THE JEPSON GLOBE A Newsletter from the Friends of The Jepson Herbarium

VOLUME 19 NUMBER 1, May 2008

Curator’s Column: California’s Evolutionary Diversification of Amazing Hawaiian Flora the California Clarkias by Bruce G. Baldwin by Kathleen Kay

In the last decade, systematic I am just completing a one-year studies have shown that a surprising National Parks Ecological Research diversity of western North American Postdoctoral Fellowship under the di- flowering gave rise to import- rection of Jepson Curator and Integra- ant elements of ’s native flora. tive Biology Professor Bruce Baldwin. Tarweeds ( and relatives), sani- This fellowship program was funded cles (Sanicula), violets (Viola), hedge by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation nettles (Stachys), and, probably, cam- and administered by the National Park pions (Silene) are among the groups Foundation and the Ecological Society familiar to California botanists that of America with the purpose of expand- have spawned impressive radiations ing research into plants in the U.S. Na- of Hawaiian plants following ancient, tional Parks. This program has funded long-distance dispersal from North 20 fellows since 2000 studying a broad America. The idea that bird-mediated range of topics, such as the top-down dispersal of flowering plants could Willis Linn Jepson’s effects of wolves and large herbivores occur across such a vast oceanic bar- Field Books on the aspens of Yellowstone, the eco- rier (~3,500 km) was rejected by such physiology of invasive plants in Hawaii th eminent early 20 Century botanists Now Online! Volcanoes, and a survey of mosses and as Carl Skottsberg, as was the notion by Richard L. Moe lichens in Acadia. that highly distinctive Hawaiian gen- My study is focused on the era, such as those of the Hawaiian The University and Jepson evolutionary diversification of the (Argyr-oxiphium, Herbaria house, in addition to 2.2 mil- California clarkias, and I worked at , and ) and Hawaiian lion specimens, a great deal of various sites in Point Reyes National mints (Haplostachys, Phyllostegia, archival material related to the collec- Seashore and the Golden Gate National and Stenogyne), could have evolved tions. This material includes notebooks, Recreation Area, as well as a few sites since the rise of the modern high is- lists, photographs, maps, letters, and outside of these parks. This is a group lands of the Hawaiian chain. Instead, manuscripts. Most botanical collectors endemic Hawaiian genera were once maintain an account of the specimens Continued on page 2. widely perceived as relicts that came that they have collected in a field book. to be restricted to the islands by sub- Some field books are hardly more than ALSO IN THIS ISSUE sidence and submergence of ancient simple lists of numbers and names. continental connections between the Others are elaborate diaries that include New TJM2 treatments online islands (and those of French Polyne- detailed itineraries, descriptions of Digitizing Types, New Funding sia) to Asia, Australia, and even South surroundings, accounts of places and America (via Antarctica). Although people, and memoranda. Georeferencing, New Funding

