetic analysis will beseverely compromised, with the risk ofboth recombination and outrightdestruction.� Discoloration and fading will occur

in a wide range of materials, fromtextiles to specimens to photographs.� Glass can undergo blue/purplediscolorations; this may affect theresearch value of microscopic slidespecimens.� In the case of specimens underalcohol, there is the potential for someradiolysis of the preservation solution,leading to the formation of various ionsand free radicals in the solution.� Rubber and plastic stoppers ofbottles and vials may become some-what embrittled, but not to an extent oflosing the closure of the containers.� Magnetic media (floppy disks, zipdisks, audio and video tape) willprobably lose significant informationcontent. Undeveloped photographicfilm will be exposed.� Some heating of materials mayresult, which can cause problems withpreservative solutions and withadhesives.� There is no apparent risk to therecipient from residual radiation,however. The principal risks are to theintegrity and stability of the materialsbeing shipped and irradiated.

In view of these statements, it is urgentthat all Botany mailings should beaddressed to the new PO Box given above.

participants for the up-coming Smith-sonian Botanical Symposium in early April.We hope and expect that the results of thismeeting will insure that the globalization ofbiodiversity will not be an impediment toscience, but rather a great benefit tosociety and humankind. (Look for �Part II�in the April-June issue of The Plant Press).

ChairContinued from page 3

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The Conservation Column

By Gary A. KrupnickIn February, Deborah Bell and Steve

Smith will be traveling to Africa with theSmithsonian Institution Monitoring andAssessment of Biodiversity Program(MAB), to assess and monitor the bio-diversity of Gabon. They will join mam-malogists, ornithologists, herpetologists,and entomologists in the tropical countryto assess biodiversity within the context ofsustainable development and conserva-tion. Their destination is the GambaComplex, valuable for its high level ofbiodiversity, yet with little previousbiological work. Baseline biodiversityinformation will help lay the foundation forfuture environmental conservation of thearea. Initial support comes from ShellFoundation�s Sustainable EnergyProgramme, and Shell Gabon.

Bell and Smith have a history ofworking with the MAB Program. Theyjoined MAB in 1996 in the Lower Uru-bamba region of Peru, where they con-ducted biodiversity assessments at abiologically sensitive area of the Amazon.Results from that study were used to linkconservation and development, thusminimizing the operational impact onbiodiversity.

Gabon is unique because of its highpotential for the conservation of

biodiversity. Over 85 percent of thecountry remains forested with the restbeing savanna and coastal plain. Prelimi-nary research has found the forests to befloristically diverse and rich in endemicspecies (>22 percent). Most of the forestedareas have been subjected to some level ofuse or degradation. The primary commer-cial species, okoumé (Aucoumea klaine-ana, Burseraceae), accounts for 90 percentof the timber exports. A by-product of thetimber industry has been the constructionof roads, which inevitably affects forestcommunities by habitat fragmentation. Theprimary source of income comes from theexploitation of oil reserves. It has ensureda higher standard of living than in sur-rounding countries and less of a depen-dence on forest biodiversity to sustain thepopulation. Like forestry, one potentialimpact has been forest fragmentationthrough the construction of a network ofroads.

Over the course of the year, MABplans to assess three key geographic areasas priorities for conservation management:(1) Rabi Oil Field site, to characterizespecies diversity and consider someecological aspects related to the opera-tional footprint; (2) Petite Loango, aunique coastal forest site believed to be

The Alarming Lecture of Dr. Pimm

Stuart L. Pimm, noted environmentalconservationist and author of the recentbook �The World According to Pimm: AScientist Audits the Earth� (2001,McGraw-Hill), presented a SystematicBiology Seminar on 1 November in BairdAuditorium. Pimm, Professor of Conserva-tion Biology at the Center for Environmen-tal Research and Conservation, ColumbiaUniversity, New York, was introduced byW.J. Kress, Head of Botany. To audit is toexamine and verify, and in this case thesubject involves auditing the environmen-tal state of the globe. His assessment andmeasurements of biodiversity haverevealed an often startling state of affairs;Pimm�s cup runneth over.

We, the 6 billion people of the world,utilize or destroy 40 percent of the land�s

rich in species diversity; and (3) MontsDoudou, the only highland area in theGamba Complex, where initial speciesinventories have revealed unique diversityalong an altitudinal gradient. Bell andSmith will be joining a multi-disciplinaryteam of national and international experts,technical personnel and students at theRabi Oil Field site for a 4-week expedition.Other researchers from the Departmentmay join future MAB expeditions to theother two sites.

