Misconceptions about Helmont's Willow Experiment.David Hershey.......................................................................................................78

Blooming Prints. Sirce Kwai Giveon........................................................... ............................................................................................84

News from the Society
    Botany 2003
        From the Forum. Science Education and the National Science Education Standards.(Bruce Alberts)...............................................86
        PlenaryAddress. The All Species Initiative and the Future of Life. (Edward O.Wilson)...................................................................87
        President-elect'sAddress. Organismal Biology as an Essential Link between Molecular Biologyand Earth Systems Studies.
               Linda E. Graham............................... ....................................................................................................................................88
        New Officers for 2003-04..............................................................................................................................................................91
        BSA Honors and Awards...............................................................................................................................................................91

News from the Sections
    The Importance of Herbaria.Vicki Funk.............................................................................................................................................94
    Plant Biologists Re aching Out:Planning and Delivering Teacher Workshops. D. Timothy Gerber and DavidW. Kramer.......................96

In Memoriam
A. Orville Dahl. 1910-2003....................................................................................................................................................................96

Symposia, Conferences, Meetings
    The 14th Congress of the Federationof European Societies of Plant Biology.......................................................................................97
    Symposium Sows Seeds for PlantRestoration....................................................................................................................................97

Award Opportunities
    Harvard University Bullard Fellowshipsin Forest Research.................................................................................................................98
    Katherine Esau PostdoctoralFellowship.............................................................................................................................................98

Books Reviewed in this Issue.................................................................................................................................................................99

Books Received..................................................................................................................................................................................121

BSA Contact Information........................................................................................................................................ ...........................123

Botanical Society of America Logo Items.............................................................................................................................................124

ISSN 0032-0919
 
 

Plant Science Bulletin
ISSN 0032-0919

Published quarterly by Botanical Society of America, Inc., 1735 NeilAve., Columbus, OH 43210. The yearly subscription rate of $15 is includedin the membership dues of the Botanical Society of America, Inc. Periodicalpostage paid at Columbus, OH and additional mailing office.

Address Editorial Matters (only) to:
Editor: Marshall D. Sundberg
Department of Biological Sciences
Emporia State University
1200 Commercial Street, Emporia, KS 66801-5707
Telephone: 620-341-5605 Fax: 620-341-5607
Email: s undberm@emporia.edu

Send address changes to:
Botanical Society of America
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email: bsa-manager@botany.org

Editorial Committee for Volume 49
Norman C. Ellstrand (2003)
Department of Botany and Plant Science
University of California
Riverside CA 92521-0124
ellstrand@ucracl.ucr.edu

James E. Mickle (2004)
Department of Botany
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7612
james_mickle@ncsu.edu

Andrew W. Douglas (2005)
Department of Biology
University of Mississippi
University, MS 38677
adouglas@olemiss.edu

Douglas W. Darnowski (2006)
Department of Biology
Washington College
Chestertown, MD 21620
ddarnowski2@washcoll.edu

Andrea D. Wolfe (2007)
Department of EEOB
1735 Ne il Ave., OSU
Columbus, OH 43210-1293
wolfe.205@osu.edu
 

During his plenary address at this year's Botany Education Forum BruceAlberts, President of the National Academy of Science, made a strong case for overcoming what we all know is the "bad news" in education - inertia. His address, and the Botany 2003 plenary talk by E. O. Wilson, are summarizedin the News from the Society section of this issue. Both provided reason for optimism and suggested strategies for achieving our goals. Both presentations also served to preface some of the salient concepts presented in the Myths About Botany Education Research Symposium. Two of these concepts are addressed in the feature articles of this issue.

In the first article David Hershey tackles some misconceptions commonly perpetuated in the botany classroom. The constructivist theory of learning posits that students build upon what they know to create new understanding.A major problem arises when students try to build on incorrect ideas. Such misconceptions, or alternative conceptions, are extremely difficult toovercome because typically they seem so "common sense." Our job as teachers is to first make sure we understand the concept ourselves, then to make sure that we don't inadvertently reinforce students' misconceptions through careless word choice or over simplification. Helmont's willow experiments are classic in the history of botany - - but perhaps not as novel as most of us think.

The second article addresses the importance of making botany interesting to students - - especially to middle-school students for it is during these critical years that the creativity and enthusiasm for science of most elementary students is somehow squelched. Sirce Kwai Giveon has no botanical training, but she saw plants as a way to enrich her art curriculum and in the process turned her students on to the wonder of flowering plants. It was a tremendous experience for her, her students, and for me as I fielded questions and shared in her students' discoveries. What a difference it would make to botany if each of the thousands of you who read this issue adopted a middleschool class in your area. Imagine! Thousands of reinvigorated botanists! I bet Karl would have to deal with a boom of manuscripts in nine months- - and Wilson would have his boom of taxonomists in 19 years! Read, view, and enjoy! - - editor.

Misconceptions about Helmont's WillowExperiment

The 1648 potted willow experiment of Johannes Baptista van Helmont is widely discussed in biology teaching because it is the first known quantitative experiment in biology. Despite its familiarity, several misconceptions about Helmont's experiment have gotten into the teaching literature. The purpose of this article is to correct these misconceptions.

Helmont's Description

Helmont's willow experiment is often presented in its entirety because the description is so brief. Here is the first English translation from1662 to refer to for the subsequent discussion,

"But I have learned by this handicraft-operation that all Vegetables do immediately, and materially proceed out of the Element of water onely .For I took an Earthen vessel, in which I put 200 pounds of Earth that had been dried in a Furnace, which I moystened with Rainwater, and I implanted therein the Trunk or Stem of a Willow Tree, weighing five pounds; and atlength, five years being finished, the Tree sprung from thence, did weigh169 pounds, and about three ounces: But I moystened the Earthen Vessel with Rain-water, or distilled water (alwayes when there was need) and it was large, and implanted into the Earth, and least the dust that flew about should be co-mingled with the Earth, I covered the lip or mouth of theVessel with an Iron-Plate covered with Tin, and easily passable with many holes. I computed not the weight of the leaves that fell off in the four Autumnes. At length, I again dried the Earth of the Vessell, and there were found the same two hundred pounds, wanting about two ounces. Therefore164 pounds of Wood, Barks, and Roots, arose out of water onely." (Helmont,1662).

Textbooks sometimes credit Helmont with the idea of the pot experimentto test if plants obtained their mass from the soil. For example, Moore and Clark (1995) noted that the "concept of plants as soil-eaters went unchallenged until 1648" when Helmont published his willow experiment. However, the consensus of historians is that Helmont's experiment was almost certainly inspired by Nicolaus of Cusa's 1450 book De Staticus Experimentis, which described a nearly identical thought experiment (Howe, 1965; Huff,1966; Krikorian and Steward, 1968; Pagel, 1982). An English translation from De Staticus Experimentis reads,

"If a man should put an hundred weight of earth into a great earthen pot, and then should take some Herbs, and Seeds, and weigh them, and then plant or sow them in tha t pot, and then should let them grow there so long, untill hee had successively by little and little, gotten an hundred weight of them, hee would finde the earth but very little diminished, when hecame to weigh it againe: by which he might gather, that all the aforesaid herbs, had their weight from the water." (Krikorian and Steward, 1968).

Nicolaus of Cusa was confident of the experimental results so he may have been relying on earlier sources, experimental data or common sense that gardeners did not have to routinely add soil to potted plants but they did have to water the pots frequently. Howe (1965) traced the quantitative pot experiment idea back to a Greek work of about 200 to 400 A.D. so Nicolaus of Cusa may not have been totally original either.

Helmont and his supporters, notably Robert Boyle, were part natural philosophers, part scientists, so they did not just rely on experimental data. They also used the theory of the ancient Greek philosopher Thales (62?-546 BCE) which stated th at all matter arose from water (Krikorianand Steward, 1968; Walton, 1980). Boyle also cited the book of Genesisin the Bible as support for the theory (Walton, 1980).

Helmont and Water

Allchin (1993, 2000) stated that Helmont was "well aware that plants did not grow outside soil". However, herbals (Gerard, 1633) of Helmont'stime described free-floating aquatic plants, such as "ducks meate" (Lemnaspp.) or "frogge-bit" (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae)(Figure 1), that were common in Europe. Francis Bacon (1627) grew several species of terrestrial plants in water well before Helmont's experiment was published, including a rose he grew for three months. Bacon's conclusions were similar but not quite as strong as Helmont's, "It seemeth by these instances of water, that for nourishment the water is almost all in all, and the earth dothbut keep the plant upright, and save it from overheat and over-cold." (Bacon,1627).
 

Figure 1. Frog's bit, a free-floating aquatic plant (Gerard,1633).

Other investigators used plant water culture in the mid-1600s including Robert Boyle, Thomas Browne and Robert Sharrock (Webster, 1966). Allchin (1993, 2000) stated that Helmont had no conception of distilled water. However, Helmont said he used distilled water in his experiment (Helmont, 1662), and distillation as a purification method was well knownin Helmont's era (Multhauf, 1956). Alchemists, such as Helmont, often usedredistilled rain water (Nash, 1957). Given Helmont's concern that dust might add to the dry weight of his soil, it seems clear that Helmont specifically used rain or distilled water because of their purity. Less pure water sources, such as well water or river water, would have contained more dissolved or suspended solids that would have added to the soil dry weight. In 1770, Antoine Lavoisier dismissed numerous water culture and Helmont-type experiments as inconclusive evi dence that plants were formed exclusively from water because they had not used rain water or distilled water (Nash, 1957). However, Lavoisier could not criticize Helmont's experiment for that weakness.

Helmont and Gas

Allchin (1993, 2000) said "carbon dioxide [was] a substance wholly outside his [Helmont's] conception." However, Helmont coined the term gas, discovered carbon dioxide and is the "real founder of pneumatic chemistry" (Leicesterand Klickstein, 1963). Helmont described several sources of gas sylvestre his name for carbon dioxide, including belches, fermenting wine and burning charcoal, which is of plant origin (Leicester and Klickstein, 1963; Pagel, 1972). Helmont even wrote that when 62 pounds of oak charcoal were burned, they would yield 61 pounds of gas and 1 pound of ash (Leicester and Klickstein,1963). Thus, Helmont knew that dry plant matter released large amountsof carbon dioxide upon burning. Helmont was apparently so dogmatic aboutthe water-forms-all-matter theory that he ignored his data that plant dry matter was composed largely of carbon dioxide gas and his data that a small amount of soil was missing from his pot. Had he not been so dogmatic, Helmont might have used his data to conclude that fresh plant matter consisted largely of water but that dry plant matter consisted mainly of carbon dioxide gas and a small amount of soil minerals. That kind of conclusion would have advanced plant biology by well over a century.

Helmont's Pot

Allchin (1993, 2000) thought Helmont was "rather clever" and deserved "credit" for "isolating the relevant soil system within the boundariesof a pot." However, growing trees in pots was common in Helmont's time so Helmont was just using a standard technology.. The wealthy in Helmont's era often grew potted tropical plants, especially orange trees, and overwintered them in caves, stoves, greenhouses, or orangeries (Muijzenberg, 1980). Plants had been grown in pots as early as ancient Egyptian times (Baker,1957 ). As mentioned earlier, historians have concluded that Helmont's experiment was almost certainly inspired by Nicolaus of Cusa's 1450 description of a nearly identical thought experiment that involved growing plants in a pot.

Allchin (1993, 2000) said that Helmont sunk his pot in the ground "asif the location was a significant parameter" to control. It is not known why Helmont sunk his pot in the ground so that is a guess. Hershey (1991) suggested some practical reasons such as greatly reducing the irrigation requirement by minimizing evaporation from the porous pot walls or preventing the planted pot from being blown over by the wind. The pot being blownover and spilling the soil could have ruined the experiment. Gerard (1633) illustrated a planted pot sunk in the ground (Figure 2) so it seems likely gardeners of Helmont's time knew of one or more of the practical advantages. Sinking the pot may have also prevented the roots from being killed by subfreezing temperatures (Hershey, 1991). Perhaps Helmont sunk the potto prevent someone from falling in the hole left after the 200 pounds of soil were removed or because Mrs. Helmont didn't want a big, ugly pot sitting aboveground in the yard for five years. Maybe Helmont did not even make the decision to sink the pot because it is quite likely that the wealthy Helmont had his gardener do some, if not all, of the experiment. Boylehad his gardener carry out his Helmont-type experiments (Krikorian andSteward, 1968).