Continued on page 6. Continued on page 4. of approximately 40 annual plant in trade-offs between growth and repro- species, most of which are endemic to duction under both benign and drought TJM2 treatments posted the California Floristic Province. They conditions and how those trade-offs since December 2008 generally grow on well-drained slopes, relate to the climatic conditions where http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/jeps- have pretty pink flowers, and are one each species lives. This greenhouse onmanual/review/ of the last plants to flower as California project is a collaboration with Kjell dries up for the summer months, hence Bolmgren, a postdoctoral fellow in Agavaceae one of their common names, “farewell- Professor David Ackerly’s lab in Inte- Camassia, Hastingsia, Hespero- to-spring”. grative Biology. callis, Leucocrinum I have been interested in how The Jepson Herbarium has been Amaryllidaceae this group has diversified, both through a rewarding stop along my academic Amaryllis, Leucojum, Narcissus, the development of genetic barriers path, providing a friendly and collegial Pancratium among species and through adapting setting full of experts in all aspects of Anacardiaceae to a variety of habitats. Many closely plant biology. I came here after com- Malosma, Pistacia, Rhus, Schi- related plant species show differences in pleting my B.S. at UC Davis and my nus, Toxicodendron the arrangement of their chromosomes, Ph.D. at Michigan State University, and Caprifoliaceae and these differences generally confer now I’m leaving to start an assistant Lonicera, Symphoricarpos strong sterility barriers, but it is not well professorship at UC Santa Cruz, where Caryophyllaceae (entire family) understood how these different arrange- I will continue studying diversification Ceratophyllaceae ments get established in the first place. I processes in California plants. Ceratophyllum have been using Clarkia amoena from Cornaceae the California Coast Range, which Cornus has a lot of within-species variation in Ephedraceae chromosome arrangement, as a system Ephedra in which to examine the fitness conse- Menyanthaceae quences of rearrangements before they Menyanthes, Nymphoides become fixed between divergent spe- Nymphaeaceae cies. Across the Clarkia, species Nuphar, Nymphaea differ in their habitat affinity and their Ruscaceae life history strategies – their schedule Maianthemum of growth and flowering. To better Santalaceae understand these differences, I set up a Comandra greenhouse study of seventeen species Scheuchzeriaceae of Clarkia from all over California to Scheuchzeria examine genetically-based differences Greenhouse experiment

Field site in Point Reyes Clarkia amoena from Point Reyes

2 New Funding for the Consortium of California Herbaria

Global Biodiversity Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Information Facility The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has generously funded the effort to database and image type specimens of vascular plants and cryp- In December 2007, the Con- togamic groups collected from around the world. The University and sortium of California Herbaria Jepson Herbaria will digitize type specimens from herbaria in northern received funding to georeference California (except the California Academy of Sciences) and Rancho Santa approximately 49,000 records from Anna Botanic Garden will digitize types from herbaria in southern Cali- collections in California and data- fornia. base approximately 8,800 specimens The first phase of funding provided to UC/JEPS will support of non-native plant taxa that are digitization of 7,500 Latin American types held in the collection. The data housed in the herbarium of the Cal- will become part of LAPI, the Latin American Plant Initiative, an interna- ifornia Department of Food and Ag- tional partnership of herbaria working to create a coordinated database riculture. The project titled “GBIF of information and images of the plants of Latin America. data content development from the http://www.huh.harvard.edu/collections/lapi.html Consortium of California Herbaria: The second phase of funding will support imaging of ~18,350 type Advancing the international effort specimens from UC/JEPS, DAV, and CHSC and databasing of ~12,850 to monitor and control non-native type specimens from North America (excluding California) and the rest taxa” began this spring. Records of the world (excluding South America). from all Consortium partners will be georeferenced at the Jepson Herbar- ium (northern California counties) and Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gar- den (southern California counties). The goal of the project is to document the presence and proliferation of non-native species in California and aid international tracking of invasive alien species. The resulting data will be made available to GBIF and included in the Consortium of California Herbaria (CCH) which is currently serving approximately 960,000 New staff member Kelly Ag- new, Bioinformatics Specialist, specimen records from seventeen shown with a herb scanner, a institutions (http://ucjeps.berkeley. customized scanning device edu/consortium). Ultimately, these developed at Kew Gardens. data will aid our understanding Notably, specimens are not in- of the number and distribution of verted when scanned (above). non-native taxa in California and how those taxa relate to others worldwide. Isotype of Abarema commutata (Fabaceae), collected by Bassett Maguire, Celia K. Maguire, and G. Wilson-Browne on Sept. 4 1961. Plants of the southern Pakaraima Mountains, British Guiana (now Guyana).

