Want to map the evolutionary path of a plant species? Chances are good that you’ll find yourself thumbing through the stacks in an herbarium sooner or later. Here at the NYBG, the Steere Herbarium maintains a growing collection of over seven million specimens, each one meticulously studied, notated, and cataloged for reference. But botanical science of this tier is first and foremost a visual affair, relying on naked-eye examinations and scanning electron microscopes to untangle origins, relations, and the timeline of a given plant’s life on earth–where it’s been, and where it will be in the future. Needless to say, the effort can be tedious. But thankfully, the speedy march of technology is closing the gap, promising a fresh range of tools for identifying species new and old.
Among them, genomics leads the charge.
Jenn Cable of the New York Genome Center points all eyes toward James Beck, a botanist out of Wichita, Kansas, with a keen understanding of the future of the science. Using cutting edge genetic analysis, he’s now working with Steere Herbarium specialists to look beyond the microscope and into the very DNA of the specimens we keep, turning long-shelved specimens (some centuries old) into treasure troves of evolutionary information.
As a student studying lichens at the NYBG, Jessi Allen offers a unique perspective on these fascinating organisms–symbiotic combinations of fungus and algae. She first joined the NYBG as an Herbarium intern in the summer of 2011, and began her graduate studies this fall.
Collecting lichens calls for hammer and chisel.
During Hurricane Sandy, many trees fell throughout the Garden. At least a few of those caused damage to buildings or left gaps in the landscape. However, the silver lining of this cloud came in the form of giving NYBG botanists a chance to collect data that we usually don’t have access to.
Of the trees that fell, one of them was a big oak near the Pfizer Lab that, luckily, landed in the parking lot. The day immediately following the storm, I was working in the lab and saw Mike Nee, one of our curators, climbing through the tangled branches taking cores from this tree, and I thought, “That looks like fun!” According to Mike, the tree was about 90 feet tall and close to 100 years old. Rarely are we able to collect lichens from the tops of such large trees, so I went and grabbed a hammer and chisel, common tools for collecting specimens.
High in the cloud forests of the Tropical Andes, picking her way through the misted foliage of Las Orquídeas National Park, NYBG botanist Paola Pedraza-Peñalosa goes about the business of collecting plant specimens. This northwest Colombian landscape is renowned for its biodiversity–it is said to have more examples of plant, animal, and microbial life than almost any other ecosystem on earth. But that’s not necessarily the only reason that Pedraza, a Colombian native and Associate Curator of our Institute of Systematic Botany, has returned. While her work is indeed groundbreaking, her motivations extend well beyond the everyday specimen collections that take place day and night here in South America.
Far from the mere process of cataloging plant life, it is the shrinking timeframe and the aggravating factors surrounding it that make Paola’s undertaking so significant.
Once controlled by armed revolutionaries, indicative of the struggles facing Colombia throughout its late history, Las Orquídeas–named for some 200 species of orchids that grow there–remained off limits to the efforts of botanists. Recording the diversity of plant life within its borders became a pipe dream for an academic community anxious to uncover the Andres’ secrets. But the recent withdrawal of these militias has opened the park to exploration and conservation efforts. And with the proverbial gates now open, scientists face a new suite of challenges–many of them a greater threat to the plants and animals being studied than the armed gunmen ever were.
This is an image of a mushroom that I have never seen on the NYBG campus as long as I’ve been here (around 28 years) and I am 99.9% sure it has never before been reported here.
There are several unrelated genera of mushrooms that seem to prefer growing on wood chip mulch as a substrate and seemingly have a global distribution. Right now after the recent rains, the mushrooms that favor this artificial habitat are in nearly every flower bed on campus.
The name of the mushroom is Leratiomyces ceres, described for the first time from Australia in 1888.
Roy E. Halling, PhD is the Curator of Mycology at the Institute of Systematic Botany at The New York Botanical Garden.
You’ll find them clinging to rock faces like flecks of gray paint, or carpeting a tree trunk with skeins of red whisps. Lichens come in myriad shapes, sizes, colors, and consistencies. But while they’re often overlooked during your average hike, they’re worth giving a spare glance the next time you’re outdoors–lichens play an important part in the ecosystem. Few know this so well as the NYBG‘s Dr. James Lendemer. Like many of the Garden’s globetrotting scientists–Michael Balick, Bill Buck, and Roy Halling, to name a few–Lendemer’s field odysseys carry him well beyond the laboratory door in his hunt for specimens. In recent years, that chalks up to long days spent trekking through the Great Smoky Mountains of the eastern United States.
For the uninitiated, lichens are cryptogams–fungi that reproduce by spores, as with other fungi and some groups of plants. But unlike either, lichens are unique in that they’re composite organisms, often a symbiotic combination of fungi and algae. Think of them as codependent roommates; the former acts as a sort of bodyguard for the latter in exchange for nourishing sugars from the algae’s photosynthesis. At large, lichens make the perfect bird nests by some avian standards, and the growths also have a penchant for breaking down dead trees and rocks while providing nitrogen for soil. Unassuming as they are, they’re integral to maintaining healthy biomes.
