As Rusby and his expedition move deeper into Peru and Bolivia, the daily trials of traveling abroad mingle with fleeting moments for discovery along the way. Rusby’s fascination for all things scientific leads him to the Arequipa Hospital, where he examines ulcer patients, before taking the railroad into the mountains toward Juliaca. In between snatching up passing flowers from a train railing, struggling with altitude sickness, and sleeping through a near-death experience on the steamship, he finds time to identify the local flora, along with fruits and vegetables in city markets.
OFFICIAL DIARY of the MULFORD BIOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF THE AMAZON BASIN
H. H. RUSBY, DIRECTOR
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1921
I made a number of purchases of things which will be needed on our expedition. I went to the market and purchased a number of samples of vegetable products and also three pairs of fully dressed figures of Quichua indians, each accompanied, the age of the later varying from infancy to eight or nine years. In the afternoon I secured an automobile and went down to Tiavaya, where the market gardens were located, charging this expense to the Botanical Garden. Here I found growing the fruiting plants of a pepino, having oblong fruits, wholly of a deep purple color like the eggplant. I also found and obtained specimens of a species of Tasconia, which yields an edible fruit sold in the market under the name of “Tumbo“; of a plant yielding another edible fruit, sold in the market under the name of “Acchocta”; of the rhacache, a delicious turnip-shaped root belonging to the parsley family, a species of Arracacia, and some unripe fruits of the Lucuma. In the evening I attended the motion picture exhibit, which was so silly that I left before it was over.
One of the locks of the Panama Canal, under construction in 1913, eight years before the Mulford Expedition.
Week two of Henry Hurd Rusby‘s Mulford Expedition sees the Santa Elisa passing through the Panama Canal (see Week One). At the time of this writing, the Canal has been open for less than seven years, and as we read, construction is ongoing. The Canal’s most profound immediate effect is a quicker and safer journey between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A voyage from New York to San Francisco saves over 7,800 miles and the ship avoids navigating the hazardous Drake Passage and Cape Horn.
Dr. Rusby mentions the ceremony of the Court of Neptune, also known as the Line-crossing Ceremony, whereby a commemoration of a sailor’s first crossing of the equator is performed. This ceremony is also performed for passenger’s entertainment aboard civilian ocean liners such as the Santa Elisa. Few details are given by Dr. Rusby, but the ceremony has its colorful characters, including the King of Neptune and Davy Jones.
In 1921, when Henry Hurd Rusby was 65 years old, he embarked on his last field trip to South America as the Director of the Mulford Biological Exploration of the Amazon Basin. Professor of Botany and Materia Medica, and Dean of the College of Pharmacy at Columbia University, Rusby had much experience exploring in South America. The goal of the Mulford Biological Expedition was the discovery of plants with possible pharmaceutical properties.
Alex Popovkin botanizing in a forest fragment in Bahia, Brazil.
Studying plants in the field is the best way to acquire knowledge about them. Unfortunately, when a specialist does not live where the plants grow, it is difficult to study them in situ. In this modern age, the availability of digital photography and the internet makes it possible for local botanists to collect and photograph plants, then send the data and images to specialists. Although I prefer to see plants in their natural environments, new technology yields information that I could never have collected on my own!
One of my collaborators is Alex Popovkin, a Russian-born editor who works remotely from his small cabin in rural Bahia, Brazil. Alex has been passionate about plants since kindergarten, where he made daily observations of the development of a potted nasturtium planted by his teacher. He also observed the house plants his father cultivated on window sills in their St. Petersburg home. As a high school student in the early ’60s, Alex cared for tropical plants, and among other tasks penciled their Latin names on wooden labels at the Botanic Garden of the University of St. Petersburg as part of his work-study curriculum. His first botany mentor there was Dmitri Zalessky, the garden’s director at the time.
From the 4th to the 8th of March I was fortunate to attend a meeting in São Paulo, Brazil, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States and the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP). The NSF is the most important supporter of pure research in the United States, and FAPESP plays the same role in the State of São Paulo. FAPESP’s importance, however, extends throughout Brazil, and like the NSF its discoveries are applied across the globe. Science progresses best when it receives strong governmental support–but that support often pays dividends well beyond the original investments!