Data from each field site will bereported in briefing papers outliningpreliminary findings on the biologicaldiversity of that location. A final report willbe compiled after data from all assess-ments have been analyzed, and will outlinethe findings and future direction of theproject.

annual production of plant growth; we use50 percent of the available annual supplyof freshwater; and our fisheries consume33 percent of the ocean�s productivity.These trends could be at least partiallyreversed by more careful use of resources,although the extinct species we havepreviously decimated cannot be replaced.In fact, current species extinction ratescaused by people are accelerating through1,000 times the geological background rate.The background rate is one naturalextinction per million species per year.

Despite these disturbing facts, hepinpointed a unique opportunity forcollaboration between scientists andconservationists. We need more taxonomicand systematic studies in order to deter-mine the details of precisely where the

world�s biodiversity is concentrated.Armed with such information, the areascould be knowledgeably acquired bypurchase for preservation. It is Pimm�sobservation that it would require an outlayof only US$10 per hectare to buy outlogging rights in parts of Brazil. Bygeneralized extrapolations, according toPimm all the world�s remaining tropicalforests could be bought out for the sum ofUS$5 billion. Once that is accomplished,we could then devote ourselves tocontinued study and conservation of therainforests in a more secure atmosphere.Efforts to keep forests intact at thisjuncture in world history may remind us ofthe words of the Sicilian author GiuseppeTomasi: �If we want things to stay as theyare, things will have to change.�

By Robert DeFilipps

Gabon

Page 7

Honorable Bruce Babbitt to DeliverKeynote Address at BotanicalSymposium in April

At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio deJaneiro, world leaders agreed on a compre-hensive strategy for the conservation,sustainable development, and equitablesharing of the benefits of biodiversity.This strategy was transformed into theConvention on Biological Diversity (CBD)that has now been signed or ratified byover 175 nations.The Conventionwas an affirmationthat the world�sbiodiversity is acommon concernof humankind and it has radically changedhow we think about and manage theEarth�s biological resources. The responsi-bilities, priorities, and practices of taxono-mists and natural historians for discover-ing and describing biodiversity have beensignificantly altered since the EarthSummit. The 2002 Smithsonian BotanicalSymposium, to be held 5-6 April 2002 at theNational Museum of Natural History inWashington, D.C., will address the impactof the CBD on scientists and its ramifica-tions for understanding the natural world.

The Symposium will include a day ofinvited speakers followed by a keynoteaddress, and is being sponsored by theNational Museum of Natural History, theCuatrecasas Family Foundation, the U.S.Botanic Garden, and the InternationalAssociation for Plant Taxonomy. Anopening reception will be held Fridayevening, 5 April, in the Conservatory ofthe reopened U.S. Botanic Garden. Thespeakers are:

� Gerald Bills, Senior Research Fellow,Merck Research Laboratories, Spain;

� Brian M. Boom, Senior ResearchScientist, Center for EnvironmentalResearch and Conservation, USA;

� Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias,Diretor de Biodiversidade e RecursosGeneticos, Brasil;

� Scott Miller, Chair, Department ofSystematic Biology, National Museumof Natural History, USA;

� Cristian Samper K., Deputy Director,Smithsonian Tropical ResearchInstitute, Panama;

� Stella Simiyu, National Museums ofKenya, Nairobi.

The keynote address will be given byThe Honorable Bruce Babbitt, Secretary,U.S. Department of the Interior (1992-2000).

The second José Cuatrecasas Medal inTropical Botany will also be awarded at the

SmithsonianBotanical Sympo-sium. This presti-gious award ispresented annuallyto an internationalscholar who has

contributed significantly to advancing thefield of tropical botany. The award isnamed in honor of José Cuatrecasas, apioneering botanist who spent many yearsworking in Botany and devoted his careerto plant exploration in tropical SouthAmerica.

To register, visit the symposium Website <http://persoon.si.edu/sbs/> by 1March. For more information contact W.John Kress, Head of Botany, Departmentof Systematic Biology, Smithsonian Insti-tution, PO Box 37012, NMNH MRC-166,Washington, D.C. 20013-7012; Tel: 202-357-2534; E-mail: kress.john@nmnh.si.edu.

EthnobotanicalQuest in Haiti

Robert DeFilipps visited the Caribbeannation of Haiti on 5-12 January, accompa-nying Beverly Wolpert, a graduate studentof Elizabeth Wells at George WashingtonUniversity. DeFilipps is a mentor andmember of Wolpert�s graduate committee.Her research focus is on plants used inHaiti as anthelmintics (a.k.a. vermifuges),since various intestinal worm parasites area major health problem there.

