The turn of the year from 2011 to 2012 was an exciting time for the scientists who work, teach, and research at The New York Botanical Garden.
No longer necessary: The describing of plants in Latin, followed by a translation in English.
In December, scientists at the Botanical Garden, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), New York University, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratoryannounced that they had created the largest genome-based tree of life for seed plants to date. In January, James S. Miller, Ph.D., Dean and Vice President for Science at the Garden, explained important changes in the requirements for the naming of newly discovered plants beginning in 2012. Earlier in 2011, Dr. Miller had been the lead author on an article in the online journal PhytoKeys summarizing the changes. To say that these scientific advancements are huge is a gross understatement, but how to understand them?
Let’s use plain English, which is exactly what the new plant-naming requirements do. As outlined in an op-ed published in the New York Times on January 22, Dr. Miller, who took part in the International Botanical Congress in Melbourne, Australia, where the changes were approved, explains that plants will still be named in Latin, but that they will no longer have to be described in Latin. This laborious process–which has been on the botanical books since 1908–is only the first hurdle each botanist must clear before he may name a new plant species. The next step, the publishing of this description in a printed, paper-based journal, has also been done away with by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature in an effort to speed the naming of plants. Why the hurry? As Dr. Miller says, “as many as one-third of all plant species (may be) at risk of extinction in the next 50 years.” One way to save a plant is to name a plant. From there, scientists–freed from the strictures of Latin–may further investigate the plant and all of its potentialities.
Dr. Wayne Law is a postdoctoral research associate with The New York Botanical Garden, while Dr. Michael J. Balick serves as Vice President for Botanical Science, as well as Director and Philecology Curator with the Institute of Economic Botany. Together, their studies on the ecosystems of Micronesia have spanned over ten years.
Conservationists discuss the impact of clearing upland forests in Micronesia.
Approximately two thousand miles southwest of Hawaii are the thousands of small islands that make up the area known as Micronesia. Identified as one of the world’s 25 biodiversity hotspots, the region boasts one of the highest rates of endemism, or plants found nowhere else in the world. The central group of these islands is known as the Caroline Islands, and the high islands (volcanic in origin) of Pohnpei and Kosrae are the easternmost of this group.
Over ten years ago, we started working in Pohnpei where we saw a similar pattern on these islands to what is happening throughout the world: modernization is leading to the loss of traditional knowledge as it is no longer being passed on to the younger generations.
Our last attempt at hosting this “inside look” at The New York Botanical Garden‘s Science campus was rained out by a certain tropical storm (we’re looking at you Irene), so we’re trying again. And this time we’re making it even bigger and better than before!
The Science Open House weekend will be held in conjunction with the second Thain Family Forest Dedication festival weekend, which means there will be a ton of fun activities for the whole family! Start inside with a look at the beautiful Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, then explore the fascinating William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, and finally, listen to Garden scientists talk about their forest-based research. Then head outside and enjoy the beauties of fall in the Garden’s historic, 50-acre Thain Family Forest: take an expert-led nature walk, canoe down the Bronx River and learn about its wildlife, climb a tree with an arborist, and so much more. The Garden is never the same two days in a row, so come spend a day in one of the world’s greatest urban gardens, The New York Botanical Garden!
Ed. note: Sandy Wolkenberg is a Citizen Scientist who has been working in the Thain Family Forest for three and a half years. Over the course of a week on Plant Talk, Sandy will share a five-part series of posts on The New York Botanical Garden’s Citizen Scientist Tree Phenology Program. If Sandy’s experiences motivate you to want to know more about becoming a Citizen Scientist, check out the Garden’s Volunteer Program page.
The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, (translated from French by Stuart Gilbe.)
Following a major wind storm in the spring of 2010, the volunteers that make up the Citizen Scientist Tree Phenology program walked the trails of the Thain Family Forest scrutinizing each tree. We were mystified by the fact that Tuliptree #93, a giant tulip poplar, appeared to have vanished. We walked back and forth searching for the tree, and then searched again. Where could it be? We noticed a huge root ball attached to a large upended tree that had fallen back into the Forest. We speculated that this fallen giant must be Tuliptree #93. Our suspicion was confirmed during a walk with Jessica Arcate Schuler, Manager of the Thain Family Forest, when she found tag #93 on the reclining giant. Alas, our first–but not our last–loss.
Ed. note: Sandy Wolkenberg is a Citizen Scientist who has been working in the Thain Family Forest for three and a half years. Over the course of a week on Plant Talk, Sandy will share a five-part series of posts on The New York Botanical Garden’s Citizen Scientist Tree Phenology Program. If Sandy’s experiences motivate you to want to know more about becoming a Citizen Scientist, check out the Garden’s Volunteer Program page.