Figure 2. Cypress vine (Ipomoea quamoclit) growing ina pot sunk in the ground (Gerard, 1633).

Helmont's use of a metal pot lid to keep out dust is sometimes considered one of the more impressive parts of the experimental design (Krikorian and Steward, 1968).  Helmont even coated the iron lid with tin to prevent rusting. However, common sense indicates that a metal lid with many holes would be ineffective in keeping out dust. Any dust that accumulated on the lid would have simply been washed into the pot when it rained. The lid would have been effective in keeping leaves, twigs, and other debris out of the pot. It might have also prevented larger animals from burrowing in the potted soil and prevented rain from splashing soil out of the pot. However, it would not have been effective in preventing surrounding soil from being splashed into the pot. Soil splashing into the pot was a disadvantage of sinking the pot in the ground.

Criticisms of Helmont's Methods

Allchin (1993, 2000) thought Hershey (1991) criticizing Helmont's experiment for not using replication lacked historical context. However, Boyle in the 1640s (Hoff, 1964) did three Helmont-type experiments before he had read Helmont's experiment (Krikorian and Steward, 1968). Boyle found 0pounds soil missing, then repeated the experiment and found 1.5 pounds missing (Krikorian and Steward, 1968) which revealed substantial experimental error. Boyle lost the data of the third experiment (Krikorian and Steward,1968). Woodward (1699) criticized the accuracy of Helmont's weighing and soil drying methods.

"I must confess I cannot see how this experiment can ever be made withthe nicety and justness that is required, in order to build upon it so much as these gentlemen do. 'Tis hard to weigh Earth in that quantity, or plants of the size of those they mention, with any great exactness: or to bake the Earth with that accuracy, as to reduce it twice to the same dryness." (Woodward, 1699)

Helmont's Design and Analysis

Allchin (1993, 2000) stated that Helmont's experiment was "designed and interpreted appropriately" in the context of Helmont's time. However that is untrue.

· As mentioned above, common sense inidicates that the metallid would have been ineffective in its stated purpose of keeping dust outof the pot, and sinking the pot in the ground would have created a problem of rain splashing soil into the pot.

· Helmont made no mention o f the impossibility of completely separating soil and roots, which would have been a source of experimental error. Anyone who has tried to completely separate roots from soil knows that it is basically impossible.

· Helmont's description is contradictory because he says he grew the willow for five years but had only four autumn's worth of leaves. Therewould have been five autumns in five years. Helmont's said his 164 poundsof willow included just "wood, barks, and roots" (Helmont, 1662) so what happened to the leaves from the fifth season?

· Helmont made no mention of weighing inaccuracies even though accurate soil weighing was the heart of his experiment. Even Woodward (1699) noted that twice drying and weighing 200 pounds of soil could not have been done with any great accuracy.

· Helmont was inconsistent in his weighing technique because he determined soil dry weight but plant fresh weight (Krikorian and Steward,1968). It was common knowledge in Helmont's time tha t plants did require water and contained large amounts of water because plant products were routinely dried before use, including firewood, grains, peas, beans, tobacco, cooking herbs, medicinal plants, hay, and some fruits, such as grapes to make raisins. Thus, the key question was what plant dry matter was composed of.

· Helmont's description of his experiment was very incomplete.He did not even mention the species of willow he used.

· Helmont is lauded for being quantitative but he ignored his missing two ounces of soil because he believed so strongly that all matter arose from water. Helmont was well aware that a small amount of ash or earth remained after burning plant material but did not consider the possibility that the ash represented soil minerals.

· Helmont did not have the data needed to conclude that 164 pounds of plant matter came from water alone because he had not measured the amount of water added to the pot during the experiment. The logical conclusion based on Helmont's published data would have been that very little of the plant fresh weight came from the soil.

· Helmont ignored common knowledge that manure greatly improved plant growth. Manure promotion of plant growth was well known long before Helmont's time (Tisdale and Nelson, 1975). Even Helmont supporter Boyle used that as a criticism in his 1666-67 work, The Origin of Forms and Qualities,

"And indeed experience shews us, that several plants, that thrive not well without rain water, are not yet nourish'd by it alone, since when corn in the field, and fruit-trees in orchards have consum'd the salineand sulphureous juices of the earth, they will not prosper there, how muchrain soever falls upon the land, till the ground by dung or otherwise be supply'd again with such assimilable juices" (Hunter and Davis, 1999).

Helmont as Hero and Fool

Allchin (1993) stated that it was the "Most Outlandish Use of History in Biology Education" to portray Helmont as "both hero and fool." However, in his era Helmont was regarded exactly that way (Pagel, 1972) because his "combination of mysticism, magic, alchemy, and new science irritated even his contemporaries" (Heinecke, 1995). Even Helmont admirer, Boyle had that hero-fool view because Boyle thought a mysticism-heavy treatise written by Helmont was misattributed to Helmont by his detractors (Heinecke,1995). Boyle couldn't comprehend how Helmont, who made many
important scientific discoveries, could also produce such unscientific nonsense. Pagel (1972) noted that Helmont's writings are difficult for modern readers because his scientific work is mixed in with his nonscientific discourses on such things as religious metaphysics and cosmology. Helmont also believed in spontaneous generation, that the philosophers' stone could be used to turn other metals into gold and that applying salve to the weapon that caused a wound would promote healing of the wound (Pagel, 1982). A publication on the latter subject got Helmont arrested and convicted of heresy under the Spanish Inquisition (Pagel, 1972).

Woodward Disproves Helmont

Textbooks often follow up a description of Helmont's 1648 experiment with a discussion of Joseph Priestly's 1770s experiments (Kaufman etal., 1989; Moore and Clark, 1995; Weier et al., 1982). They rarely mention how John Woodward (1699) disproved Helmont's willow experiment.Woodward (1699) used water culture experiments in which plant growth wa smuch greater in water containing a little soil than in plain water or distilledwater (Table 1). Unlike Helmont, Woodward (1699) measured the water used by his plants and provided the first quantitative measurements of transpiration (Table 1). Woodward improved upon Helmont by using replication and growing his plants indoors under more controlled conditions. However, Woodward(1699) too failed to measure plant dry weight or make the connection thatthe dry matter absorbed from the water was insufficient to account forthe entire gain in plant dry weight.

Table 1. Effect of water source on spearmint (Mentha spicata)growth and transpiration in water culture (Woodward, 1699).*

Water source	% fresh wt. gain	Transpiration Ratio**
plain rep. 1	100	111
plain rep. 2	126	95
plus soil rep. 1	222	64
plus soil rep. 2	309	53
distilled	36	215

*Glass containers were covered by parchment to prevent evaporation.The stem was inserted through a hole in the parchment. Plants were grown for 56 days in a windowsill in June and July 1692.

**Grams of water lost divided by grams of fresh weight gained by plant.

Although Woodward (1699) showed that Helmont's conclusion was wrong,Woodward's work has been largely overlooked (Stanhill, 1986) while Helmont's willow experiment is still widely mentioned in biology textbooks and histories of science. The detailed case history by Nash (1957) does not even mention Woodward. Even in his own time, Woodward (1699) was overlooked. For example,Stephen Hales reported many transpiration measurements in his classic 1727book, Vegetable Staticks, and made conclusions virtually identicalto Woodward's but just briefly mentioned Woodward (Stanhill, 1986). In1770, Lavoisier did not mention Woodward in his repudiation of Helmont's pot experiment and plant water cultures as proof that matter arose from water alone (Nash, 1957).

Woodward's (1699) convincing experimental data that Helmont's conclusion was wrong went largely unnoticed possibly at least partly because his reputation was later tarnished by severe professional disputes in his main fields of medicine and geology (Stanhill, 1986). These disputes resulted in a duel and his expulsion from the council of the Royal Society (Stanhill,1986). Woodward's (1699) title was als o vague. Had he used a title suchas, "Experiments that Disprove Helmont's Willow Experiment," his work mighthave gotten more notice.

Lessons from Helmont's Experiment

The first sentence in Helmont's biography reads "Pessimism, scepticism and criticism are the outstanding key-notes of all of van Helmont's works and researches" (Pagel, 1982). However, he did not apply enough skepticism and criticism to his willow experiment. It was still a very useful and important experiment in the history of biology but was much less than it could have been. From a modern perspective, it does provide some valuable lessons for biology students.

· Do not ignore your own data when making conclusions. Helmont ignored his missing two ounces of soil and his other data that charcoal, derived from plants, produced mainly gas when burned. Had Helmont concluded that plant dry mass consisted of a small amount of minerals absorbed from the soil but mainly of gas sylvetre, his name for carbon dioxide, he couldh ave advanced plant science by more than a century.

· Be objective and do not try to prove a particular hypothesis or theory as Helmont did. When you are not objective, you are likely to make wrong conclusions. Helmont's theory that water formed all matter made him conclude that all 164 pounds of willow came from water even though he had not measured how much water he had added to the pot. Helmont also ignored his missing two ounces of soil because his theory did not allowhim to consider the possibility that the small amount of ash remaining after burning plant matter could have come from the soil.

· Consider common sense or preexisting knowledge even if you have no quantitative data to support it. In Helmont's case, he ignored common knowledge that manure promoted plant growth and that fresh plantmatter did contain large amounts of water.

· Scientists sometimes overlook or do not acknowledge preexistingwork as Helmont did for Nicolaus of Cusa's 1450 book describing a pot experimentlike Helmont's and Bacon's 1627 work on growing plants in water. This wasespecially true centuries ago when scientific literature was not as widelyavailable but can still occur. Allchin (1993, 2000) did not cite any historicalliterature on Helmont to support his claims and made errors.

· When publishing an experiment, describe the materials and methods in enough detail so others can repeat it. It appears no one ever attempted to repeat Helmont's five-year experiment with a willow tree. Helmont scholar Pagel (1982) even warned that trying to repeat Helmont's willow experimentas described "may run into technical difficulties" and "may lead to differentresults." Describing an experiment as basically unrepeatable is one ofthe worst criticisms that can be made.

· The first person who publishes an experiment gets the credit even if others proposed or did it earlier. If historians were convinced that Nicolaus of Cusa was actually describing a completed experiment in1450, rather than just a proposed experiment, Nicolaus of Cusa would havegotten the credit instead of Helmont. Similarly, if Robert Boyle had published his Helmont-type experiment before 1648, he would have gotten the fame.

· An experiment may be considered valid long after other published results that disprove it. Woodward (1699) showed Helmont's conclusion from his willow experiment was incorrect but Woodard was largely overlooked in his era and ever since (Stanhill, 1986).

David R. Hershey
Email: dh321z@yahoo.com

Literature Cited

Allchin, D. (2000). How not to teach historical cases in science. Journalof College Science Teaching, 30,33-37.

Allchin, (1993). Reassessing van Helmont, reassessing history. Bioscene,19(2),3-5.

Bacon, F. (1627). Sylva Sylvarum. London: J. Haviland.

Baker, K.F. (1957). The UC System for Growing Healthy Container-Grown Plants. (University of California Agri cultural Experiment Station Manual23). Berkeley, CA: University of California.

Gerard, J. (1633). The Herbal or General History of Plants. NewYork: Dover.

Heinecke, B. (1995). The mysticism and science of Johann Baptista van Helmont (1579-1644). Ambix. 42(2),65-78.

Helmont, J.B. van. (1662). Oriatrike or Physick Refined. London: Lodowick Loyd. (translated by John Chandler).

Hershey, D.R. (1991). Digging deeper into van Helmont's famous willow tree experiment. American Biology Teacher. 53,458-460.

Hoff, H.E. (1964). Nicolaus of Cusa, van Helmont, and Boyle: The first experiment of the renaissance in quantitative biology and medicine. Journalof the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 19,99-117.

Howe, H.M. (1965). A root of van Helmont's tree. ISIS, 56,408-419.

Hunter, M. and Davis, E.B. (1999). The Works of Robert Boyle. London: Pickering and Chatto.

Kaufman, P.B., Carlson, T.F., Dayanandan, P., Evans, M.L., Fisher, J.B.,P arks, C. and Wells., J.R. 1989. Plants: Their Biology and Importance. New York: Harper and Row.