For nearly two weeks, Wolpert col-lected information and specimens ofmedicinal plants as indicated by priests(houngans) and priestesses (mambos)while staying at the voodoo temple �LePeristyle de Mariani,� on the coast nearPort-au-Prince. The folk religion of Vodou(more familiar spelling: Voodoo) is wide-spread in Haiti, and its practitioners play a

significant role as herbalists for manypeople who must rely on botanicaltreatments in lieu of the more expensivepharmaceuticals of Western medicine.Chemical analyses of the active com-pounds in some of the specimens arebeing planned.

Wolpert�s host at the temple was MaxG. Beauvoir, senior author (with R. De-Filipps and B. Wolpert, assisted by J.Crepin) of the recent manual on �SelectedMedicinal Plants of Haitian Vodou�(2001, Dept. Syst. Biol. � Botany). Plant lifeitself is considered sacred in many Haitiancommunities, due to the function of plantsas habitations of the various voodoospirits or divinities, known as loa (lwa),who number exactly 401. In addition, treesare considered to be a link between earthand sky, and some sacred species such asCeiba pentandra (Bombacaceae) are thedwelling place of powerful spirits: offer-ings are hung in small sacks on theirbranches, including on the ceiba at theBeauvoir temple.

Voodoo is a derivative of cosmicspiritual belief systems brought to the NewWorld hundreds of years ago by enslavedAfricans from tribes in the Mandingo,Ashante, Dahomey, Benin, Yoruba andother empires. It was sometimes syncre-tized with elements of the Catholic Churchsuch as saints whose characteristicsresembled those of the powerful voodoospirits. Voodoo is thus a �cousin� to othergroups which evolved from an origin inAfrican beliefs, and in which medicinalplants have a traditional role. Thesesystems are known as Hoodoo (Conjure)in the deep southern United States; Shan-go in Venezuela, Santeria in Cuba, Obeahin Jamaica, and Candomblé, Macumba andUmbanda in Brazil.

Wolpert and DeFilipps attended avoodoo service in honor of the loa Ayizan,during which a carefully linen-wrapped leafof the sacred royal palm (Roystonea) wasbrought in, and the pinnate leaflets wereeach slowly shredded into long ribbons bythe devotees, who danced counterclock-wise around a central altar for severalhours. All visitors were obliged to kiss theleaf as a gesture of respect.

The office of ethnobotanist MarilisseNeptune-Rouzier, who works for an non-governmental organization known as theService Oecuménique d�Entraide (SOE)involved with public health information

Continued on page 8

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Flora of the Hawaiian Islands Web SiteLaunched

In the October-December 2001 issue ofThe Plant Press, the impending release ofthe Hawaiian Flora Web site was an-nounced. Near the end of December, thesite was finally made available to thepublic. It is one of the most completeonline resources for vascular plants of theHawaiian Islands.

The Web site <http://rathbun.si.edu/botany/pacificislandbiodiversity/hawaiianflora/>has been modeled on theManual of the Flowering Plants ofHawai�i by W.L. Wagner, D.R. Herbst andS.H. Sohmer (revised edition, 1999) toprovide easy access to currently acceptednames, distributions, conservation status,and synonyms (species descriptions willbe added at a later date). The site alsoincludes an electronic version of theManual Supplement, which has beenupdated on a regular basis since thepublication of theManual. At this time,the Web site providessynonyms for namesthat are based onHawaiian collections,additionally givingpublication and typeinformation for thesenames. The synonymlist will be expanded toeventually include allnaturalized taxa andnative species basedon non-Hawaiiantypes. The Web site isalso accessible under the Botany ResearchWeb page <http://www.nmnh.si.edu/botany/projects.htm>.

Query forms have been designed toallow users flexibility when accessinginformation from databases and to displaythe retrieved data in several ways. A pagefor querying a list of accepted genericnames only allows the user the option todisplay the results simply as a list ofcurrently accepted names, or the list caninclude distributional status (endemic,indigenous, naturalized, Polynesianintroduction), geographic distribution (byisland or more specific for narrowlydistributed endemics), and conservation

status (endangered, threatened, vulnerable,rare).