The FAPESP research program serves as a model for state-supported research. However, it also collaborates on an even larger scale with Brazil’s national research organization, known as Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq); and the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (EMBRAPA). The FAPESP research program is funded by one percent of the state’s taxes and, of that, only five percent can be employed for administrative costs. São Paulo’s dedication to research has made it the leading Brazilian state in promoting pure and applied research in Brazil, and perhaps in the world!
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.
Elizabeth McCarthy is a post-doctoral researcher in the Genomics Program at NYBG.
Recently, I had the opportunity to help introduce a group of bright junior high school girls to the science behind the beauty of flowers.
Back in March, I volunteered at the Explore Your Opportunities–The Sky’s the Limit! conference put on by the New York City, Westchester, and Manhattan branches of the American Association of University Women. This conference is open to 7th grade girls from New York City and Westchester schools and is designed to encourage girls to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers through fun, hands-on activities and by providing them with women role models from these fields. This conference has been run annually in the New York City area since 2004, first at Barnard College and now at the College of Mount St. Vincent, and is based on the Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics™ (EYH™) conferences, which first started in 1976 and now take place worldwide. During the conference, the girls hear a keynote address and then break up into smaller groups to do two hands-on workshops.
I led a workshop called ‘Flower Hour,’ which explored the science of a flower’s shape. I brought in five different types of flowers for the girls to examine. First, I asked the girls to look carefully at a yellow tulip, to describe what they were seeing in as much detail as possible. I gave them five minutes to write their observations down, and then they took turns sharing them with the group. I was impressed with the responses: One girl knew that the plant from which the flower came was an autotroph, an organism which makes its own food from inorganic compounds, and another observed that the flower had the same number of petals as it did stamens. After each girl shared her observations with the group, I drew a flower on the board and taught them the botanical names for floral parts.
In preparation for our next activity, I put five shapes on the board: an oval, a triangle, a star, a circle, and a square.
I asked the girls how they would group these shapes. Everyone agreed that the circle and oval belonged in one group and the triangle, square, and star belonged in another because circles and ovals have rounded edges and triangles, squares, and stars are pointy. Then I asked them, of the triangle, square, and star, which two were more closely related? There were some differing opinions, but they were all backed up by good reasoning. Some girls thought the triangle and square should go together because a square is made up of two triangles, whereas others thought that the triangle and star were more closely related because a star’s points look like triangles. From these series of groupings, we could create a family tree of these shapes, which shows how the shapes are related to each other.
Next, I gave each pair of girls five different flowers: a yellow lily, a pink lily, a yellow tulip, a red and yellow tulip, and a yellow freesia. I asked them to observe the similarities and differences among the flowers that would allow them to group them in a way that reflects how the flowers are related to each other, like we did with the shapes. I chose these particular flowers for several reasons. The duplicate lily and tulip flowers differed only in color, so were easily grouped as similar based on form and shape. I chose three different types of yellow flower to illustrate that some characteristics are more useful in determining relationships than others. In this case, three flowers share the same color, but have different shapes; therefore, grouping according to shape instead of color gives a more accurate estimation of the relationships among the flowers.
The girls noticed that the lilies and tulips all had six colorful tepals, the term given to the showy, petal-like structures of flowers whose sepals and petals look similar. The freesia, on the other hand, had green sepals and six petals, but the petals were fused to form a tube, which distinguished this flower from the others. The girls also observed that the carpels, the female flower parts, of the lilies and tulips looked similar, whereas that of the freesia was much more delicate and had a different shape. In light of these observations, the girls grouped the tulips and lilies together, while the freesia stood alone as distinct from the rest. Through this exercise, the girls not only learned to closely examine flowers and their specific parts, but also about studying evolution and how shared characteristics can be used to determine the relationships between species. The family tree the girls created was correct. Lilies and tulips are both members of the Liliaceae, the lily family, whereas freesias belong to the Iridaceae, the iris family.