Krikorian, A.D. and Steward, F.C. (1968). Water and solutes in plant nutrition: With special reference to van Helmont and Nicolaus of Cusa. BioScience,18,286-292.

Leicester, H.M. and Klickstein, H.S. (1963). A Source Book in Chemistry1400-1900. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

Moore, R. and Clark, W.D. 1995. Botany: Plant Form and Function.Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown.

Muijzenberg, E.W.B. van den. (1980). A History of Greenhouses.Wageningen, The Netherlands: Institute for Agricultural Engineering.

Multhauf, R. (1956). The significance of distillation in Renaissancemedical chemistry. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 30,329-346.

Nash, L.K. (1957). Plants and the Atmosphere. pp. 323-426. Volume 2.IN: Conant, J.B. and Nash, L.K. (eds.). Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Pa gel, W. (1982). Joan Baptista van Helmont, reformer of science and medicine. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Pagel, W. (1972). Helmont, Johannes (Joan) Baptista van.
pp. 253-259, vol. 6. IN: Gillespie, C.C. (ed.). Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Scribner.

Stanhill, G. (1986). John Woodward - A neglected 17th-century pioneer of experimental botany. Israel Journal of Botany, 35,225-231.

Tisdale, S.L. and Nelson, W.L. (1975). Soil Fertility and Fertilizers.New York: Macmillan.

Walton, M.T. (1980). Boyle and Newton on the transmutation of water and air, from the root of Helmont's tree. Ambix, 27(1),11-18.

Webster, C. (1966). Water as the ultimate principle of nature: The background to Boyle's Sceptical Chymist. Ambix, 13,96-107.

Weier, T.E., Stocking, G.R., Barbour, M.G., and Rost, T.L. 1982. Botany: An Introduction to Plant Biology. New York: Wiley.

Woodward, J. (1699). Some thoughts and experiments concerning vegetation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 21,193-227.
 

Blooming Prints

I needed to get some flowers with some guts and muscles yet were beautifuland delicate. I didn't need these flowers to adorn my desk; I needed themfor new information to give to students. I am an art teacher at StarlightCove Elementary School in Lantana, Florida. These fifth grade boys andgirls are budding into young men and women and I thought that delicatelybeautiful, gutsy muscled flowers would be something they could relate to.Our project, required by the Florida Sunshine State Curriculum, provides5^th Graders the experience of Relief Printmaking. Their suggestedtheme is Plants. Teachers are given leeway in how to focus their lessons.

In my experience of previous years, I have put up posters and silhouetteshapes of flowers on the walls and passed around books about plants, andeven brought flowers to school from my garden. Ho wever, I continued toget the question from the kids, "what do I draw"? That's mostly from theboys. The girls tend to make frilly daisy chains. Their prints came outwell crafted but lacked some visual oomph. This year, I was determinedto help them understand what they were looking at.

The best way I know how to get children to dig into more focused observationis through using Science as my introduction.

So, this year, I decided to do some digging in the worldwide web gardento unearth information about the origins of Flowers. What I found out challengedT-Rex's legacy!

I found a willing scientific informant, Dr. Marshall Sundberg, who answeredmy questions on when and where flowers began in earth time scale. He saidit was a timely question because evidence of floral beginnings has justrecently been discovered in China. It seems that flowers began in the shallowwarm waters as aqueous plants. The oldest known type of flower is the Magnoliacousin. Just last Spring, I planted the Southe rn Magnolia tree in frontof my southern Floridian home. This new information makes me especiallyproud of my Magnolia sapling. As I gaze out upon the newly opened lusciousblooms, I realize this delicately blended peach-blush-cream petal outlastedthe biggest, meanest dinosaurs. A miniscule remnant of T-Rex, the brownanole, roams the candelabra branches.

I brought photos of the magnolia bloom to the children and the emailprintouts of the information I received from Dr. Sundberg. The printoutwas read to the classes. How flowers outlasted T-Rex caught the kids' interest.From there, with Dr. Sundberg's help, I went into the structure of theFlower using overhead transparencies as if I were their science teacher.

When students asked questions about flower parts that I didn't knowwith assurance, I wrote Dr. Sundberg. One such example is why the interiorof some flowers has a different color than their outer petals. I let thekids guess and gave them their answer the following week. They gues sedthat nectar producers attract birds and bees. What they didn't know wasthat this method of attraction helped propagate the plants.

The boys especially were interested in the carnivorous plants and welet our imaginations have a wild moment thinking how scary it would beif one of those plants were human size. We have a variety of floating carnivorousplants in our black ponds nearby.

Settling back with factual information on Flowers, the students' awarenessof "What to look at" increased dramatically from last year. When I passedaround a few books on Flowers, such as the Audubon handbook on wildflowersand tacked up posters and photographs and other artists' paintings of flowers,the students set out to create. This was the proof of my effort: theirdrawings were strong and confident and much more botanically correct thanin previous years.

The next step took two stages: one was to draw four drawings of flowers;and the last step was selecting the clearest linear image from the fouran d transferring it onto the print plate.

The three paper drawings were such excellent illustrations that I hadthe children mount them on large black construction paper and we have exhibitedthem in my classroom, our school media center and the school headquartersfor our Palm Beach County Elementary School Exhibition.

The printed plate was used about eight times, creating prints with differentcolored printing ink and different colored paper. The student's pride intheir work was evident with their industry and smiles.

Being their proud Art Teacher, I sent electronic images to Dr. Sundbergas thanks for his information and support. He said he was amazed at thedetail.

I hope the Plant Science Bulletin enjoys the selections I have sent.

Sirce Kwai Giveon, Lantana, Florida.
 

News from the Society

Botany 2003

From the FORUM

ScienceEducation and the National Science Education Standards

Bruce Alberts

Our field has a real opportunity to have an impact on K-12 educationsaid Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences, in hisKeynote address at the Botany Forum. This would be a key element in hisgoal to create an enlarged scientific community. Traditionally this communityconsisted of scientists in academe, government and industry, but his visionis to incorporate science teachers at all levels and science journalists.The combined efforts of this broadened community will be necessary to affectthe desired improvement in scientific literacy among the population atlarge.

This goal fits well with the charge of the Academy, which was charteredin 1863 to provide independent advi ce to the government on science policyand practice. While the majority of reports produced by the Academy fallinto the category of "Science for Policy," providing the scientific backgroundfor policy makers to make informed decisions, an increasing amount of effortis going into "Policy for Science" reports that involve promoting scienceand scientific literacy. Alberts said it was clear to him, when he beganhis tenure as President, that the latter were particularly critical. Allhe had to do was think back to his first 10 years teaching at Princetonto realize that teaching students the same way he was taught, with introductorycourses designed to weed out students who could not make the grade, wasa part of the problem and not part of the solution.

The major accomplishment of his first two years in office was the publication,in 1996, of the National Science Education Standards. There were more than18,000 reviewers who contributed to this effort and it quickly became clearthat every scien tist had strong opinions about what content in her or hisfield was critical. The task was to winnow down the list of essentialsand to do this they devised an interesting strategy. Physicists, for instancewould trim the biology list while biologists would do the same for thephysicists. The result was the 250 page document that Alberts encouragesus to consult for our own introductory courses. In fact Alberts suggestedthat the 25 page chapter on Teaching is "a must read chapter" for all scientistsin the classroom!

Subsequent to publication of the Standards, the Academy has concentratedon producing a number of supplemental booklets designed to help teachersimplement the standards. These, of course, are all available to be readand/or purchased on the Academy web site. Inquiry-based strategies areprominent in these publications, not only because of their utility in scienceteaching but because they precisely fit the needs for modern workforceskills. Alberts said that as a scientist he was optimistic that changesin science education can be implemented, but unfortunately there is alsosome bad news - - INERTIA.

Change is always difficult, but it is particularly so in education wherethere are so many masters. Alberts noted a particular concern that he calledthe "tyrany of tests." He noted that most of us fail to appreciate theextent to which a high stakes exam can determine the nature and effectivenessof what is taught, how students learn, and their entire view of education.He was able to provide examples from his daughter, a teacher in California,who is now having to deal with pressure to "teach to the test." He alsohighlighted the statement from the Princeton Study Guide for the SAT IIexam which literally tells students "you don't need to understand anything...just need to be able to make associations." Of course the real problemis not tests per se but the fact that the tests being used are "badtests." "No Child Left Behind" and the creep of business-style accou ntabilityeven into higher education makes it imperative that we develop "good tests"for the assessment process. He said that the Academy has recently embarkedon a project to develop prototype tests that are computer aided, but thatmeasure students' growth in understanding.

Our challenge, said Alberts, is to align our introductory college sciencecourses with the standards. This means that we must incorporate inquiry-basedteaching methods into lecture and show the relationship of science to society.It also means that we must incorporate inquiry-based, non-cookbook laboratoryexperiments into associated science laboratory courses. Beyond that, weas scientists must make a science out of education and science educationresearch. More research must be done on how people learn and we urgentlyneed more research on teaching science as inquiry. So who will do thisresearch? We need to develop a new tradition of cooperation between scientists,science educators and teachers. And we should consider opportunities forpostdoctoral students. According to Alberts there are currently about 40,000science post-docs in the U.S. and about 1/3 of them may consider secondaryeducation if certain conditions are met. Of course, he admits that it wouldbe a poison pill for a doctoral student or post-doc to express such aninterest to a major professor. This is an attitude that we can and shouldchange, he said.

Finally Alberts mentioned a new initiative at the Academies, the TeacherAdvisory Council, which consists only of K-12 teachers with at least a50% appointment teaching math or science. Already two outcomes have beenidentified: 1) Scientists must be educated to learn to respect teachersand to discover the true opportunities and problems science teachers facein the schools and 2) Teachers are empowered through interactions withscientists. Partnering of scientists and teachers is a powerful tool formaking the changes required to affect greater public scientific literacy.

-Editor

Plenary Address

TheAll Species Initiative and the Future of Life

Edward O. Wilson

Organismal biology is a calling to a lifetime of excitement, began E.O.Wilson in his address to Botany 2003, noting that he began his career onlyabout 13 blocks from the convention center where we were meeting. Furthermore,he predicted that we are on the cusp of a renaisance in taxonomic study.During the 18^th century taxonomy was concerned primarily withnaming and classifying; in the 19^th century understanding thegeneology of species was the primary goal; the modern synthesis of the20^th century helped to explain the mechanism of speciation;but in the 21^st century we will be able to provide a completeaccount of the earths biodiversity in a project on the scale of the HumanG enome Project.

It is time to reassess the importance of taxonomy - - it is not as "oldfashioned" as thought by our molecular colleagues. Unfortunately, whilethere are approximately 6000 active taxonomists in the world today, a numbernot significantly different from what it was in the 50's according to Wilson,the percent of biologists active in taxonomic investigations has droppedprecipitously with the rapid growth of other fields. According to Wilsonit is important that we recognize taxonomy not just as a tool for otherdisciplines, but as an important discipline in and of itself. Why is thisso? The obvious answer is that we know so very little about the numberof species living on earth. Our gap in knowledge is huge, especially whenyou move away from the furry and feathered creatures. The microbes in particularare a "dark hole" of biology.

But, according to Wilson, there are more reasons than this to furtherthe Linnean enterprise. Among these are the need for taxonomic inventoriesf or effective conservation, for bioprospecting, for biological impact studiesand for analyzing ecosystem assembly. A more complete taxonomy is prerequisiteto reconstructing the tree of life. But most important is the "unsurpassableadventure of explaining the unknown world." Fewer than 1% of know specieshave been studied beyond diagnostic anatomy and exosystem preference. "Molecularbiologists don't know how thin is the information they stand on."

While the goal of a complete census of biodiversity may seem naivelyambitious, Wilson suggests that it is now a possibility because of thepower of computing. He predicts that within 10-20 years we will have on-lineexpert system keys and data bases to permit rapid field identification.These will include high quality images, "e-types," to permit instant featurematching (he noted the project of the New York Botanical Garden as a modelof this possibility). Collected data on new species, including descriptionsand e-types, could be uploaded and ins tantly available to other researchersanywhere in the world. Once the census is complete, the second step willbe genomic studies, particularly of viruses, bacteria, and fungi. He predictsthat microbial systematics and microbial ecology will become dominant fieldsas we move from the nano- to the pico-level.

