OPUS I Herbarium Tour of South America
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OPUS Herbarium tour of South America, 18 October-7 December, 2015 Thomas B. Croat, Ph.D., PA Schulze Curator of Botany This account of my herbarium tour of South America studied herbaria, many new species. I am hopeful covers the itinerary, gives an assessment of the that my visits and the determinations that I made will respective quality of the herbaria visited based on induce many of these Curators to consider making their inventory of Araceae, introduces personnel loans of these specimens. In a number of cases I think involved with each institution, and discusses any I convinced local herbarium staff members or particular difficulties in gaining access to the students associated with the herbarium to consider herbarium and other matters of interest to potential working on Araceae, and I offered to give them users. I made the entire trip based on my memory of assistance as well as the latest Lucid keys to assist where places were located and without access to any them in their work. In other cases, where we might maps. A map is attached representing the route of the not be able to make loans available, I hope that the herbarium tour for the benefit of those not familiar local assistants can prepare the descriptions needed with the geography of South America This trip is to publish the new species. Several prospective historically important because it is probably the first researchers have expressed a strong desire to work time that any botanist made such an extensive review with Araceae and some of them will be mentioned in of South American herbaria. The trip was sponsored this discourse. by an OPUS grant from the National Science Foundation, and a similar trip to herbaria of Central America took place during the summer of 2016. In every herbarium I visited, I found new species of Araceae - in the case of the larger or more poorly Start End 1 My trip was rather hectic owing to the many stops species to work on. The COL herbarium is now and the need to spend so much time traveling. It partly contained in required a great deal of stamina. I actually lost 25 compactors and the Araceae pounds on the trip due to not eating regular meals and are located with the other the many days spent without regular sleep. Often I monocots on the second floor would finish at one herbarium then go straight to the of the entrance hall and above bus terminal, perhaps grabbing a few empanadas to the Museo de Historia eat on the way to the next place. Mostly I traveled at Natural. night, sleeping on the bus so that I could be in the next herbarium the following day. I visited 25 On Wednesday, 21 October I herbaria during the course of 49 days and traveled a went with Julio Betancur,a total of 33,775 kilometers, with 13,464 kilometers of Carlos Parra the total by bus or car. I took 7,138 images of taxonomist at COL who herbarium specimens, and untold thousands of works on Bromeliaceae, to collections were newly determined. I had carried the Universidad de Los with me prepared annotation labels for the two Andes (ANDES). That largest genera, Anthurium and Philodendron, as well erbarium has a small but as labels for miscellaneous genera. These already had well curated set of Araceae. my name and date, so it meant less writing, but there I was able to finish the was still so much writing for so many hours a day determinations there by that my shoulder became inflamed at times. Julio Betancur about lunch time so I went with the Curator Adolfo Jara My herbarium study expedition began in Colombia to lunch. The area around on Sunday, 18 October, 2015. I arrived in Bogotá the Universidad de Los and stayed with Elvia Mora, the mother of Marcela Andes is mostly closed to Mora. Marcela traffic, and there are lots of received her Ph.D. at good small restaurants in the University of the vicinity. At the Alabama working restaurant we met up with with John Clark on Viviana Pinzón, Curator Gesneriaceae but she (as of that time – Viviana is also a genuine has since moved on) of the Adolfo Jara expert on herbarium of the Philodendron. We Universidad Distrital (UDBC) run by the city of have worked Marcela Mora & Tom Croat Bogotá. It is located nearby and is also in the area of together for years on the old colonial city of Bogotá, but it is up in the hills Colombian Araceae. overlooking the city. Though only a short distance away, it is all uphill so we went by taxi. The I spent three days working in the herbaria in Bogotá, herbarium at the UDBC had a larger collection than the first two full days Monday, 19 October & the Universidad de los Andes, but I was still able to Tuesday, 20 October at the largest and best finish there by 6:00 PM. Viviana began the process herbarium in Colombia, located at the Universidad of getting the necessary paperwork finished to send Nacional (COL), where Marcela did her us the loan of the new species. As always, I asked undergraduate work. Elvia Mora was taking a class about the possibility of borrowing those collections at the university so we rode there together each which appeared to be new but in any event I took morning. At COL I selected a rather large loan, detailed photos of all the unknown collections as well consisting of mostly Anthurium and Philodendron, as those which would appear to be range records. I and have arranged with the Curator Carlos Parra to was able to upload many of these photos as I moved send it with yet another loan, which he was about to send to MO. It will provide us with a lot more new OPUS Herbarium tour of South America, 18 October-7 December, 2015 2 from place to place, using FileZilla to move them to try to send the separated material on loan. As an onto the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Cissus server. inducement I offered to pay for the shipment of the loan. Most hotel rooms had inadequate wifi but some herbaria, like the herbarium in Quibdó, had a cable I had hoped to also include the Instituto Alexander with fast upload capacity. Frequently my email von Humbolt Herbario (FMB) in my itinerary service was inadequate to even get on to email, or my before going on to Bucaramanga but the Curator time available was not long enough to send even one Humberto Mendoza was in the field. I had visited this day’s set of images. The first batch, sent from Elvia herbarium, located in nearby Mora’s, took 3.5 hours, and I had to leave the Villa de Leiva, a colonial and computer running during the night while I slept. tourism town east of Tunja, These pictures, with their associated label data, will about five years earlier. Indeed, be put into Tropicos by a team of Aroid volunteers. it was the first herbarium to Nearly all specimens that I was unable to determine make a loan to the Missouri were photographed, as well as determined specimens Botanical Garden after a long but were thought to be range extensions or rare hiatus when no loans from Humberto Mendoza species, in order add to the label data in Tropicos or Colombia were possible. They have an excellent to have good images of rare species or type collection. specimens. This admittedly means a lot of photographs will need to be studied and transposed, In Tunja some of the senior staff from UTPC took labeled, and entered into Tropicos. me to lunch in the town. After lunch I began going through project material, most of which was sterile On Thursday, 22 October at 7:00 AM, I took a bus transect vouchers. Around 5:00 PM I decided that if to Tunja, the capital of Boyaca Department, located I did not take the bus on to my next stop in about two hours north of Bogotá. The taxi driver I Bucaramanga early in the evening I would have to used to get home the night before told me of a way wait until midnight to get a bus that would arrive in to catch a bus on the Autopista Norte at Calle 170, so the early morning hours the next day. I was too tired people can pick up a bus going north without going from lack of sleep from the night before in Bogotá to all the way to the Terminal Terrestre to get their bus. consider another sleepless night on the bus. Maria I made it to Tunja by about 9:00 AM. I took a taxi to and another staff member took me to the bus the University of Tunja Herbarium (UPTC), and terminal, and we arranged for the bus driver to put was well received by María Eugenia Morales, the me off somewhere near hotels near the center of Curator, and all the staff. The collection in Tunja was Bucaramanga. I arrived in Bucaramanga about 12:45 AM, and a nice taxi driver took me to the Hotel Patricia after getting specific instructions from the bus driver. Everyone was so nice to me throughout my trip, I was really pleased. My hotel room at the Hotel Patricia was on the 3rd floor and was really large with three beds. Bucaramanga is almost straight north of Tunja but at a much lower elevation, Maria Eugenia Morales (center, in sweater) and Staff only 800 to 1000 m, and even though it is located in moderately small, only about ¾ of one column, but a deep valley there seemed to be no major river they had a lot of interesting and many new species.