A separate all-names query page, whichlooks quite similar to the first, allows theuser to select from a list of accepted genericnames and synonyms. The results from thisquery will provide checklist information asabove, and it will also obtain publicationand type information for any name that isbased on a Hawaiian collection. Otherfeatures that can be found on the Web siteare a partial list of U.S. specimens from theHawaiian Islands (currently about 1,600database records) and images for sometaxa. A complete set of U.S. specimenrecords (approximately 26,000 in total) andthe number of images will increase periodi-cally as the records and images are pro-cessed. Other additions in the future willinclude maps with distributions and links tobibliographic information.

Plans are under-way to increase thescope of the PacificFlora Web site toencompass otherisland groups. A floraof the MarquesanIslands is currently inprogress and a check-list with images willsoon be completed.Also, a checklist ofthe vascular flora ofMicronesia based onan updating of F.R.Fosberg�s published

checklist will be included.The Hawaiian flora Web site was

conceptualized by the joint efforts ofWarren Wagner, Sylvia Stone Orli, DeniseMix, and Ellen Farr, with Stone Orli as theWeb site developer. The research programof Wagner in collaboration with theHawaiian research programs of Derral R.Herbst and Daniel D. Palmer supply thedata for this site. Database management isoverseen by Mix. Jessica Braun preparesphotographic images for Web presentationand assists with maintenance of the imagedatabase. Robynn Shannon contributed tothe initial database development andmaintenance of checklist and nomenclatureinformation.

and cooperation, was visited in Port-au-Prince. She gave much valuable advice toWolpert and DeFilipps, while showingimportant publications, largely unknownto northern botanists, describing theresults of Rouzier�s intensive plantinventories in various ecoregions of Haiti.From a series of pamphlets produced byRouzier on natural medicines, Wolpertchose a reprint on anthelmintics, andDeFilipps one on the prostate.

In Port-au-Prince, DeFilipps andWolpert met with Jean A. Constant,curator of the Ekman Herbarium (EHH) ofthe State University of Haiti (located atDamien), and Vice-Dean of the University,Philippe Mathieu. Constant�s currentprojects include restoration anddatabasing of the E.L. Ekman Herbarium,which is the national herbarium of Haiti.The Swedish botanist Erik L. Ekman (1883-1931) collected in Haiti from 1924-1930,when the vegetation was quite differentfrom its current depleted condition.Ekman�s field notebooks are in theSmithsonian�s Botany Branch Library; his1917 collections were published by I.Urban as �Plantae Haitenses Novae velRariores� (1921). Constant has observedthat the Ekman specimens at EHH arelargely unannotated by modern research-ers, yet they were certainly used byBarker and Dardeau (1930) duringpreparation of the Flore d�Haïti, todaythe only published work specificallydedicated to the Haitian flora as a whole.

Another major project of Constant is astudy of Haitian biodiversity, with anemphasis on threatened and endangeredplant species. A detailed inventory of thestatus of Haitian plants is currentlyneeded, for purposes of planning thestrategies for conservation of endemicand imperiled species and habitats. Thiswill extend to evaluation of the origin andstructure of populations and ecosystems;determination of status and impact on theenvironment of synanthropics (plantsassociated with human activity, such asexotics and weeds); and attention to theconservation of materially useful compo-nents of biodiversity such as medicinalplants. Both Rouzier and Constantmentioned that they would welcomecooperative studies with Smithsonianbotanists on the Haitian flora.

EthnobotanyContinued from page 7

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cobra lily, Darlingtonia californica(Sarraceniaceae), which was eventuallynamed by John Torrey in SmithsonianContributions to Knowledge (1854). It wasdiscovered by the horticulturist William D.Brackenridge on the Pacific Coast leg ofthe voyage. A specimen of another carniv-orous pitcher plant from the expedition, thevine Nepenthes rafflesiana (originallyidentified as N. ampullaria), is filed in theU.S. Herbarium.

Living plants of all kinds were broughtback from the expedition, to becomefoundation display material for thefledgling U.S. Botanic Garden in southwestWashington, D.C. Karen D. Solit, author of�History of the United States BotanicGarden� (1993), relates that �Today, thereare still two plants in the United StatesBotanic Garden collection that are consid-ered to have been part of the WilkesExpedition bounty�These are the Angiop-teris evecta, the Vessel Fern; and theZizyphus jujuba, the Chinese jujube.� TheBotanic Garden, newly opened afterremodeling, is a co-sponsor of the upcom-ing Second Smithsonian Botanical

discovery, in addition to the Wilkes, arealso housed in the herbarium, includingthe La Plata Expedition of 1853-1856; theMexican Boundary Survey of 1854-1855;the International Boundary Commissionfor U.S. and Mexico (1892-1894); andvarious Colombian Cinchona missions(1940-1945). Regarding the latter missions,intensive fieldwork to find alternativequinine-yielding Cinchona germplasm wasnecessitated by the early Axis takeover ofmajor Southeast Asian cinchona planta-tions in World War II, leaving the Allieswithout a source of quinine to treatmalaria.