Wilson argued that the accelerating destruction of ecosystems and theextinction of species makes it essential to move on the All Species Initiativenow. While NSF has begun funding some of the necessary components, a majorproblem is that the world economy has stagnated and support, especiallyfrom private foundations, is lagging. What can we do in academe? We mustwork to increase the prestige of taxonomic studies, including providingbetter financial support, in order to attract new young students to thefield. This is especially critical for students from the 3^rdworld. Then, says Wilson, we must argue the position that systematics,like evolution, is a concept that unites th e levels of biological thought— down to the molecular and up to the ecosystem. Furthermore, a betterunderstanding of systematics is essential to maintaining biodiversity andunderstanding evolutionary biology.

-Editor

Dr. Wilson agreed to respond briefly to some questions for the PlantScience Bulletin - -

Editor: The first question from the audience concerned defining "species."How would you define it in terms of the "All Species Survey" for use withplants, fungi, and particularly microbes?

EOW: The definition of species is a deep epistemological problem, andof course also a daunting practical issue. However, rather than regardingit as an impediment to the global biodiversity map, it should be thoughta challenge and an opportunity for advance. Working tentatively with thebest criteria available according to taxon, whether reproductive isolationor genetic difference, and keeping them standard, even as we test and debatethem, we can expect to hit upon the best criteria whe n further along inthe all-species effort.

Editor: Another question had to do with training new students. Giventhe general decline in taxonomic offerings at our colleges and universities,how do you think potential funding for the "All Species Survey" could mosteffectively be distributed to train the generation of systematists whowould accomplish the task?

EOW: As funding flows into global exploratory systematics, as it undoubtedlywillas the importance of the subject is more widely realized, jobs and trainingsupport will be created in academia, museums, and various biological researchorganizations. This is the "Field of Dreams" argument, in which I believe:If you build it, they will come. First, from the depleted ranks of systematistsand taxon experts, then from others, including the young people who seethe prospects of career and adventure.

Editor: What specific role do you see for professional societies, suchas the Botanical Society of America, in implementing the All Species Survey?

EOW: I would see as immediately useful status reports to BSA memberson the global effort, which can be readily assembled from organizationsthat are actively involved in the all-species initiatives, including theGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility in Copenhagen, NatureServe inArlington, VA, and the All-Species Foundation in San Francisco. An occasionalprogress report would inform especially non-systematics BSA members ofwhat is happening, and also give a sense of goals envisioned and the technologiescoming into play to reach them. Local all-species inventories, I mightadd, are a great educational method for colleges and universities.

Best wishes,

Edward O. Wilson

President Elect's Address

A Tale of Two Liverworts:Organismal Biology as an Essential Link between Molecular Biology and EarthSystems Studies

Linda E. Graham

Professor of Botany and the Gaylord Nelson Institute of EnvironmentalStudies

In modern biology, molecular and ecosystem approaches are advancingdramatically, offering tremendous potential for humans to comprehend themselvesand their place in nature. Investing scientific resources in these areasis essential. This shouldn't have to mean that support for productive researchat the organismal level must necessarily decline precipitously. But ithas. All of us have observed shifts in institutional investment in facultypositions, collections, and building programs that de-emphasize organismalapproaches. In his plenary address at this conference, Professor E.O. Wilsonwas eloquent in defense of organismal biology and vertical studies thatlink organisms with their environmental roles as well as the molecularand cellular features that underpin them. I will argue the particular pointthat organismal biology is an essential link between molecular and systemapproaches, increasing the utility of all of these approaches. I will illustratethis point by a tale of two liverworts (and yes, there is a literary allusion!).

Why liverworts? The value of vertical studies could be illustrated witha variety of organisms, oceanic cyanobacteria and coccolithophorids, orsalt marsh plants, just to name a few. One reason for choosing liverwortsis that while they are quite beautiful (as illustrated on the SouthernIllinois University website "Land Plants Online"), they engender but littlerecognition by the general public. As many of you know, it can be difficultto interest undergraduates in these plants. For one thing their colloquialname is a real turn off—recalling on the one hand a widely disliked foodand on the other, an undesirable skin condition. I'm not sure how muchit helps to explain the medieval Doctrine of Signatures and that the term"wort" is an old term meaning "herb!"

The main reason for choosing liverworts is my research interest i n earlyevents in the history of land plant evolution. Molecular systematic studiesand fossil evidence indicate that liverworts are a very early-divergentgroup of modern plants. Their study is therefore likely to tell us somethingabout the first plants became adapted to land, a topic of great interestto most botanists.

Liverworts have several distinctive land plant (embryophyte) featuresnot found in even their closest green algal relatives, the aquatic charophyceans.These include an embryo & sporophyte, which, though quite small, playsthe same reproductive role as oak trees and rice plants_spore productionand dispersal. And liverworts have tough sporopollenin-walled spores, capableof surviving dispersal in air, an essential adaptation to life on land.Recently, Popper and Fry (2003) reported that liverworts, like all otherland plant groups, have xyloglucans in their primary cell walls, whilesuch materials are sparse or absent from related green algae. And an impressivebody of live rwort sperm cell biology, illustrated by Zane Carothers' pioneeringwork and Karen Renzaglia's more recent anatomical studies, also shows featuresin common with other land plants.

The characters in my tale of two liverworts are Marchantia, theonly liverwort that many biology students ever see, and the much less well-knownBlasia.Marchantia, with relatively complex structure and reproduction,has become a liverwort model genetic system. Complete mitochondrial andchloroplast genomic sequences are known, and a BAC library project, whichwill illuminate the nuclear genome, is underway. Blasia, thoughmuch less well studied at the molecular level, is nevertheless of greatinterest because molecular systematics suggests that it is particularlyearly-divergent, and thus may model structural, reproductive, and physiologicalcharacters of very early plants. By comparing Blasia and Marchantia,we can know much more about the great revolution in Earth's ecosyst emsbegun by early land plants than we can by focusing on just one liverwort.This is analogous to the method used by Dickens, in setting his classicstory in both London and Paris, to more effectively illuminate the socialconditions and human dilemmas relevant to the French Revolution.

Blasia is an excellent colonizer, growing on moist rocks or soilworldwide. But its body is rather delicate, one to a few cells thick, andit lacks the defensive terpenoid-containing oil bodies more typical ofliverwort cells. So Blasia tends to be evanescent. But it is easily"recalled to life," thanks not only to spores, but also two types of asexualpropagules known as gemmae. The short-lived stellate gemmae propagate thespecies during favorable growth conditions. But neither they nor the gametophytesthat grow from them are able to survive harsh conditions. Such tissuesare unlikely to survive long enough to fossilize, under most circumstances.Blasia's ephemeral body may help explain w hy fossils of intact earliestplants have not yet been found, even though the spore record elucidatedby Jane Gray and others suggests that land plants were abundant and widelydistributed as long as 460 million years ago. Their tissues were not generallyresistant to decay and other degradative processes.

A second type of oval-shaped gemmae produced by Blasia, and firststudied in detail by Jeff Duckett and Roberto Ligrone, can survive harshconditions. Our lab studies have found that these oval gemmae are so toughthat they retain their shape and cell wall structure even after havingbeen boiled in concentrated acid for 20 min, a procedure that plant sporewalls, but few other biological materials can survive. These gemmae owetheir resistance to cell wall components that have properties consistentwith phenolic polymers_such as specfic autofluorescence. The gemmae cellwalls glow when exposed to UV and violet light, indicating capacity toabsorb UV, a feature that may protect cell DNA from radiation damage. Suchresistant materials should fossilize well, and indeed there are some similar,though enigmatic remains in the fossil record. These results suggest thatvery early land plants might have used similar materials to aid survivalin their stressful new habitat.

Our studies of close green algal relatives suggest that earliest landplants inherited from them the ability to produce resistant cell wall phenoliccompounds in a highly regulated process, then used these materials in newways on land. For example, liverwort sporangial epidermal cells commonlyproduce similar wall polymers, which likely help protect spores from UV,desiccation, and microbial attack while they develop. Ongoing genomic projectsthat include green algal relatives and bryophytes offer the prospect ofcomprehending the molecular basis of the earliest stages in the evolutionof plant phenolic polymers.

Additional studies in our lab have revealed that resistant (probablyphenolic) cell wall polymers are even more abundant in the later-divergentMarchantia.These compounds are particularly abundant in cells ofMarchantia'slower epidermis, which includes numerous unicellular rhizoids producedby tip growth of certain epidermal cells (in a manner similar to higherplant root hair elongation). The undersurface tissues of Marchantiaplay several important, and sometimes surprising roles in which resistantwall polymers are likely adaptive. For example, nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterialive entangled among Marchantia's rhizoids where they likely aidin the liverwort's nitrogen nutrition. Marchantia is one of relativelyfew liverworts known to commonly have cyanobacterial associates. Othersubstrate microbes_such as decay agents_in the absence of resistant cellwall polymers would have more deleterious effects on the liverwort.

We have found that Marchantia's lower epidermis and rhizoidsof several types are extremely resistant to decay (and also a high-temperat ure,acid treatment designed to test extreme resistance to hydrolytic attack),probably because the cell walls are armored with tough, autofluorescentmaterials like those previously described in Blasia and relatedgreen algae. Scanning EM studies by Martha Cook and other analyses of rottenand acid-treated remains have revealed striking similarities with somepuzzling Silurian-Devonian fos sils previously thought to be the remainsof a group of `extinct plants whose bodies were composed of tubes coveredwith a cellular layer.' I've argued that some of those fossils are actuallythe resistant lower epidermal remains and/or clumps of rhizoids of Marchantia-likeliverworts. Evidence for this hypothesis includes the fact that holes inMarchantiaepidermal remains (where rhizoids have broken off) are patterned very similarlyto pores in certain fossil cell scraps described by Pat Gensel and others.

Marchantia's resistant lower epidermis and rhizoids have anothersurprising function; they form the core of the stalks of gametangiophores,those tiny palm tree-shaped structures from whose undersides the sporophytesgrow. The stalks enable those sporophytes to gain better access to windcurrents for spore dispersal. Their development involves an intriguingchange from prostrate to axial growth that likely involves transition inplant tissue-level response to the gravitational field. This is yet anotherexample of a fundamental plant process that should prove amenable to moleculargenetic analysis, thanks to a growing genomic knowledge of Marchantia.

Marchantia and other bryophytes also provide examples of therole of organismal information in ecosystem studies. The decay-resistanttissues of bryophytes that I've emphasized are likely relevant to a fascinatingpaleobiogeochemical phenomenon, namely the dramatic Paleozoic atmosphericcarbon dioxide drawdown described by Berner and others. Knowledge of suchpast events is regarded as key to developing ways to understand and predictmodern carbon cycles. While the rise of vascular plants is typically linkedwith the most dramatic portion of this ancient decline, geochemical datafrom older deposits suggest that substantial decline in the CO₂content of Earth's atmosphere had begun to occur well before the rise ofvascular plants, as argued by Jane Gray and Art Boucot in a recent paper.The spore fossil record strongly indicates presence of a widespread floraof bryophyte-like plants during this period. Could pre-vascular, bryophyte-likeearly plants have contributed to the early stages of this drawdown event?

In order to investigate this possibility, we measured the amount ofacid hydrolysis-resistant carbon produced by three early-divergent mossesthat today occupy hydric (Sphagnum), mesic (Polytrichum),& high UV xeric (Andreaea) regions of Earth. The amounts weresurprisingly high_from 25% of dry biomass in the case of peatmosses toan incredible 85% in the c ase of the granite moss Andreaea. We thenused this data_together with published productivity and cover data formodern representatives_to estimate the amount of carbon that could havebeen sequestered by moss-like early land plants, then buried, thereby reducingatmospheric CO₂ level. We calculated that even if only a tinyfraction (1%) of this resistant carbon were actually buried, significantdecrease in atmospheric CO₂ could have resulted (Graham, etal., in press). Given our discovery that vegetative parts of liverwortssuch as Marchantia also produce resistant carbon, it will be interestingto experimentally determine if ancient liverwort-like plants could haveimpacted Earth's atmosphere even before moss-like plants arose. Such informationis not only valuable in understanding planetary carbon cycle evolution,but may also be helpful when future astroengineers use plants to modifythe atmospheres of other planets for human habitation. Because bryophytesar e particularly resistant to radiation, desiccation, and other stresses_aconsequence of their ancestors' early struggles to survive in a harsh terrestrialenvironment_they have been identified as prime candidates for use in terraformingoperations.