3 Field Books, continued from page 1. Willis Jepson, who kept field contemporary political books from 1895 to 1940, recorded geography and social botanical, biographic, geographic, and history. historical observations in fairly great In general, the detail. Jepson used uniform octavo field books document volumes (filling more than 60), mostly collecting trips, but of about 200 lined pages. The pages are Jepson did not have a handwritten in ink in a fairly legible strict routine for his hand. accounts. Usually the The labels on the specimens accounts begin with a that Jepson prepared were transcribed brief description of the from the field books. The books, how- itinerary followed by an ever, have information pertinent to itemization of the plants specimens that the labels lack ⎯ infor- seen and collected. At mation about associated species, about various places in the elevation, about geology, and so on. We accounts, Jepson inter- decided to scan Jepson’s field books sperses botanical, geo- and make them available on the Web graphical, or weather as digital images primarily because of details, and comments their utility in determining collection on people met along the localities. Once you look at the field way. The books were tial, with one number for each speci- books, however, it is apparent that they written in the field, and augmented later men. Check marks by numbers (added will be equally useful in documenting (sometimes many years later). the biological changes in the California by a curator subsequent to Jepson) Jepson’s collection numbers of the last of the 19th Century and the indicate that a corresponding specimen are mostly chronological and sequen- first third of the 20th, and in recording can be found in the Jepson Herbarium. Information at the begin- ning of a run of numbers applies by default to all of the numbers. Because nearly all of the Jepson specimens have been databased (see http://ucjeps.berkeley. edu/consortium/), it is relatively easy to link a database entry to a corre- sponding field book entry (and vice-versa). This also allows the specimen database to serve as a rough index (binomials and geographic names) to the field books. When, as sometimes happens, there are discrepancies in the database (e.g., in- correct collection num- bers, dates, counties, or elevations), the original can be consulted and the database (and sometimes, the labels) corrected.