Many of the largest plant groupsrepresented in the U.S. National Herbariumhave benefited from a long history of in-house augmentation, research and studyas well as current curatorial support. Thesegroups include 250,000 ferns (curated byD. Lellinger); Acanthaceae (shrimp-plantfamily, formerly studied by E.C. Leonardand C.V. Morton, currently by D.C. Wass-hausen); Asteraceae (sunflower family,attaining its huge size through the work ofB.L. Robinson (Harvard), and in Washing-ton by S.F. Blake, A.C. Smith, K. Parker andJ. Cuatrecasas (Espeletia), while currentlyco-curated by V. Funk and H. Robinson);Bromeliaceae (pineapple and Spanish mossfamily, developed into an immensecollection by L.B. Smith); Gesneriaceae(investigated by C.V. Morton, now by L.E.Skog); Melastomataceae (Rhexia family,domain of J.J. Wurdack); and Poaceae(grass family). The grass collection issignificant for its early associations withAlbert S. Hitchcock, Mary Agnes Chase,Jason R. Swallen, and bamboo-men FloydA. McClure and Tom Soderstrom, and iscurrently curated by agrostologist PaulPeterson.

Also notable for their large size arecollections of various other families, whichmaintain their significance due to person-nel of previous decades, such as the Cac-taceae (built up from specimens collectedby Britton and Rose); the diatoms of P.Conger; Solanaceae investigated bycurator C.V. Morton; and Leguminosaerepresenting a lifetime of interest bycurators V. Rudd and R.S. Cowan.

In addition to the enormous holdingsof families mentioned above, otherflowering groups that today enjoy theactive support of U.S. Herbarium curators,

Centennial of the Botanical Society ofWashington

On 8 December the Centennial of theBotanical Society of Washington (BSW)was celebrated with a symposium �ACapital View of Botany: Our Changing D.C.Flora� at the U.S. National Arboretum inWashington, D.C. The symposiumorganizing committee included DanNicolson, Gene Rosenberg, RobertSoreng and Alice Tangerini. Speakersincluded Stanwyn Shetler and PaulPeterson.

Shetler addressed the changes in thelocal vascular plant flora, emphasizing thatsome species are increasingly rare, such asnative Celastrus scandens, and may belost while other species, such as ChineseCelastrus orbiculatus, have exploded inthe last 50 years. Peterson discussed howflowering time records document a northtemperate warming trend over the last 50years, resulting in a week longer growingseason. The keynote speaker was paleo-botanist Leo Hickey (formerly of Botany,now at Yale) who spoke on �Time�s Green

HerbariumContinued from page 1

Continued on page 10

Arrow: The Evolution of Washington�sFlora,� a review of the documentation ofearly angiosperm evolution in the Creta-ceous Potomac Formation.

Former presidents of BSW include pastand current members of Botany: FredrickA. Coville (1902), Alfred S. Hitchcock(1916), Egbert H. Walker (1950), Albert C.Smith (1962), William L. Stern (1972),Richard H. Eyde (1973), Robert W. Read(1975), Laurence E. Skog (1977), Richard S.Cowan (1979), Stanwyn G. Shetler (1983),Robert B. Faden (1985), Dan H. Nicolson(1990), Deborah A. Bell (1992), Dieter C.Wasshausen (1997), Gene Rosenberg(1998), Harold E. Robinson (1999), and PaulM. Peterson (2000).

Symposium (see related notice, page 7).The Symposium is one of many jointactivities undertaken with Botany under aMemorandum of Understanding signedbetween the National Museum and theGarden (see The Plant Press n.s. 3(3): 5(July-Sept. 2000). One can learn moreabout the fascinating Wilkes expedition inMagnificent Voyagers (H.J. Viola and C.Margolis, eds., 1985, SI Press).