Asian longhorned beetles (ALB) are many things, but picky eaters isn’t one of them. It’s part of the reason they’re now such persistent pests throughout the northern United States. Worse, they’re approaching something of an outright pestilence. These non-native invaders are mincing maple populations, trashing elms, making a buffet of poplars and will happily bore into a wide menu of other tree genera! But thanks to a partnership with the Sentinel Plant Network, a USDA-funded collaboration between North American public gardens and other concerned groups, the NYBG is proud to serve as one of a number of “watchposts” striving to counter the menace through safe, effective means. That’s where our bug traps come in.
Native to Japan, China, and Korea, Anoplophora glabripennis first made its U.S. presence known in 1996. Soon after, it was found in Canada, France, Italy, Germany, and a slew of other countries less than welcoming of their newest guests. By the time authorities concluded that hardwood shipping crates were to blame, it was too late to shut the door: the beetles were already reproducing, boring into trees to lay their eggs. Upon hatching, the larvae then ravage the trees further, feasting on bark and inner wood. And 16 years later, the hunt continues for a fool-proof means of eradicating the ALB from American forests.
For all of our scientific advances–our satellite imaging systems and mapped genomes–the realm of botany is still a field explorer’s game. As often as there are microscopes and lab coats, there are more muddied hiking boots, cans of bug spray, and long days spent trekking through unforgiving wilderness in search of that next spirited discovery. But above all, there are discoveries yet to be made in this increasingly small world, and the Garden’s science team is on the hunt.
In the last year, as with every year, NYBG scientists have spent days, weeks, and months wandering the globe in the search for undiscovered plant species, working to bring our understanding of the world around us just a little closer to complete. And they’re getting the job done. The last 12 months brought to light 81 new plant and fungi species described to science by our experts, found from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. In addition to these 81, the findings resulted in two new plant orders and four new genera. That’s not exactly pocket change when it comes to science news.
Deep in the Forest, Rebecca Policello–a student from Ossining High School–treks through the underbrush. She isn’t a wayward sightseer, but rather a curious student interested in something others normally overlook: Eastern Redback salamanders (Plethodon cinereus). Spending their entire lives on land and even thriving in urban environments such as The New York Botanical Garden, the subjects of Rebecca’s study could reveal new information about the decline that is sweeping over amphibian populations worldwide.
The amphibian decline has been primarily attributed to the disease Chytridiomycosis, which is caused by a pathogenic fungus, B. dendrobatidis. Teamed up with Dr. Jim Lewis of Fordham University and Ms. Jessica Arcate Schuler of The New York Botanical Garden, Rebecca set out to determine if changes in the immediate area due to urbanization are enough to impact the salamanders’ defenses.
Matthew Pace, an expert with the NYBG through 2011, is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in botany at the University of Wisconsin.
The next time you’re outdoors, take a moment and look around. What plants do you see growing nearby? Have those species always been there? Might there be plants that once grew in that area but are no longer found there? How can we help to protect the plants that we find in a given area? These are questions that many botanists and horticulturalists think about and strive to understand every day. They are central to the issues of conservation and restoration–issues which are also central to the mission of The New York Botanical Garden.
A real-world example of these issues is the case of Anemone quinquefolia and the NYBG. Based on founder Nathaniel Lord Britton’s first list of species originally found on NYBG grounds; field work in the Forest; and herbarium work I had conducted (looking through hundreds of dried plant specimens of species found in the NYC metro-area), I thought Anemone quinquefolia was just one of the 100+ native plant species which have been extirpated since the founding of the Garden (“extirpated” is a word which describes species which were once found in a location, but are no longer found there, a.k.a. local extinction). The last herbarium collections of Anemone quinquefolia were from 1898. Little did I know that I was in for the surprise of the year!
Off on a side table, just inside one of the treated glass superstructures of the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections, there stands a spray of stems headed with humble, star-shaped flowers. The aesthetic is nothing wildly exotic–a deep crimson defines the petals. The plant is otherwise unremarkable next to a common garden petunia. And yet the “DO NOT TOUCH” sign hand-written and jabbed in alongside the plant is evidence of its peculiar value. Is it fragile, or perhaps toxic?
Neither in particular. This plant, Petunia exserta, is one of incredible rarity.
Want to map the evolutionary path of a plant species? Chances are good that you’ll find yourself thumbing through the stacks in an herbarium sooner or later. Here at the NYBG, the Steere Herbarium maintains a growing collection of over seven million specimens, each one meticulously studied, notated, and cataloged for reference. But botanical science of this tier is first and foremost a visual affair, relying on naked-eye examinations and scanning electron microscopes to untangle origins, relations, and the timeline of a given plant’s life on earth–where it’s been, and where it will be in the future. Needless to say, the effort can be tedious. But thankfully, the speedy march of technology is closing the gap, promising a fresh range of tools for identifying species new and old.