I hope that the tale I've told tonight will help raise the general levelof respect for liverworts. But I also hope that it may stimulate renewedinterest in the contributions of organismal studies as crucial to the mosteffective use of molecular and ecosystem level information. Perhaps weshould foster approaches that not only respect traditional organismal structure,reproduction, and physiological studies but also effectively link themboth up and down the hierarchy of biological organization.

New Officersfor 2003-04

Allison Snow has been selected as the President-Elect (2003-06,in a three-year presidential succession) and David Spooner has beenselecte d as Secretary (2003-06).

Pamela Diggle was selected as Council Representative for a twoyear term (2003-05) at the BSA Council meeting.

Many thanks to our out-going Past President Judy Jernstedt andSecretary Jennifer Richards for their hard work during these pastthree years!!

It has been a pleasure serving as your president for the last year,but all good times come to an end, and mine concluded at the BSA AnnualBanquet . At the appointed hour, after the Address of the President-Elect,Linda Graham succeeded me as President. I will continue to serve the Societyas Past President for the following year, taking on a different slate ofresponsibilities. There have been many challenges and many changes. Inparting, I would like to thank you for placing your trust in me by allowingme to serve. _ Scott Russell, Past President.

Dr. Judy Jernstedt from the University of California Davis hasaccepted a request by the BSA executive committee and will become the nextEditor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Botany. Congratulations!Dr. Jernstedt will assume the role in January of 2005. She will begin workthis autumn with Dr. Karl Niklas (current Editor-in-Chief) to begin thechange-over process.

BSA Honorsand Awards

A. Botanical Society of AmericaMerit Awards

These awards are made to persons judged to have made outstanding contributionsto botanical science. The first awards were made in 1956 at the 50th anniversaryof the Botanical Society, and one or more have been presented each yearsince that time. This year we will present 4 Merit Awards.

The first goes to Dr. Jack B. Fisher, Fairchild Tropical Garden.The 30 years of contributions made to botany by Dr. Fisher have been broad,deep, original, and patient. He has carefully combined anatomical, developmental,physiological, and ecological considerations, to show how tropical plantsgrow and adapt. He has made critical contributions to our understandingof water transport in lianas and fundamental discoveries on the developmentalbasis of tropical tree geometry. In the same way that he has waited patientlyfor tree seedlings to mature and yield their anatomical secrets, he hasworked for 20 years to forge alliances between Fairchild Botanical Gardenand institutions of higher learning to promote education of the next generationof comparative botanists. Dr. Fisher has benefited botany through his researchand his thoughtful outreach and he richly deserves recognition througha BSA Merit Award for these admirable accomplishments.

The second award goes to Spencer C.H. Barrett, University ofToronto, for his myriad contributions to reproductive biology, plantbreeding systems and aquatic ecology. He established heterostyly as a modelsystem in reproduction, contri buted to understanding of the evolutionarymodification of floral development, genetic structure of populations, therole of incompatibility in the breeding systems of natural populations,the evolution of dioecy and the influence of gender ratio in determiningplant breeding systems. In addition to his service as Associate Editorand Book Review Editor of the American Journal of Botany, he mentoreda generation of plant biologists, including 2 Master's students, 9 Ph.D.students and 6 postdoctoral associates who have occupied faculty positions.

The third Merit Award winner is Leslie G. Hickok, Universityof Tennessee. Dr. Hickok has made a career out of defying the oddsand generating surprises. While others were intimidated by the high chromosomenumbers of ferns, he showed that valuable insights into polyploidy andspeciation could be obtained by studying their cytogenetics. While themainstream focused attention on Arabidopsis as a plant model system,Hickok promo ted the unique properties of the fern Ceratopteris.His pioneering work on selection and mutation using this model demonstratedthe power of a system that separated gametophytic and sporophytic lifestages. More recently, he has succeeded in marrying his deep commitmentto advancing botanical knowledge and his desire to provide meaningful,enriching experiences for biology students. Through his insight and perseverance,he transformed Ceratopteris into C-fern, and now over 60,000students per year are learning about plant genetics using this inexpensivebut effective teaching system. Dr. Hickok is a distinguished scholar whoseresearch and teaching efforts at all levels from K-12 to internationalseminars can be characterized as groundbreaking, inspirational, dedicated,and unselfish. For his outstanding contributions and longstanding generosity,the BSA is pleased to present a Merit Award to Dr. Leslie G. Hickok.

Our final Merit Awardee is Jeffrey D. Palmer, Univers ity of Indiana.Dr.Palmer has excelled in his contributions to botanical science. Hisastonishing research productivity has resulted in over 200 scientific papers,many of them published in the most prestigious scientific journals. Dr.Palmer has fundamentally transformed the scientific landscape we now operatein through his legendary contributions to phylogenetics and gene and genomeevolution. He has arguably been the most influential person in the developmentof the field of molecular systematics of plants and has been directly responsiblefor the paradigm shift in our current views of evolutionary relationshipsamong eukaryotes, including higher plants. Other major contributions fromhis laboratory include the characterization and evolution of introns andplant mitochondrial genomes, the evolution of plastid genes in non-photosyntheticplants, and the origin and evolution of chloroplasts. The list of the graduatestudents and post-docs trained in his laboratory reads like a who's whoof botanical science. His collaborative approach and willingness to sharedata has built a sense of community among plant molecular phylogeneticsworkers unparalleled in other fields of organismal biology. At the sametime, Dr. Palmer has generously served as department chair at Indiana Universityas well as on review panels and editorial boards and has promoted outreachthrough his many public presentations. For his innovative and productivescientific contributions, Dr. Palmer has received many awards, among themthe Wilhelmine Key Award from the American Genetic Association, electionto the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the U.S. National Academyof Sciences, and an ISI Highly Cited Award for the top 15 most cited plantand animal scientists. In honor of his extraordinary accomplishments, theBSA is proud to present him with a Merit Award.

B. The Gleason Award

Each year The New York Botanical Garden presents the Henry Allan GleasonAward for an outstanding publication in the field of plant taxonomy, plantecology, or plant geography. The Gleason award for 2003 is presented toDr. Stephen J. Botti and Dr. Walter Sydoriak for their book, An IllustratedFlora of Yosemite National Park published by the Yosemite Association,Yosemite National Park, CA. This publication combines excellence in bothplant taxonomy and plant ecology, successfully bringing these two areastogether in its focus on the conservation and use by the public at large.

C. Darbaker Prize

This prize is given for meritorious work in the study of microscopicalgae. This year's award is given to Dr. John C. "Jack" Meeks, UC-Davis.The award recognizes his excellent work sequencing the genome of the importantcyanobacterium, Nostoc, and his extensive studies on the Nostoc/Anthocerossymbiosis.

D. Lawrence Memorial Award

The Lawrence Memorial Fund was established at the Hunt Institute forBotanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, to commemorate thelife and achievements of its founding director, Dr. George H. M. Lawrence.Proceeds from the Fund are used to make an annual Award in the amount of$2000 to a doctoral candidate to support travel for dissertation researchin systematic botany or horticulture, or the history of the plant sciences.

The Lawrence Memorial Award for 2003 goes to Ms. Sarah Edwards, a studentof Dr. Michael Heinrich at the University of London. For her dissertationresearch, Ms. Edwards has undertaken a study of the medical ethnobotany,from plant systematics to indigenous taxonomy, of the Wic and Kugu peoplesof the Cape York Peninsula. The proceeds of the Award will support hertravel in Australia for field work. Since Ms. Edwards is presently in thefield and not able to be here to accept in person, she will receive theAward materials by mail.

E. Karling Graduate Student ResearchAwards

The Karling Awards support graduate student research and are made onthe basis of research proposals and letters of recommendations. This yearwe gave out 11 awards. Recipients are

Mario Blanco,
Kuo-Fang Chung,
Laurie Cosaul,
Laurelin Evanhoe,
Susan Grose,
Shawn Krosnick,
Jeffrey Morawetz,
Julieta Rosell,
Jackeline Salazar,
Tyler Smith,
Jay Walker

F. Section Awards:

A.J. Sharp Award (Bryologicaland Lichenological Section)

The A.J. Sharp Award is presented each year by the American Bryologicaland Lichenological Society and the Bryological and Lichenological Sectionfor the best student presentation. The awar d, named in honor of the lateJack Sharp, encourages student research on bryophytes and lichens.

This year's A.J. Sharp Award goes to Dorothybelle Poli, Universityof Maryland, for her paper "Auxin regulation of axial growth in bryophytesporophytes: Its potential significance for the evolution of early landplants." Her co-authors were Mark Jacobs and Todd Cooke.

Katharine Esau Award (Developmentaland Structural Section)

This award was established in 1985 with a gift from Dr. Esau and isaugmented by ongoing contributions from Section members. It is given tothe graduate student who presents the outstanding paper in developmentaland structural botany at the annual meeting. This year's award goes toWandaKelly from the University of Maryland, College Park, for her paper"Geometrical relationships specifying the phyllotactic pattern of aquaticplants." Her co-author was Todd Cooke.

Ecological Section Awards(Ecology Section)

The Ecological Section Award for the best student presentationin the Ecological Section sessions goes to Jenise Snyder from FloridaInternational University, for her paper "Spikelet phenology and floralcompatibility of sawgrass, Cladium jamaicense (Cyperaceae) in thesouth Florida Everglades". Her co-author was Jennifer Richards.

The Ecological Section Award for the best student poster goesto Christina Coleman, Auburn University for her poster "Herbivore defenseas an explanation for hyperaccumulation: Relative heavy metal toxicityto diamond back moth (Plutella xylostella). Her co-author was RobertBoyd.

Margaret Menzel Award (GeneticsSection)

The Margaret Menzel Award is present by the Genetics Section for theoutstanding paper presented in the contributed papers sessions of the annualmeetings. This year's award goes to Lin da Jennings, University of BritishColumbia, for her paper "Genetic, morphological and ecological variationwithin and between two Southern Utah endemics, Townsendia apricaand T. jonesii var.
lutea (Asteraceae). Her co-author was Jeanette Whitton.

The Genetics Section Poster Award is given for the best student posterat the annual meetings.

This year's award is given to Liu Xianan, University of Illinois, forthe poster "Differential expression of genes regulated in response to abiotic-stressin sunflower." Co-authors were Ginger Swire-Clark and Vance Baird.

Moseley Award (Paleobotanicaland Developmental and Structural Sections)

The Maynard F. Moseley Award was established in 1995 to honor a careerof dedicated teaching, scholarship, and service to the furtherance of thebotanical sciences. Dr. Moseley, known to his students as "Dr. Mo", diedthis Jan. 16 in Santa Barbara, CA, where he h ad been a professor since1949. He was widely recognized for his enthusiasm for and dedication toteaching and his students, as well as for his research using floral andwood anatomy to understand the systematics and evolution of angiospermtaxa, especially waterlilies. (PSB, Spring, 2003).

The award is given to the best student paper, presented in either thePaleobotanical or Developmental and Structural sessions, that advancesour understanding of plant structure in an evolutionary context.

This year's award goes to Stefan Little from University of Alberta,Edmonton, for his paper "Permineralized fruits of Lauraceae from the MiddleEocene Princeton chert, British Columbia." Stefan's co-author is Ruth Stockey.

Isabel C. Cookson Award (PaleobotanicalSection)

The 2003 Isabel Cookson Award, recognizing the best student paper presentedin the Paleobotanical Section, is awarded to Michael Dunn of OhioUniversity, Athens, for his paper entitled "The Fayetteville Flora of Arkansas,USA: An Upper Mississippian (middle Chesterian/ lower Namurian A) plantfossil assemblage with permineralized and compression remains."

Edgar T. Wherry Award (PteridologicalSection and the American Fern Society)

The Edgar T. Wherry Award is given for the best paper presented duringthe contributed papers session of the Pteridological Section. This awardis in honor of Dr. Wherry's many contributions to the floristics and patternsof evolution in ferns. This year's award goes to Michael Barkerfrom Miami University, Oxford, for his paper "Microlepidopteran soral mimicsin the Caribbean." The paper was co-authored by Shane Shaw, James Hickey,and John Rawlins.