Currently the U.S. National Herbariumcontains approximately 4.6 million speci-mens, and is one of the ten largest herbariain the world, representing as well about 8percent of the plant collection resources ofthe United States. The number of species itcontains, and thus the percentage of theworld�s flora represented in it, will not beknown until the herbarium is fully invento-ried, a process now underway. Worldwidein scope, there are especially heavyconcentrations of specimens from theneotropics (i.e., the New World, orWestern Hemisphere, tropics), NorthAmerica, Pacific Ocean islands, thePhilippines, and the Indian subcontinent.Plants from historic voyages and treks of

Page 10

and are enriched by their field trip collec-tions and specimen exchange programs,are those of the Pacific Islands andOnagraceae (evening primrose family, W.Wagner); Africa and the Commelinaceae(dayflower family, R.B. Faden); Araceae(philodendron family, D.H. Nicolson);Sapindaceae (soapberry family, P. Ace-vedo); Malvaceae (hibiscus family) andSterculiaceae (the chocolate-tree family,L.E. Dorr); and the order Zingiberales(source of gingers, bird-of-paradise(Strelitzia), heliconias, and bananas,curated by W.J. Kress). There are over120,000 specimens and 4,500 type speci-mens of algae (curated by J. Norris and M.Littler); 230,000 lichen collections (in thecharge of curator P. DePriest); 7,500 micro-slides of pollen and spores; and 43,000specimens of wood in a special WoodCollection, the latter maintained at theMuseum Support Center in Silver Hill,Maryland.

The herbarium is newly developing anumber of geographically orientedcollections as a result of intensive field-work, particularly from the Caribbeanregion by P. Acevedo; the Guianas (Guy-ana, Suriname, French Guiana) by V. Funkand colleagues of the Biological Diversityof the Guianas Project; Myanmar (Burma)by W.J. Kress collecting with M. Bordelon;Venezuela by L. Dorr; and South Americangrasses by P. Peterson.

The Herbarium (through the BotanySection) maintains very active loan andexchange programs. As noted on theherbarium Web site <http://www.nmnh.si.edu/botany/colls/collover.html>,approximately 50,000 specimens areannually loaned for study to otherinstitutions worldwide, and an additional20,000 specimens are exchanged. Itrequires four �core� people to provideoversight for the daily requirements ofrunning a herbarium of this magnitude, andresponsibility for the operation is struc-tured into four constituent parts of a �CoreCollections Management Unit.� A recentlyrevised program-concept to permit moreintensified curatorial participation andmaximum efficiency in the daily workingsof the herbarium, Core Collections Man-agement is executed under the leadershipof Head of Botany, W.J. Kress, in responseto various needs such as budgeting, space

management, specimen processing (i.e.,mounting), transactions management(involving loans, acquisition, borrowing,disposal), and the updating of computersoftware.

Collections Manager George �Rusty�Russell supervises the Core Collectionsteam composed of Deborah Bell, LindaHollenberg, and Katherine Rankin. Theircollective responsibilities include over-sight of the day-to-day activities of theU.S. National Herbarium and the Botanyareas at the Museum Support Center,physical curation of the collection,management of more that 1,000 specimentransactions per year with institutionsaround the world, and responding tohundreds of requests for information thatarrive from both their scientific colleaguesas well as the general public.

In addition, they have primary respon-sibility for visitors to the herbarium,specimen conservation and new materialstesting, transaction information manage-ment, integrated pest management,collections space and facilities coordina-tion, an active specimen exchange pro-gram, and processing tens of thousands ofacquisitions on an annual basis. Propertymanagement, collections outreach activi-ties, and fundraising for collections needsare also included.

Recent major improvements to collec-tions management instituted by the CoreCollections unit include the installation ofa major compactor storage system in partof the herbarium, and developing aprogram to create high resolution digitalimages of the National Herbarium�scritically important Type Collections andmake them available on the Web.

A large program for inventorying theherbarium was begun decades ago bycurator Stanwyn Shetler under chairmanMason Hale. First to be inventoried werethe type specimens. All type specimens arekept together, and they have now beeninventoried (databased) in a Type Register,as to collection locality, bibliographiccitation, and relevant field data, as well asbar coded for efficient, digitized record-keeping.

Recently, a revitalized series of Contri-butions from the United States NationalHerbarium, emanating from BotanySection, has been developed as an outletfor the publication of staff research. Earlierseries of the Contributions have included

major floristic studies relying in large parton the national herbarium collections, forregions such as Mexico by P.C. Standley;Guam by W.E. Safford; New Mexico byE.O. Wooton and P.C. Standley; andAlabama by C. Mohr. More recent floraspublished elsewhere, such as of Fiji and SriLanka, have also been based to anappreciable degree on the U.S. collections.