Overall, it was an excellent day. I got to interact with very bright, engaged young women who were inquisitive and eager to learn. They will now look at flowers in a new way, appreciating not only their beauty, but also how scientific observation can be used to estimate the evolutionary relationships between species. I hope that my enthusiasm and love of science and plants promoted their interest in the sciences and encouraged them to view a scientific career–maybe even botany!–as a plausible option for their future. I am already looking forward to next year’s conference!
Jonathan Billing is GreenSchool Science Education Intern.
The GreenSchool is a classroom and a laboratory for school groups from New York City and beyond, but it’s not just the students who are in for a treat. Teachers and chaperones are also likely to be delighted by any trip to the GreenSchool. The journey of discovery begins as you step into the incredible Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, wend your way through the fascinating houses, and emerge into the Deserts of the Americas. Descend the stairs and turn right, you’ll see a turtle petroglyph carved by the Lenape tribe, and a mysterious set of slatted green doors labeled, “GreenSchool.” Behind those doors lies a world of wonder and scientific exploration.
My name is Jonathan Billig and it is my honor and privilege to work as the GreenSchool Science Education Intern. I have been here for the last seven months, and in two more I’ll have to move on, to make way for another eager educator. He or she will learn how to use inquiry-based education, perform administrative tasks such as arranging the GreenSchool schedule, and do a lot of minute work for a very great cause; I’m about to prepare 300 bean sprouts for kindergarteners to pry open and observe in next week’s Life Cycle classes.
Our greatest resources at the GreenSchool are the curiosity of our students, our amazing instructors, and the living library that is The New York Botanical Garden. Classroom work is important, don’t get me wrong, but kids really blossom when they can put their learning into a living context. “What? A Kapok tree sends water to its leaves 250 feet in the air so that it can do photosynthesis?” “What are those lines on the leaves? Are they like the veins in our arms?” The varied environments of the Conservatory, and the diverse collections outside, provide a wealth of educational experience that students rarely forget.
In the three rooms of the Green School, instructors help students explore the scientific wonders of botany, gardening, ecology, and more. Students visiting the GreenSchool might practice microscope skills by observing an Elodea leaf at 400x, or examine the flowers, stems, seeds, roots and leaves that make up our botanical diet, like broccoli. “Broccoli is a flower!? And it tastes so good. This is changing my life!” That was said by a second grade boy from the Bronx.
The GreenSchool is at its best when you see kids connecting first-hand experience to advanced scientific concepts. We teach about the water cycle first by asking kids to observe where they notice water in the Conservatory, or where they think it might be. Then, through drawing, discussion, and explanation in our classrooms, we contextualize that information. It’s a wonder to see students begin to understand how water moves through every ecosystem, from a distant rain forest to a tiny apartment!
So the next time you see those mysterious green slatted doors, hopefully you will be with a school group so you can come in and learn with us. If not, rest assured that there’s a whole lot of wonder behind those doors, and a whole lot you can learn outside of the GreenSchool, no matter your age!
Garden Scientists Explore Biodiversity in Australia, Brazil, and Colombia
As environmental pressures increasingly put biodiversity at risk, one of the Garden’s most important goals is to lead in the effort to document every plant and fungal species on Earth. Garden scientists conduct research around the globe. Here are three recent reports from the field.
Roy Halling Returns to Fraser Island, Australia
In late March, Roy Halling, Ph.D., a specialist in mushrooms, continued his survey of macrofungi on Fraser Island, the largest of the world’s sand islands and a World Heritage Site off the east coast of Queensland, Australia. There he and Nigel Fechner, a Senior Botanist at the Queensland Herbarium in Brisbane, found an undescribed genus of “false-truffle,” previously known only from Cape York, the northernmost part of Queensland. They discovered the fungus (pictured), about the size of a golf ball, protruding from a sand bank near Lake McKenzie. Scratching with a truffle rake in the sand and litter under a gum tree (Eucalyptus signata), they unearthed more of the bright red fungus. Like the truffle of commerce, this fungus has a strong penetrating odor, one of the key factors in attracting marsupials, which eat the fungus and disperse the spores in their scat.