In the fall of 2008, at the beginning of the Citizen Science Tree Phenology program, the Volunteer Office encouraged those of us participating to find partners to work with. Because of my variable schedule at the Garden, I ended up walking the Spicebush Trail in the Thain Family Forest by myself. These walks often occurred in the early morning when intense sun glare or mist made identification of phenological phases difficult. In retrospect, although I treasured those quiet phenology walks, I had so little history with the program and so very many questions about what I was seeing, or hoped I was seeing, or imagined that I was seeing, that the prospect of walking with other volunteers was compelling. So it was a fortunate time when, in the spring of 2008, phenologists received the following email from Volunteer Services:
Ed. note: Sandy Wolkenberg is a Citizen Scientist who has been working in the Thain Family Forest for three and a half years. Over the course of a week on Plant Talk, Sandy will share a five-part series of posts on The New York Botanical Garden’s Citizen Scientist Tree Phenology Program. If Sandy’s experiences motivate you to want to know more about becoming a Citizen Scientist, check out the Garden’s Volunteer Program page.
Now, imagine that it is early to mid-March, the beginning of the spring season. Citizen Scientists excitedly descend upon the Thain Family Forest! We scan the designated trees looking for “emerging leaves.” Protocols describe ”emerging leaves” as follows: ”In at least 3 locations on the plant, an emerging leaf is visible. A leaf is considered emerging once the green tip is visible at the end of the leaf bud, but before it has fully unfolded to expose the leaf stalk (petiole) or leaf base.”
Ed. note: Sandy Wolkenberg is a Citizen Scientist who has been working in the Thain Family Forest for three and a half years. Over the course of a week on Plant Talk, Sandy will share a five-part series of posts on The New York Botanical Garden’s Citizen Scientist Tree Phenology Program. If Sandy’s experiences motivate you to want to know more about becoming a Citizen Scientist, check out the Garden’s Volunteer Program page.
As volunteer phenologists, we are tasked with observing and entering data on ten different trees in the Thain Family Forest, usually two or three trees on each of the three Forest trails: The Spicebush, Ridge, and Bridge Trails. We monitor these trees weekly for three seasons, winter being the exception. It was all very new and a little intimidating. Sometimes even finding the trees can be daunting after spring leaves reach full size and each tree’s marker becomes obscured. Each tree in the Citizen Scientist Tree Phenology program is marked with a tag about 6 feet from the ground–these tags correspond to the tree’s numbers on the data entry sheets.
Ed. note: Sandy Wolkenberg is a Citizen Scientist who has been working in the Thain Family Forest for three and a half years. Over the course of a week on Plant Talk, Sandy will share a five-part series of posts on The New York Botanical Garden’s Citizen Scientist Tree Phenology Program. If Sandy’s experiences motivate you to want to know more about becoming a Citizen Scientist, check out the Garden’s Volunteer Program page.
On June 16, 2011, volunteers in the Citizen Science Tree Phenology program received the following email from Jessica Arcate Schuler, Manager of the Thain Family Forest:
Hi Everyone!
I hope you are all enjoying this late spring, soon-to-be summer. I have an update on the Spicebush Trail. Unfortunately, Tuliptree #98 had to be removed this week. As many of you know, it has been struggling these past two years as a result of a severe lightning strike in summer 2009. We were hoping that it would come out of winter okay, however, it did not. The arborists felled the tree on Tuesday. I just counted the rings and it seems to be just under 150 years old. We will plan to find a healthier tuliptree to add to the project starting in spring 2012 to replace this lost tree on the Spicebush Trail. In the meantime, just ignore #98 on your datasheets for the remainder of the season.
Alas! How shall we ignore Tuliptree #98? Citizen Science Phenologists who chronicle the Spicebush Trail have lost an old friend–a tree friend, to be sure–but a friend we have been observing since the Citizen Science Tree Phenology program began in 2008. This program grew out of a long-term phenology study started by Dr. Charles Peters with the help of students and Garden staff. In 2008, the Citizen Science Phenology Program was initiated with an email to Docents from Volunteer Services. A small, curious group of Docents met to hear about this intriguing new venture. The program was quickly opened to all volunteers and soon training sessions and on-site support followed.
Smith & Thiers described this mushroom, Boletus hortonii, honorifically for Charles Horton Peck, former New York State Botanist, who recognized the mushroom under a different name. It is a porcini in a very, very broad sense. I took the picture last week when it was fruiting at the Garden. It is widespread in the Northeast, though uncommon.
Boletus hortonii (photo by Roy Halling)
Roy E. Halling, PhD is Curator of Mycology at the Institute of Systematic Botany at The New York Botanical Garden.
Briefings from the Field, a short lecture series featuring updates from the fieldwork of various Garden scientists, is open to the public Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Arthur and Janet Ross Lecture Hall