Index Nominum Genericorum (ING), asignificant aid to herbarium work that isnow available online <http://rathbun.si.edu/botany/ing/ingForm.cfm>, is currentlyco-edited by Botany supervisory museumspecialist Ellen Farr for the fungi, algae andferns, and Gea Zijlstra of Utrecht Univer-sity (The Netherlands) for the phanero-gams, bryophytes and fossils.

Any specimen arriving at the herbariumis first subjected to cryofumigation.Selected specimens are mounted on asheet bearing a number, which is thecitable catalogue number. A bar code maybe affixed to the sheet, as a frame ofreference for accessing or updatinginformation on an inventoried specimen.An electronic record, of course, exists forany specimen that is bar coded, and todate over 700,000 specimens of the U.S.Herbarium are bar coded.

A Collections Advisory Committee,composed of curators Wagner (chair),Acevedo, Lellinger, and Robinson, withRussell (ex officio) and Botany Green-house manager M. Bordelon, consults withthe Botany Head and the Core CollectionsManagement Unit, on the general wellbeing and utilization of the herbarium.During their term, which is decided by theHead of Botany, the members considertopics such as herbarium policy changes;decisions on geographical rearrangements,and altering the generic composition offamilies to reflect recent taxonomic studies;granting permission to requests fordestructive sampling for DNA, pollenstudies or anatomical work; acquisition ofprivate herbaria offered as gifts, and theirimpact on current space requirements;compactorization; and more recently,issues of coping with shipping andreceiving due to the anthrax-terrorismsituation that resulted in irradiation ofincoming packages (see related article,page 5).

Considering all the ramificationsinvolved with the collections of the U.S.National Herbarium, it is not surprising

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Pub l ica t ions

Barrett, G.W. and W.J. Kress. 2001.Introduction: The new revolution inbiology. Pp. 1-8. In: W.J. Kress and G.W.Barrett (eds.). A New Century of Biology.Smithsonian Institution Press in associa-tion with the American Institute ofBiological Sciences, Washington, D.C. andLondon.

Burney, D.A., H.F. James, L.P. Burney, S.L.Olson, W. Kikuchi, W.L. Wagner, M.Burney, D. McCloskey, D. Kikuchi, F.V.Grady, R. Gage II, R. Nishek. 2001. Fossilevidence for a diverse biota from Kaua�iand its transformation since human arrival.Ecological Monographs 71: 615�641.

Dorr, L.J. and S.M. Niño. 2001. Arthraxon(Poaceae: Andropogoneae) new to SouthAmerica. Sida 19(4): 1191-1193.

Faden, R.B. 2001. New or misunderstoodspecies of Commelina (Commelinaceae)from the Flora of Tropical East Africa andFlora Zambesiaca areas. Novon 11: 398-409.

Faden, R.B. 2001. The Commelinaceae ofNortheast Tropical Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia,Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya): Diversityand phytogeography. Pp. 213-231. In: Friis,I. and O. Ryding (eds.). BiodiversityResearch in the Horn of Africa Region.Proceedings of the Third InternationalSymposium on the Flora of Ethiopia andEritrea at the Carlsberg Academy, Copen-hagen, Denmark, August 25-27, 1999. Biol.Skr. 54, Copenhagen.

Hardy, C.R., J.I. Davis, R.B. Faden andD.W. Stevenson. 2001. Phylogenetics ofCochliostema, Geogenanthus and anundescribed genus (Commelinaceae) usingmorphology and DNA sequence data from

26S, 5S-NTS, rbcL, and trnL-F loci. P. 117.In:. Botany 2001, Plants and People,August 12-16, 2001, Albuquerque. Ab-stracts. Botanical Society of America,Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Hollowell, T., P. Berry, V. Funk and C.Kelloff. 2001. Preliminary Checklist of thePlants of the Guiana Shield. 129 pp.Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Kress, W.J. 2001. Heliconiaceae. In: W. D.Stevens et al. (eds.). Flora de Nicaragua.Monographs in Systematic Botany 85 (II):1132-1139.

Kress, W.J. and G.W. Barrett (eds.). 2001.A New Century of Biology. 159 pp. Smith-sonian Institution Press in associationwith the American Institute of BiologicalSciences, Washington, D.C. and London.

Kress, W.J. and G.W. Barrett. 2001.Preface: A new century of biology. Pp. xi-xiii. In: W.J. Kress and G.W. Barrett (eds.).A New Century of Biology. SmithsonianInstitution Press in association with theAmerican Institute of Biological Sciences,Washington, D.C. and London.