George R. Cooley Award (SystematicsSection/American Society of Plant Taxonomists)

This award is given annually by the American Society of Plant Taxonomistsfor the best contributed paper in plant systematics presented at the annualmeeting. This year's award goes to Lucia Lohmann, University of Missouri-St.Louis, for her paper "A new generic classification for Bignonieae (Bignoniaceae)."

Bessey Award (Teaching Section)

This award recognizes outstanding contributions to botanical instruction.The award was presented to Joseph Novak, University of West Florida,Pensacola, during the Education and Outreach Forum this past weekend.

News from the Sections

THE IMPORTANCEOF HERBARIA

Herbaria, dried pressed plant specimens and their associated collectionsdata and library materials, are remarkable and irreplaceable sources ofinformation about plants and the world they inhabi t. They provide the comparativematerial that is essential for studies in taxonomy, systematics, ecology,anatomy, morphology, conservation biology, biodiversity, ethnobotany, andpaleobiology, as well as being used for teaching and by the public. Theyare a veritable gold mine of information. There are more than 60 millionspecimens in 628 herbaria in the USA, and 7 million specimens in 110 herbariain Canada (Funk & Moran 2000). Nearly 5 million are held at the USNational Herbarium housed at the National Museum of Natural History, SmithsonianInstitution, and, just for the record, about 500,000 are in the Compositae.

Recent articles have highlighted the problems that are being faced bystate and university natural history collections, including herbaria. Twoare sitting on my desk right now from Nature (Dalton, 2003) andBioScience(Gropp, 2003). These and other articles make it clear that natural historycollections are being targeted unfairly in the current budget crisis i nstates and universities. From Los Angeles to Iowa to Virginia, naturalhistory collections are being closed or given away and the staff eitherre-assigned or fired. All of this has a negative impact on our abilityto train systematists (Gropp 2003) and causes much concern over the fateof organismal biology.

In honor of the opening of the new herbarium at LSU in 2002, I prepareda list of uses for herbaria. With the help of many colleagues (especiallyTom Wendt, TEX) I enlarged the list and it was published in the PlantPress, the Botany newsletter at the Smithsonian. Perhaps it is timeto take another look at the list.

Herbaria can be used to:

1. discover or confirm the identity of a plant or determine that itis new to science (taxonomy);

2. document the concepts of the specialists who have studied the specimensin the past (taxonomy);

3. provide locality data for planning field trips (taxonomy, systematics,teaching);

4. provide data for floristic studies (taxonomy);

5. serve as a repository of new collections (taxonomy and systematics);

6. provide data for revisions and monographs (systematics);

7. verify plant Latin names (nomenclature);

8. serve as a secure repository for "type" specimens (taxonomy);

9. provide infrastructure for obtaining loans etc. of research material(taxonomy and systematics);

10. facilitate and promote the exchange of new material among institutions(taxonomy);

11. allow for the documentation of flowering and fruiting times andjuvenile forms of plants (taxonomy, systematics, ecology, phenology);

12. provide the basis for an illustration of a plant (taxonomy and generalpublishing);

13. provide pollen for taxonomic, systematic, and pollination studiesas well as allergy studies (taxonomy, systematics, pollination ecology,insect ecology, and medical studies);

14. provide samples for the identification of plants eaten by animals(animal ecology);

15. document which plants grew where through time (invasive species ,climate change, habitat destruction, etc.)

16. document what plants grew with what other plants (ecology);

17. document the morphology and anatomy of individuals of a particularspecies in different locations (environmental variation);

18. provide material for microscopic observations (anatomy and morphology);

19. serve as a repository for voucher specimens (ecology, environmentalimpact studies, etc.);

20. provide material for DNA analysis (systematics, evolution, genetics);

21. provide material for chemical analysis (pollution documentation;bio-prospecting, for coralline algae - determining past ocean temperaturesand chemical concentration);

22. provide material for teaching (botany, taxonomy, field botany, plantcommunities);

23. provide information for studies of expeditions and explorers (historyof science);

24. provide the label data necessary for accurate data-basing of specimens(biodiversity and conservation biology, biogeography);

25. serve as a reference li brary for the identification of parts ofplants found in archeology digs (paleoethnobotany);

26. provide space and context for accompanying library and other bibliographicresources (library sciences, general research, taxonomy, etc.);

27. serve as an archive for related material (field notebooks, letters,reprints, etc.)

28. provide information on common names and local uses of plants (ethnobotany,economic botany);

29. provide samples for the identification of plants that may be significantto criminal investigations (forensics);

30. serve as a means of locating rare or possibly extinct species viarecollecting areas listed on label data (Conservation Biology, Environmentalimpact statements, endangered species, etc.);

31. serve as an educational tool for the public (garden clubs, schoolgroups, etc.);

and

32. provide a focal point for botanical interactions of all types (lectures,club meetings, etc.).

At the US National Herbarium, in order to make maximum use of our subst antialresources, we have the following goals: additional compacterization ofcollections to increase storage space, processing of the backlog of unmountedspecimens so all material is available, photographing the type images soour most important specimens will be available on the web, and data-basingthe specimen label information so it also can be made available on line.I am sure other herbaria have similar goals, we must all work togetherto stress the importance of herbaria and preserve our collections for thefuture. If anyone wishes to add to this list please contact me.

Vicki Funk
US National Herbarium
Smithsonian Institution MRC166
P.O. Box 37012
Washington D.C. 20013-7012 USA
Funk.vicki@nmnh.si.edu

Literature Cited

Dalton, R. 2003. Natural history collections in crisis as funding isslashed. Nature 423: 575.

Gropp, R. E. 2003. Are university natural science collections going extinct? Bioscience 53: 550.

Funk, V. A. & N. Morin. 2000. A survey of the herbaria of the southeastUnited States. SIDA, Misc. 18: 5-52.

Plant BiologistsReaching Out: Planning and Delivering Teacher Workshops

D. Timothy Gerber, University of Wisconsin - LaCrosse and David W. Kramer,Ohio State University at Mansfield have collected and assembled usefulinformation and advice for botanists who are dedicated to meeting one ofthe many challenges of Botany for the Next Millennium: "Societies,faculties, and/or individuals should promote effective botanical educationof K-12 by: ...sponsoring retraining workshops for K-12 teachers." Theyoffered a workshop with this title at the Forum of Botany 2003 in Mobile.

What they have learned from personal experience after several yearsof presenting teacher workshops at their universities is organized intothree modules available on the WWW. The o nline modules have links to otherInternet resources. The first module, Premises for Action [ http://www.mansfield.ohio-state.edu/~dkramer/BSA_Wkshp_Premises.htm ] lists several factors contributing to poor performanceof US students on science achievement tests and on statewide proficiencytests. This module is designed to motivate professional botanists to becomeinvolved in correcting the situation and lists several facets of the problemthat need to be addressed.

Action Alternatives: What Can We Do? discusses a variety of approachesthat professional botanists can take to address the problems. This includeseverything from "Nothing!" to designing and presenting teacher workshops[ http://www.mansfield.ohio-state.edu/~dkramer/BSA_Wkshp_Alternatives.htm ]

Assuming the choice wi ll be to offer a teacher workshop, the largestmodule is a list of procedural steps one should follow to design an effectiveworkshop. Planning the Teacher Workshop [ http://www.mansfield.ohio-state.edu/~dkramer/BSA_Wkshp_Planning.htm ] does not advocate a single model but,instead, lists several decision points that will guide the planning process.The result should be a workshop that is maximally beneficial to teachersand ultimately to their students.

The authors encourage all BSA members to visit the web site and to contactthem directly if there are questions.

D. Timothy Gerber
gerber.dani@uwlax.edu

David W. Kramer
kramer.8@osu.edu

In Memoriam:

A. Orville Dahl 1910 - 2003

A. Orville Dahl received his doctorate in botanical cytology and geneticsfrom the University of Minnesota in 1938. His graduate studies there includedlong-term analyses of atmospheric pollen in relation to pollinosis.

After completing his graduate work, he served as Instructor of Biologyfor six years at Harvard University where, in his stimulating associationwith Irving W. Bailey, he conducted an intensive survey of pollen morphologyof the Icacinaceae. From Harvard, he returned to the University of Minnesotaas Professor where, for a decade, he was Chairman of the Botany Department.Orville held a Professorship of Botany at the University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia from 1967 until 1978 when he was named Professor emeritusfollowing mandatory retirement.

He was one of the pioneers in atmospheric pollen and spore studies andmaintained collection stations for more than 30 years. His interest inpollen morphology, beginning in a serious way with work on the Icacinaceae,was continued with many species throughout his life. Emphasis, especiallyin his teaching, was on living or well-preserved microspores and theirdevelopment into pollen grains. His interest was in teaching what laterwould be called pollen biology. He and other broadly experienced botanistsand biologists, among them Johs. Iversen, Knut Faegri, Stanley Cain, A.Traverse, E.S.Barghoorn, J. William Schopf, L.R.Wilson, influenced a generationof men and women who contributed greatly to studies of pollen and sporedevelopment, many aspects of archeology, palaeoecology and hydrocarbonexploration. Micrographs of Orville's thin sections of Tradescantia pollenare the first transmission electron illustrations of sectioned pollen.

For many years Orville made histological and cytological observationsas part of a NASA space biology program. He studied the effect of gravitationfields on Arabidopsis and its morphologenesis in controlled G-environments.He also studied the vascularization of the primary flowering stem undercontrolled G-environments.

Orville spent many summers in the Stockholm area living with specialpleasure, when possible, in Vaxholm in the Stockholm Archipelago and commutingto Stockholm by boat. He was an avid horticulturist and filled our seasidegarden with exotic plants. Three of the varieties of grapes that he plantedhave survived ten or more of our winters and now form an extensive arbor.

Orville was welcomed as a visiting scientist at Stockholm Universitywhere we worked together in the Botany Department on many long-term projects.

Orville died this year on January 21st at Lakeshore Lutheran Home, Duluth,Minnesota. He would have been 93 on April 18th. Shortly before his deathhe spent a good Christmas in the company of his niece Karen, her husbandDr. Thomas Holm, their three sons and their families.

Orville much appreciated the good things in life — classical music,art, good food and visiting new places. He was a generous, kindly and loyalfriend, a source of inspiration and information.

- John and Joanne Rowley

Some Published Papers:

Dahl, A. O. and Ellis, R. V. 1942. The pollen concentration of the atmosphere.Public Health Reports 57: 369-377.

Fernández-Morán, H. and Dahl, A. O. 1952. Electron microscopyof ultrathin frozen sections of pollen grains. Science 116: 465-467.

Dahl, A. O. 1965. Pollen physiology and fertilization. Science. 147:602.

Dahl, A. O., Rowley, J. R., Stein, O. L. and Wegstedt, L. 1957. Theintracelular distribution of mass during ontogeny lof pollen in TradescantiaL. Experimental Cell Research 13: 31-46.

Dahl, A. O. 1962. The story of pollination. Science 136: 528.

Dahl, A. O. 1964. The fine structure of pollen. Proc. 10th InternationalBotanical Congress, Edinburgh. p. 221.

Rowley, J. R. , Dahl, A.O. and Skvarla, J. J. 1973. Localization ofATPase activity in pollen grains. Norwegian Journal of Botany 20: 31-50.

Dahl, A.O. 1976. A commentary on the evolutionary significance of theexine. Edited by I.K.Ferguson and J.Muller. Linnean Society Symposium SeriesNo. 1: 561-571.

Brown, A. H., Dahl, A.O. and Chapman, D. K. 1976. Morphology of Arabidopsisgrown under chronic centrifugation and on the clinostat. Plant Physiology57: 358-364.

Brown, A. H., O'Dowd, P.O., Loercher, L. Kuniewicz, R. and Dahl, A.O. 1979. Serendipitous solution to the problem of culturing Arabidopsisplants in seled containers for spaceflights of long duration. (COSPAR)Life Sciences and Space Research 17: 37-43.

Rowley, J. R., Dahl, A. O., Walles, B. and Huynh, K.-L. 1983. Viscinthreads considered as connective structures between pollen grains and tapetalcells. Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium of Fertilizationand Embryotgenesis in Ovulated Plants. High Tatra, Slovak Academy of Scien ces,Veda, Bratislava: 89-92.