4 Jepson The Jepson Herbarium began collect- Projects & Resources ing less than 50 The Jepson Flora Project years after the Second Edition of The Jepson Manual Gold Rush and Online Interchange for California Florisitcs 25 years after Jepson Desert Manual Brewer’s State Online Horticultural Database Electronic Publication of Jepson’s Geological A Flora of California Survey. But by Ecological Flora of California Jepson’s time Publications & Research Projects California had : University of California a well-estab- electronic publications in botany Flora of Mount Diablo lished network Building the Tree of Life ⎯ A National Re- of roads and a source for Phyloinformatics and Computa- stagecoach sys- tional Phylogenetics tem and primary Deep Green Plant Phylogenetics: Novel and secondary Analytical Methods for Scaling Data from railroad lines. Genomics to Morphology Systematics and Evolution of California At first Jepson tarweeds and relatives (tribe , traveled by Compositae) rail, stage, and Unravelling the dynamics of mating-system boat to reach evolution in tribe Collinsieae distant parts of Niche conservatism, functional trait evo- the state. When lution, and the diversification of the Cali- fornia vernal pool flora he reached the Flora of the East Bay limits of “pub- North American Potintilleae lic transporta- Evolution and origin of Calif. alliums tion,” he hired Educational Services & Resources pack trains with Botanical Workshops & Courses mules for trails Plant Identification 2,200,000+ Worldwide Plant Specimens and horse drawn Botanical Library & Archives wagons/carts How you can help. Administration for back roads. Trustees: Vice Chancellor Emeritus Rod- Eventually, Jepson bought au- We would like to increase the eric Park, Chairman; Vice Chancellor Beth tomobiles and drove everywhere (some- accessibility of Jepson’s field books. Burnside (on leave); UC Botanical Garden Director, Paul Licht; Professors John Taylor times very slowly). Already by 1900 Because the field books are handwrit- ten, the contents cannot be indexed and Brent Mishler (ex officio) Jepson was remarking on how little of Director: Professor Brent Mishler the first-growth forest was left. In sub- by the Web search engines. If users Curator: Professor Bruce Baldwin sequent years he commented sadly on are willing to transcribe the pages, Research Associate: Bridget Wessa the disappearance of towns he had once however, little by little a great deal Jepson Flora Project Staff: of information will be made widely Project Research Specialists: visited as stage stops, as well as towns Jeff Greenhouse, Scott Simino that had appeared on plains where he available and searchable. We have built some simple tools with which you can Project Manger: Staci Markos had formerly botanized. He provides Manag. of Collections Data: Richard associate a transcription with a page, brief accounts of the Hetch-Hetchy Moe or accumulate key-words. We invite valley before the O’Shaugnessy Dam Scientific Editor: Tom Rosatti you to help make Jepson’s observations Admin. Assistant: Edith Summers was built and of Big Meadows before available to the world. See http://uc- Managing Editor: Margriet Wetherwax Lake Almanor filled. jeps. berkeley.edu/images/fieldbooks/ Administrative Curator: Andrew Doran Jepson brought his field books Collections Management Staff: Kelly jepson _fieldbooks.html or contact along on his sabbatical trips to Europe Agnew, Heather Driscoll, Rebecca Guen- Richad Moe ([email protected]) and Palestine and on these trips his ther, Kim Kersh, and Ana Penny accounts are much less botanical, but Special thanks to Edith Sum- Research Botanist: Barbara Ertter mers for preparing the scans. Public Programs: Anna Larsen still full of keen observation. Development & Globe Editor: Staci Markos 5 Baldwin, continued from page 1. that hypothesis may now be viewed as ancient and modern bird traffic from trees, vines, rosette plants, cushion preposterous, the idea that upland plants North America to Hawaii is evident. plants, and a variety of shrubby forms, without means of dispersal in ocean Also, Californian plants that arrived and occupies a wide range of habitats currents could travel immense distanc- early in the history of the modern, high including bogs, wet forests, and dry es across open ocean was considered Hawaiian Islands probably encountered slopes. Some of these species are so even more implausible by some leading conditions highly favorable for evolu- restricted in distribution as to have botanists, as was the idea that plants on tionary diversification, with abundant gone unrecognized until recently, such islands might undergo exceptionally ecological opportunities and a lack of as , which Gerry rapid diversification and radical changes other plants that might compete for Carr and I described as new to science in form (including evolution of woodi- resources – the perfect conditions to in 2005 and which occurs within a ness). Beginning in the 1950s, Sherwin promote , i.e., rapid stone’s throw of the main highway Carlquist began changing minds about ecological diversification, often associ- in Koke‘e State Park. Unfortunately, long-distance dispersal and adaptive ated with major changes in morphology. these evolutionary marvels are in great radiation of island plants, with his ex- My Fall 2007 sabbatical at the danger of extinction, along with much tensive studies of island floras, wood National Tropical Botanical Garden of the Hawaiian flora, primarily because evolution, and propagule characteris- (NTBG) in Kauai was largely oriented of invasive plants and animals that are tics. Today, much evidence indicates around continued studies of the most unraveling Hawaii’s ecosystems. Part that even dispersal between continents definitively Californian of Hawaiian en- of my sabbatical at NTBG was focused has been important in assembly of floras demics, the silversword alliance, an out- on trying to learn more about the decline worldwide. standing example of adaptive radiation of the silversword alliance in the mesic The California Floristic Prov- that has held my fascination since the and wet forests of Kauai, where recruit- ince (CFP), as an “island” of Medi- mid-1980s. Those descendants of our ment of young plants has been lacking terranean climate, is generally viewed humble Californian tarweeds, although in recent years. Their disappearance as a phytogeographic “sink” (that is, a best known to tourists as spectacular from the Hawaiian environment would region that plants rarely escape) rather occupants of the semi-barren alpine be a tragic loss for Hawaii’s biodiversity than a source area for plant dispersal slopes of East Maui, where the famous and for California’s flora, which gave to other parts of the world. Although Haleakala silversword ( rise to these magnificent plants. I am a limited number of ancient dispersal sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum) deeply grateful to my generous hosts events (probably bird mediated) from occurs, are most diverse on the oldest and collaborators at NTBG for making the CFP to climatically similar areas of modern high-island, Kauai. On Kau- this research possible. central Chile have been long inferred ai, the silversword alliance includes for some of our groups (e.g., Gilia, , Madia, Sani- cula), successful dispersal from Cali- fornia to the Hawaiian Islands is more difficult to envision from an ecological standpoint, with the major differences in climate between (temperate) California and (tropical) Hawaii. Establishment of California plants in Hawaii is not as problematical as latitudinal consider- ations alone would suggest, however; the high-elevation volcanoes that dom- inate young islands of the Hawaiian chain provide large areas with climatic conditions that approximate some Cal- ifornian environments, as noted earlier by Carlquist. The dispersal distance be- tween California and Hawaii, although unpunctuated by any potential habitat for terrestrial plants, is a much shorter Haleakala silversword (Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum), distance than the distance between East Maui, photo by D.W. Kyhos (left); iliau (), western California and central Chile, and both Kauai, photo by G.D. Carr (right).