The real gems for Halling on this trip were finding an exquisite species of Strobilomyces and a first report from Australia of a Heimioporus japonicus. This is the second known instance of a species in that genus in Australia.
Wayt Thomas Joins Partners in Brazil
Wayt Thomas, Ph.D., studies tropical American forests, especially the Atlantic forests of Brazil, one of the world’s biodiversity “hotspots.” He spent February in Brazil, working with colleagues from the Federal University of Paraiba and four other Brazilian universities studying the plants found in one of the most critically endangered rain forests in the world.
Two of the reserves Thomas visited on this trip protect submontane forests—moist forests at elevations of 1,300–2,600 feet. These two reserves are home to some of the world’s rarest birds, including the Alagoas Antwren, the Alagoas Foliage-gleaner, the Alagoas Tyrannulet, and the Orange-bellied Antwren. By comparing submontane forests with similar avifauna, he hopes to predict the occurrence of these rare birds in other areas.
Douglas Daly Travels to Colombia
Douglas Daly, Ph.D., returned to Colombia in January for the first time in 20 years to pursue his studies of the tropical tree family Burseraceae. He consulted eight herbaria in three cities and identified and annotated some 4,000 Burseraceae specimens in order to complete his treatment of the family for Colombia’s national flora checklist. Daly was able to secure permission to work in two localities on the western side of the Andes where small areas of primary forest remain. Although Colombia was in the grip of a severe drought, he collected more than 16 distinct species of Burseraceae, two of which he had never seen before, a tribute to the dizzying plant diversity of Colombia.
Scott A. Mori, Ph.D., Nathaniel Lord Britton Curator of Botany, has been studying New World rain forests for The New York Botanical Garden for over 30 years. This evening from 6 to 9 p.m., as part of the Edible Evenings series of The Edible Garden, he will hold informal conversations about chocolate, Brazil nuts, and cashews—some of his research topics—during Café Scientifique.
The Brazil nut is known to most people as the largest nut in a can of mixed party nuts, but other than that, most people know little about it, including that it comes from an Amazonian rain forest tree of the same name or that it is really a seed, not a nut.
The Brazil nut was first discovered by Alexander von Humboldt and Aime Bonpland on the Orinoco River in Venezuela and made known to the scientific world as Bertholletia excelsa in1808. The generic name honors a famous French chemist and friend of Humboldt’s and excelsa refers to the majestic growth form of the tree. Although discovered in Venezuela, this species became known as the Brazil nut because Brazil was, and still is, a major exporter of the seeds.
For the past 35 years my research has focused on the classification and ecology of species of the Brazil nut family. The Brazil nut itself is only one of what I estimate to be about 250 species of that family found in the forests of Central and South America. This number includes nearly 50 species that do not have scientific names, mostly because collectors are usually not willing to climb into tall trees to gather the specimens needed to document their existence. My research on the Brazil nut family has taken me on many expeditions to the rain forests of the New World, and what I have learned about this family of trees can be found on The Lecythidaceae Pages.
The Brazil nut flower is large, roughly two inches in diameter, and fleshy, and the male part of the flower has a structure not found in any other plant family in the world. (See illustration at right by Bobbi Angell.) The fertile stamens are arranged in a ring that surrounds the style at the summit of the ovary. This ring has a prolongation on one side that is expanded at the apex to form a hood-like structure. At the apex of the hood are appendages that turn in toward the interior of the flower.
A small amount of nectar is produced at the bases of these appendages. The fleshy “hood” presses directly onto the summit of the ovary and the six petals form an overlapping “cup” that blocks entry to the flower to all but the co-evolved pollinators.
The Brazil nut is known to be pollinated only by large bees with enough strength to lift up the hood and enter the flower. These bees are presumably rewarded for their efforts by the nectar they collect from the interior of the hood. When the bees are in the flower, pollen rubs off onto their heads and backs from where it is transferred to the stigma of subsequent flowers visited.