Kress, W.J. and P. DePriest. 2001. What�sin a PhyloCode name? Science 292: 52.[letter]

Kress, W.J. and K. Larsen. 2001. Smith-atris, a new genus of Zingiberaceae fromSoutheast Asia. Systematic Botany 26:226-230.

Kress, W.J., L.M. Prince, W.J. Hahn, andE.A. Zimmer. 2001. Unraveling theevolutionary radiation of the families of theZingiberales using morphological andmolecular evidence. Systematic Biology50: 926-944.

Krupnick, G.A. and J. Rubis. 2002. Plantrichness and endemism in the Indo-Pacific:Dipterocarpaceae. Pp. 92-98. In: Wikrama-nayake, E., E. Dinerstein, C.J. Loucks, et al.Terrestrial Ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific.Island Press, Washington, D.C.

Laegaard, S. and P.M. Peterson. 2001.214(2). Gramineae (part 2) Subfam. Chlorid-oideae. Pp. 1-131. In: Harling, G. and L.Andersson ( eds.). Flora of Ecuador 68.

Li, Q.-J., Z.-F. Xu, W.J. Kress, Y.-M. Xia, L.Zhang, X.-B. Deng, J.-Y. Gao and Z.-L. Bai.2001. Flexible style that encourages out-crossing. Nature 410: 432.

Lorence, D.H., A. Manning, S.L. Montgom-ery and W.L. Wagner (alphabetical). 2001.Species Profiles. Pp. 232-259. In: Liitt-schwager, D. and S. Middleton. Remains ofa Rainbow: Rare Plants and Animals ofHawai�i. National Geographic, Washing-ton, D.C.

Nicolson, D.H. 2001. Botanical Nomencla-ture/ General Committee on BotanicalNomenclature. P. 170. In: Younes, T. and V.Reuter (eds.). Proceedings of the 27thGeneral Assembly 8-11 November 2000,Naples, Italy. International Union ofBiological Sciences, Paris.

Peterson, P.M. 2001. Eragrostis, Pp. 144-149; Muhlenbergia, Pp. 202-211. In:Douglas, G.W., D. Meidinger and J. Pojar(eds.). Illustrated Flora of British Colum-bia. Volume 7: Monocotyledons (Orchid-aceae through Zosteraceae). Ministry ofSustainable Resource Management,Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Peterson, P.M. and Y. Herrera-Arrieta.2001. A leaf blade anatomical survey ofMuhlenbergia (Poaceae: Muhlen-bergiinae). Sida 19: 469-506.

Peterson, P.M., R.J. Soreng, G. Davidse,T.S. Filgueiras, F.O. Zuloaga and E.J.Judziewicz. 2001. Catalogue of New Worldgrasses (Poaceae): II. Subfamily Chlorid-oideae. Contributions from the U.S.National Herbarium 41:1-255.

Specht, C.D., W.J. Kress, D.W. Stevenson,and R. DeSalle. 2001. A molecular phylog-eny of Costaceae (Zingiberales). Molecu-lar Phylogenetics and Evolution 21: 333-345.

Wagner, W.L. and H. Robinson. 2001.Lipochaeta and Melanthera (Asteraceae:Heliantheae subtribe Ecliptinae): Establish-ing their natural limits and a synopsis.Brittonia 53: 539-561.

Wu, Z., C.-Y. Wu, L. Zhou and W.L.Wagner. 2001. Arenaria (Caryophyll-aceae). Flora of China 6: 40-66.

that the herbarium is said to be a �bureauof standards,� via the type collections andother important holdings, for plantnomenclature and identification, and toconstitute an overall historical record ofthe three dimensions of biodiversity: thepresence of certain species in certainlocalities over time.

The U.S. National Her-barium is a repository of

voucher specimens for allkinds of fieldwork, includ-

ing plant-animal interac-tions. Endemic to theisland of Madagascar,

Ravenala madagascariensis(Strelitziaceae) and the

ruffed lemur Vareciavariegata share a tight

plant-pollinator relation-ship. Lemurs carry pollen

on their fur betweenflowers, carefully obtain-

ing nectar without de-stroying the flowers. Theplant is dependent upon

the lemurs as a pollinatingvector while lemurs de-

pend upon the nectar as afood source during spe-

cific times of the year(American Journal of

Botany 81:542-551. 1994).

Art by Alice Tangerini

Ravenala madagascariensis Sonn.

Department of Systematic Biology-BotanyPO Box 37012NMNH, MRC-166Washington DC 20013-7012

Official BusinessPenalty for Private Use $300