Dahl, A. O. 1986. Observation on pollen development in Arabidopsisunder gravitationally controlled environments. Pollen and Spores: Formand Function. Edited by S.Blackmore and I.K.Ferguson. Linnean Society SymposiumSeries No. 12:49-59.

Dahl, A. O. and Rowley, J. R. 1991. Microspore development in Calluna(Ericaceae). Exine formation. Annales Sciences Naturellers, Botanique,Paris, 13 serie 11: 155-176.

Symposia, Conferences, Meetings

The 14th Congress of The Federationof European Societies of Plant Biology

Cracow, Poland

23-27 August, 2004

Secretariat:
Congress Secretariat:
The Franciszek Gorski department of Plant Physiology
Polish Academy of Sciences
Niezapominajek 21, 30-239 Cracow
POLAND
Tel: +48 12 6395144
Fax: +48 12 6395142
E-mail: fespb.congress@zfr-pan.krakow.pl
www.zfr-pan.krakow.pl/lonf/

Scientific Program

1. Plant Cell Biology
2. Plant Development
3. Plant Growth Regulators
4. Photosynthetic Productivity & Crop Production
5. Uptake and Transport of Water and MineralNutrients
6. Biosynthesis of Plant Constituents
7. Biotic and Abiotic Stress
8. Metabolic Engineering for Plant Improvement
9. Genomics and Post-genomics
10. Bioinformatics
11. Pland Tissue Culture and Biotechnology
12. Physiology and Molecular Biology in PlantBreeding

Symposium Sows Seeds for PlantRestoration

Chicago Botanic Garden

Oct. 23, 2003

The School of the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Garden's Institutefor Plant Conservation Biology will present the Janet Meakin Poor 2003symposium titled "Sowing the Seeds for Change: Restoration of Plant Communities"on Oct. 23 at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The restoration of plant communitiesis an important contribution in the effort to conserve biodiversity. Programming,which will include several invited presentations, a contributed postersession and a panel discussion, will focus on seed ecology and the useof seeds in restoration projects. The symposium, wh ich has been designedfor both conservation researchers and practitioners, will deal with thesetimely issues:

*How important is provenance and how far away can one go to collectseeds?

*How should seeds be handled between collection and reintroduction?

*How does one obtain enough appropriate seed without harming naturalcommunities?

*Should the restoration of a degraded natural site be treated differentlyfrom a site without native vegetation?

For program updates or to register, visit the Garden's Web site at www.chicagobotanic.org/symposia, or call (847) 835-8261. For information on submitting a poster proposal,contact Kayri Havens, director, Institute for Plant Conservation, at khavens@chicagobotanic.org<mailto:khavens@chicagobotanic.org>,or at (847) 935-8378.

Award Opportunities

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

BULLARD FELLOWSHIPS IN FOREST RESEARCH

Each year Harvard University awards a limited number of Bullard Fellowshipsto individuals in biological, social, physical and political sciences topromote advanced study, research or integration of subjects pertainingto forested ecosystems. The fellowships, which include stipends up to $40,000,are intended to provide individuals in midcareer with an opportunity toutilize the resources and to interact with personnel in any departmentwithin Harvard University in order to develop their own scientific andprofessional growth. In recent years Bullard Fellows have been associatedwith the Harvard Forest, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biologyand the J. F. Kennedy School of Gove rnment and have worked in areas ofecology, forest management, policy and conservation. Fellowships are availablefor periods ranging from six months to one year and can begin at any timein the year. Applications from international scientists, women and minoritiesare encouraged. Fellowships are not intended for graduate students or recentpostdoctoral candidates. Information and application instructions are availableon the Harvard Forest web site (http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu). For additional information contact: Committee on the Charles BullardFund for Forest Research, Harvard University, Harvard Forest, P. O. Box68, Petersham, MA 01366 USA or email (hfapps@fas.harvard.edu).Annual deadline for applications is February 1.

KATHERINE ESAU POSTDOCTORALFELLOWSHIP

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

DAVIS, CALIFORNIA

Applications and nominations are invited for the Katherine Esau PostdoctoralFellowship in Plant Biology, which will be awarded to an outstanding youngscientist interested in structural aspects of plants at the level of tissues,organs and whole plants. Included would be studies in which plant structureis integrated with development, evolution and/or function. Modern approachesto important questions in plant anatomy and morphology are encouraged.Preference will be given to candidates who have completed their Ph.D. withinthe past 5 years. The Esau Fellowship will be awarded for a period of twoyears to enable the successful candidate to work under the mentorship ofa University of California, Davis faculty member. The Esau Fellowship stipendis $35,000 per year plus benefits and includes a $5,000 per year researchallocation.

Applications should include the identification of an appropriate facultymentor(s), a complete curriculum vitae, graduate and undergraduate transcripts,reprints of published works, a proposal of the research that would be carriedout under this program (limited to 5 single-spaced pages, 12-point font,1-inch margins) and a statement of the relevance of the proposed researchto the planned career in plant structure and development, evolution and/orfunction. Applicants are required to provide three letters of referenceand a letter of commitment of laboratory space and ancillary support fromthe proposed UC Davis faculty mentor(s). International candidates are welcometo apply. Preference will be given to candidates who received their Ph.D.from an institution other than UC Davis and who have not already spenttime on this campus.

Please send a hard (paper) copy of your completed application to ProfessorJudy Jernstedt, Chair, Faculty Advisory Committee, Esau Fellowship Program,Department of Agronomy and Range Science, University of California, Davis,One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616. (FAX: [530] 752-4361). Inquiries maybe made by e-mail to the chair (jjernstedt@ucdavis.edu).Website (http://www.dbs.ucdavis.edu/fellowships/esau).

Fellowships will be awarded on an annual basis. The next deadline forthis program will be November 1, 2003.

The University of California is an equal opportunity employer.
 
 

Books ReviewedIn this issue:
Bryological

Gathering Moss: The Natural and Cultural Historyof Mosses. Kimmerer, Robin Wall - John Z. Kiss .....................................................100

Ecological

The Cerrados of Brazil: Ecology and Natural His toryof a Neotripical Savanna. Oliveira, Paulo S. and Robert J. Marquis(eds)
    - Noel Pavolic .........................................................................................................................................................................................100

Columnar Cacti and Their Mutualists. Evolution,Ecology and Conservation. Fleming, H. & Valiente-Baunet, A. (eds)
    - Roberto Kiesling....................................................................................................................................................................................101

Invasive Exotic Species in the Sonoran Region.Tellman, Barbara (ed) - Webster, Grady..........................................................................103

Economic Botany

Bi ology of Vanda Miss Joaquim. Sin, Hew Choy,Yam Tim Wing and Joseph Arditti. - Peggy Dominy........................................................105

Dye Plants and Dyeing. Cannon, John and Margaret.- Elizabeth Harris.......................................................................................................106

Feast Your Eyes: The Unexpected Beauty of VegetableGardens. Pennington, Susan J. - Robynn Shannon...............................................107

Magnolia: The Genus Magnolia. Sarker, StayajitD. and Yuji Maruyama (eds). - Nina Baghai-Riding.........................................................108

The New Daylily Handbook. Gatlin, FrancesL with James R. Brennan (eds). - Joanne Sharpe.....................................................................109

Palms Won't Grow Here and Other Myths. Ferancko,David A - Scott Ruhren.........................................................................................109

Plant Resins: Chemistry, Evolution, Ecology, andEthnobotany. Langenheim, Jean H. - DorotheaBedigian..............................................110

Thyme, The Genus Thymus. Stahl-Biskup, Elizabethand Francisco Saez. - Douglas Darnowski...................................................................112

Tillage for Sustainable Cropping. Gajri, P.R.,Arora, V.K. and Prithar, S.S. - Nina Baghai-Riding .............................................................113

Genetics

Genetically Modified Crops: Assessing Safety.Atherton, Keith T. - Johanne Brunet...................................................................................114

Physiolo gy

Molecular Plant Biology, Vol 1. Gilmartin,Philip M. and Chris Bowler. - Peggy Dominy.............................................................................115

Plant Growth and Development Hormones and Environment.Srivastavam, Lalit M. - Douglas Darnowski..............................................115

Plant Physiology, 3rd Ed. Taiz, Lincolnand Eduardo Zeiger. - Timothy C. Morton......................................................................................116

Plant Tissue Culture, 100 Years Since GottliegHaberland. Laimer, M., W. Rucker (eds) - Joseph Arditti ................................................117

Systematics

Willows: The Genus Salix. Newsholme, Christopher.- Danilo D. Fernando......................................................... .......................................119

Teaching

The Names of Plants, 3rd ed.Gledhill, David. - Douglas Darnowski............................................................................................................120

Gathering Moss: The Natural and CulturalHistory of Mosses . Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2003. ISBN 0-87071-499-6.(Paper US$17.95) 176 pp. Oregon State University Press, 101 WaldoHall, Corvallis, Oregon, 97331-6407. It is nice to know that other plantsstill exist in this era of Arabidopis. One can get this feelingfrom reading Gathering Moss, which written by a professional bryologistwho is a college faculty member. The book is a series of linked essayson the beauty, cultural, and natural history of mosses. The author hasa great way of combining her professional and personal lives in these essays.This is a book for those of us wh o are passionate about the subjects andorganisms that we study.

Mosses are seemingly inconspicuous and can be easily overlooked, butnot once you have read Gathering Moss. The author also does a greatjob in teaching some essential facts of the physiological ecology and otheraspects of the biology of mosses in these essays. For instance, the advantagesof being small and life in the boundary layer are discussed in one of thechapters. We learn about the remarkable ability of mosses to survive desiccationas the author eloquently tells us: "...even after all of these years, Istill delight in the ritual of adding the water, drop by drop, and watchingwith the microscope as the shoots revive."

Kimmerer also stresses ecological aspects of moss biology and the importantrole of mosses in various ecosystems. She tells us that one gram of mossfrom the forest floor can be the host for as many as 150,000 protists,132,000 tartigrades, and 200 insect larvae in the essay entitled "In thefores t of the water bear." The author also outlines the destruction ofmoss communities due to their popularity for horticultural uses by harvesterswho completely decimate luxurious carpets of "old growth" moss in Oregon.

One of my favorite stories is the subject of the last essay entitled"Straw into gold." This is about the moss Schistostega that livesin lake shoreline caves. This moss survives with only a few minutes ofsunshine each day that it obtains near sunset. "Just for a moment, in thepause before the earth rotates us again into night, the cave is floodedwith light. The near nothingness of Schistostega erupts in a showerof sparkles..."

One anecdote (not in the book) that the author would appreciate is therecent story of the moss Ceratodon that was grown on the space shuttleColumbiaduring the ill-fated mission that ended in February 2003. Despite the fierydisintegration of the space shuttle over Texas, the moss experiment ofFred Sack and Volker Kern (O hio State University) somehow survived thefall back to Earth. Partial cultures of the moss that were fixed in spacecould still be seen in the recovered containers, and the two scientistsmay be able to obtain some data from the experiment. As this story andthis book tell us, thought they may be overlooked, mosses are hearty andvigorous plants indeed. - -John Z. Kiss, Botany Department, Miami University,Oxford, OH 45056.

The Cerrados of Brazil: Ecology and NaturalHistory of a Neotropical Savanna. Paulo S. Oliveira and Robert J. Marquis,eds. 2002. ISBN 0-231-12042-7 (Paper $37.50) 398 pp. Columbia UniversityPress, 61 W 62^nd St., New York, NY 10023. - Ecologists havebeen interested in the environmental and habitat heterogeneity of savannasand their dynamics for a long time. This excellent book is the first inEnglish to focus entirely on the Brazilian cerrados biome, a 2 millionsquare kilometer area (22% of the country) encompassing campo limpo (g rassland),campo sajo (some shrubs and trees), cerrado (savanna) and cerradao (woodland).Cerrado is a portugese word meaning `half closed' or `dense' probably referringto the difficulty of traversing the more wooded portions of the vegetationgradient on horseback.

Why focus on the cerrados? This region is one of 25 identified worldcenters for biodiversity and is believed to be the most species rich tropicalsavanna system in the world. Beta diversity of the vegetation is quitehigh. In Brazil, the Amazon and Atlantic Forest regions have greater diversity.In the 1970's the rate of cerrados destruction exceeded the rate for Amazonianrainforest. Today, humans have modified 80% of this species rich biome.This alteration is principally due to cattle ranching and the expansionof corn, soybean, and cotton agriculture. Economic policy has fosteredthe growth of agriculture and modern farming technology has converted cerradosland of low fertility and high acidity into the most important agricult uralregion in Brazil.