6 Categories of Giving Friends of the Jepson Herbarium Gifts to support the Second Edition Name(s) ______$25,000 Honor the contributions and founding principles Address ______of W. L. Jepson, former City, State Zip ______Jepson Trustees Lincoln Constance and Robert Or- Telephone / email ______nduff, and former Jepson Curators Rimo Bacigalupi and Lawrence R. Heckard I would like to contribute to the Annual Fund: ____ join the Friends or ___renew membership $10,000 Support taxonomic ($35 individual / $50 family). efforts in an organizing unit of the Manual: I would like to support the second edition of The Jepson Manual Ferns, Gymnosperms, with my gift of ______. Dicots, or Monocots $5,000 Support floristic effort for Please acknowledge me as a sponsor of ______a particular bioregion (indicate genus name, e.g., Lilium, family name, e.g., Poaceae, or other category) by printing my name in The Jepson Manual (Twenty-four listed in (for gifts of $1,000 or more, see side bar).See http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/ the Manual) jeps/friends/sponsored.html for groups that have already been sponsored. $2,500 Support taxonomic work in a particular family. Please acknowledge my gift as anonymous. See the Herbarium web site for an up-to-date, My or my spouse’s employer will match this gift. (Please enclose company form) complete list $1,000 Show enthusiasm for This gift is ___ in honor of ___ in memory of ______your favorite genus (pledge $200 / 5 years) Please make your check payable to UC Regents or charge your gift. Annual Support ___ Visa ___ Mastercard ___ Amount $500 Contribute to the illustra- Account # ______tion of a new species Exp. Date ______$250 Help accession specimens from the backlog Signature ______$100 Support taxonomic re- MAIL TO: search at the species level The Jepson Herbarium $35/$50 Basic membership in Friends 1001 VLSB #2465 of the Jepson Herbarium University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-2465 Sponsorship opportunities are exclusive and will be available on OR: Renew Online a first-come, first-served basis. With http://givetocal.berkeley.edu/makeagift/jepson/ approval from the donor, gifts at the All gifts are tax deductible as prescribed by law. $1,000 level and above will be ac- knowledged in the front pages of The Thank you for supporting the Herbarium and its programs! Jepson Manual. Gifts may be made as one-time payments or as a pledge, payable over 5 years.

7 Friends of the Jepson Herbarium Nonprofit Organization The Jepson Globe, Vol. 19 No. 1 1001 Valley Life Sciences Building #2465 U.S. Postage PAID University of California, Berkeley University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-2465

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

Jepson Herbarium Public Programs Enrollment still available for the following worshops (but going fast!)

Beneath the Crown: A Paleobotanical Perspective on the Green Tree of Life June 14, 2008 Diane M. Erwin and John M. Miller

Climate Change in Yosemite: Patterns of Environmental Change September 10 – 14, 2008 Connie Millar, Jessica Lundquist, and David Graber

Insect Diversity and Coevolution October 18, 2008 David Hembry

Lithocarpus densiflorus: An Environmental History of Tanoak November 23, 2008 Frederica Bowcutt

For more information, contact Anna Larsen (510) 643-7008, [email protected] or visit our Web site: http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/jepwkshp.html

Printed on recycled paper, 30% post-consumer