The editors have created a comprehensive and error free book with well-integratedcontributions by the authors. I only found one error on page 107 where`interstate' is misspelled. There are good black and white photographsto give the reader an idea of the soils, vegetation, ant foraging, andpollinator systems. Most chapters have good tables and well reproducedfigures. Not being familiar with most of the political boundaries of Brazil,I wished that Figure 6.1 had appeared or was referenced earlier in thetext. Unfortunately, the dark fill that highlights the cerrados biome obscuresthe state labels and boundaries within the region: this problem also occursin Figure 6.4.

The book is divided into five sections, excluding the introduction:1) Historical framework and the abiotic environment (soil, palynology,fire,and human impacts), 2) the plant community (physiognomy, understory, populationdynamics, fire effects and ecophystiology), 3) the animal community (lepidopt era,herptofauna, birds and mammals), 4) insect-plant interactions (ants-plants-herbivores,plants and their herbivores, pollinators and pollination biology) and 5)the conservation of the cerrados. Oliveira and Marquis introduce the bookby first presenting an analysis of the scientific literature demonstratingthe exponential increase in cerrado publications. They introduce the structureof the book and the cerrado vegetation nomenclature. Chapter 5 concerningthe vegeation physiognomy ties all the chapters together by charaqcterizingand names vegetation along the cerrado continuum. Most authors discussfurther research needs.

Important factors in the distribution of cerrados include seasonal rainfall,poor soil fertility, drainage, fire regime, and climatic fluctuations ofthe Quarternary. We learn how the creation of hard iron nodules calledironstone or petroplinthite, varying in size from sand to cobble, reduceerosion and gullying at the periphery of plateaus; therefore, it stabilizesthe geomorphic landscape. Many cerrado soils are high in Al and many cerradospecies accumulate considerable concentrations of this element in theirleaves. Some woody species have been shown to grow poorly in the absenceof Al! Palynological studies indicate that the cerrado was present priorto the Quarternary, and experienced fire prior to the influence of man,and waxed and waned with climatic fluctuations. It was interesting to learnthat legumes comprise the largest plant family in the cerrados and thatthe largest genus is Chamaecrista. African grasses are the principleinvasive plants, because they have been widely introduced to improve pasture.The chapters about animals document the underestimation of biodiversityof the groups and that some of this diversity is dependent on the mosaicof gallery and mesophytic forests within the cerrados. Perhaps most interestingand fascinating, for the ecologist, are the three chapters that highlightbiotic interactions between insects and the pla nts. The field is ripe formore cross comparisons between African and Autralian tropical savannas.

Clearly each author's discussion of research needs illustrates thatmuch research still needs to be done in the cerrados. Despite the imperilmentof the cerrrados, I was struck by how much remains compared to regionslike Midwestern savannas. Nevertheless, in the presence of the human economy,time is probably short, which is why this book was written. The readerwonders how successful the Brazilian government has been to achieve thegoal of protecting 10% of this biome by 2002? The editors and authors havesucceeded in their hope to write a book that will aid and foster futurecerrados research. Makes me want to learn Portugese and head south to thecerrados plateaus! Noel B. Pavlovic, U.S. Geological Survey, Lake MichiganEcological Research Station, 1100 N. Mineral Springs Rd., Porter, IN 46304.

Columnar Cacti and Their Mutualists. Evolution,Ecology and Conservation . Fleming, H. & Valiente-Baunet, A. (eds.)2002. University Arizona Press. Tucson. XIII + 370 pp. with the collaborationof 29 authors. Co-evolution of plants and animals is one of the most thrillingaspects of modern biology, and the different contributions of this volumecover this for the columnar cactus and vertebrates. It is a compilationof original papers, or updated ones from a conference held in late June,1998, at Tehuacan City, Puebla, Mexico. The book is organized in 3 parts:I. Geology and Evolution; II. Anatomy and Physiology; and III. Populationand Community Ecology and Conservation.

Starting the Part I, T.R. van Devender gives a general dynamic viewof the environment and geological history of the Mexican and SW USA deserts,and the consequent floristic changes, as well as the relationships of thosefloras with others regions.

The collaboration of 5 authors produced the next chapter with a cladisticanalysis of the phytogeography of the Mexican cactus tribe Pachycerea e,resulting in two solid conclusions: its origin is southern Mexico and thegenus Stenocereus is the basal group.

Another phylogenetic analysis, based on chloroplast DNA is presentedby R. Wallace. This study considers all the columnar cacti, both Southand North American, and confirms the previous conclusion of Mauseth andothers about the S-American origin of the family and the derivation ofthe Pachycereus and Lepthocereae tribes from one of the two primary cladesof columnar cacti.

Of special interest was the cladistic analysis of T. Terrazas and S.L. Cornejo combining morphological, anatomical, and chemical data. To mentiononly the 2 mayor conclusions, Stenocereus appears as a monophyleticclade defined by "distinctive silica bodies in the dermal tissue"; andPachycereus, as normally defined, is paraphyletic.

The phylogeny of "Cactolphilic" bats is treated by Simmons and Wetterer.On the one hand they conclude a dependence of many columnar cactus on batpollination and seeds dispersal. On the other, bats are basically opportunisticusing nectar, pollen and fruits as part (sometimes a very important part)of their diet. At least 18 bats species are known to have developed mutualisticrelationships with cacti, and "cactophily" evolved a minimum of 13 differenttimes and include morphological adaptations, according to the authors.

In the last chapter of Part I, four authors analyze the "Genetic diversityof Columnar Cacti", based on isoenzyme electrophoresis, a technique poorlyapplied in cacti because of the (more illusory than real) difficulty inextracting enzymes from the mucilage. Authors conclude that the 9 speciesstudied have high levels of genetic diversity and insect-pollinated oneshave more genetic variation than bat pollinated species.

Part II of the volume starts with an interesting study of the EvolutionaryTrends in 40 Columnar Cacti under domestication or from wild populationsin southwestern Mexico. One case, Stenocereus stellatus, is thoroughlyanalyzed. It exists as a wild plant, but also is cultivated and managed,resulting in significant morphological differences and also partial pollenincompatibility. The study it is also useful in providing a better understandingof domestication processes of some cacti and other plants.

The "Growth Form Variations in Columnar Cacti" is analyzed by M. L.Cody,who correlated branching patterns with environmental factors, especiallycanopy and temperature. For instance, subcanopy columnar cacti differ inbranching from emergents of the same species and pollinators may be differentinboth cases.

The chapter of P.S. Nobel on "Physiological Ecology of Columnar Cacti"demonstrates that low temperatures are the main limiting factor for theseplants' distribution, but morphological attributes (apical pubescence,shade of the spines, stem diameter), can help in some degree to survivesevere cold. High temperatures are tolerated very well by these plants(up to 70° C or more, temperatures unprecedented in vascular plantsbecause enzymeatic denaturation !) The chapter is absolutely didactic andseveral other aspects are covered (water relations, crassulacean-acid metabolism,etc.).

The "Pollination Biology of Sonoran Desert Columnar Cactus" by Fleming,analyzes the importance of vertebrates (bats) and insects (moth and bees)in fruit set, in relation to time of anthesis, geographical distribution,gene flow, competition for pollinators, self-compatibility, and hermaphroditismvs. different forms of dioecy, among other interesting items.

The "Biotic Interactions and Population Dynamics" i.e. the interactionsof these columnar cacti with animals such as bats or birds and insects,and with plants (nurse plants, its benefit and competition, extra and infraspecific)are analyzed with mathematical models in Chapter 11, where 7 authors collaborate.The process affecting seeds dispersal, seedling, juvenile and adults areconsidered.

The relationship between columnar cacti and their main pollinators andseed dispersers in Andinian enclaves of Colombia and Venezuela are summarizedin Chapter 12. The authors also describe adaptative strategies of floraland fruit features, and the roles of bats and birds in seed dispersion.

"Columnar cactus and the Diets of Nectar _ Feeding bats" considers thecomposition of diet in several groups of bats with high to low specializationin cactus pollen and nectar, or who feed only sporadically on cacti. Coincidencein seasonal geographic distribution of some bats with cactus floweringtime is noticeable. Coincidental distribution of cacti and agaves resultsin bat mutualism with both vegetal groups.

Fleming and Nassar examine the "Population Biology of a Particular Bat:Leptonycteriscurasaoe" and come to very interesting conclusions, such as the temporalcoincidence of the peaks of flowering and fruiting with the annual birdsmigrations, and also the long distance migrations of male or/and femalebats that daily fly up to 30 km fro m their roosts for foraging.

"Why are columnar Cactus Associated with Nurse Plants?" is the question-titleof a chapter answered by Sosa and Fleming. They conclude that for the studiedspecies, columnar cacti and nurse plant associations differ for slopesor flat lands. Under the canopy of the nurse plant, cactus seeds and seedlingsescape from predators and find protection from drought and temperatureextremes. According to their data, the last factor is the most importantone.

Four authors write about "Cacti in the dry Formations of Colombia,"where they describe the floristic and physiognomic composition of the vegetationof the dry formations, and provide a tentative list of 60 cactus speciesin 20 genera based on the literature and their own research.

The "Conservation of Nectar Feeding Bats" is treated by M. Santos andH. T. Arita, who conclude that this group is more vulnerable than otherchiropterans because of their close mutualistic association with plants,their dietary specializ ation, their restricted geographical range and theirsmall body size. Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil and Peru are the countrieswith the greatest species richness of these bats, some of which are endemicsin areas under accelerated human modification.

If there is any general criticism it is the scarcity of photos or line-drawsof the organisms studied that would help the reader who is not familiarwith group. This would be particularly useful in chapter 8 to illustratethe diverse patterns of forms. Simple diagrammatic schemes to shows thevariations in columnar cactus branching would be sufficient. The graphicsand maps are clear, except for Fig. 2-3 where the floristic provinces ofMexico are illustrated by gray tones. Finally, it is unclear if birds andinsects have less importance in pollination, or if the few references tothem indicates the lack of a specialist in these groups.

We must to congratulate the editors for the selection of the subjectstreated, and the quality of the chapters. T he pollination of cacti by bats,and their foraging for cactus nectar and fruits, relating with migrations,and also the relationship between cactus and nurse plants serve as examplesfor the study of other cactus groups. The book is restricted almost exclusivellyto the Tribe Pachycereae and concentrates heavily on North American columnarcacti. It will serve as a model for other groups and other areas. It isa book written at university level, but is readable for the serious cactusenthusiast, with mostly clear charts, maps and graphics. _ Roberto Kiesling,Instituto de Botánica Darwinion, Academia Nacional de CienciasExactas, Físicas y Naturales Consejo Nacional de InvestigacionesCientíficas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina.

Invasive Exotic Species in the Sonoran Region. Barbara Tellman (ed.). 2002. ISBN 0-8165-2178-6 (cloth), US$45.00.424 pp. The University of Arizona Press and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum,Tucson. In a ddition to its revolutionary effects (both good and bad)on human societies, the "globalization" begun in the late 20^thcentury has had significant environmental effects—many of them negative. It is now well known that the hegemony of industrial capitalism, despiteits potential benefits for hunger and disease control in underdeveloped countries, has produced unanticipated environmental effects, including not only deforestation and loss of biodiversity, but also a rising tide of exotic species of plants and animals over the face of most of the planet (outside of the polar regions). In the United States, monitoring of the interplay between native plant species and invaders has become more intensive, with botanists in universities and governmental agencies tracking the decline of many rare species and the concomitant upsurge of exotics. In California, many vernal pool plants have become rare or extinct, partly as a resultof clearing for agriculture, but also due to competition from intro duced Eurasian weeds, especially annual grasses. In the California flora, as summarized in the Jepson Manual (1993), more than 1,000 speciesout of 5,862 are identified as aliens—a proportion of greater than 17%, which appears to be steadily increasing. An undesirable consequence ofthe massive interchange of plants and animals among continents is the increasing homegenization of the world's biota, accompanied by disturbing signs of genetic erosion.

Concern about the environment