Oxford Plant Systematics Newsletter OPS 20
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Oxford Plant Systematics With news from Oxford University Herbaria (OXF and FHO), Department of Plant Sciences, Oxford OPS 20 May 2014 Foreword Contents Foreword Once all the articles had been submitted for Stephen A. Harris ………………………………………………………… 2 this year’s issue of Oxford Plant Systematics, it became clear a theme had accidently emerged – plant collectors and The Floilegium Project – update their roles in plant science. Our knowledge Alison Foster & Rosemary Wise …………………………………………. 3 of plant distribution, variation and biology requires access to living or dead plants, Pressed for time – Plants 400 website which ultimately depends on the activities Stephen A. Harris ………………………………………………………… 3 of generations of dedicated plant collectors. John Wood’s article makes the case for the The Fungal Survey of Oxfordshire global importance of plant collectors and Molly Dewey ……………………………………………………………... 3 highlights his concern that collectors’ activities may face a bleak future. Highly focused plant collecting aims to assemble Herbarium visits …………………………………………………………... 4 specific material of particular taxa; biodiversity surveys aim to collect all plants Publications 2013 ………………………………………………………….. 4 of a specific area. The articles by Bethany Williams, Cicely Marshall and William Abstract of systematic thesis submitted in 2013 Hawthorne show these two different faces Elizabeth Laura Cooke …………………………………………………... 5 of fieldwork and plant collecting in action, whilst Elizabeth Cooke’s thesis abstract and Student reports the student reports illustrate the research Evolutionary origins and ecological significance of Crassulacean acid applications of such collections. The historical importance of collectors in metabolism (CAM) in Puya (Bromeliaceae) exploring patterns of plant diversity is Juan David Beltrán ...………………………………………………….... 5 illustrated by Caroline Pannell’s article on Aglaia in Australia. At the local level, the Do hotspots of species endemism promote novel lineage diversity? field records of William Baxter provide a Cicely Marshall ………………………………………………….………. 5 snapshot of plant diversity around Oxford in 1812. Plant Hunters – A threatened species: a point of view The activities of plant collectors in the past John R.I. Wood ……………………………………………………….….. 6 have filled our gardens. Magnificent illustrations, such as those on the front and back covers of this issue of OPS, made by Rapid Botanic Survey arrives in Ethiopia members of the Oxford Botanic Garden and Cicely Marshall & William Hawthorne …………………………….….... 8 Harcourt Arboretum Florilegium Group, vividly portray the results of collection Collecting Ipomoea in Bolivia activity. Another important product of Bethany Williams …………………………………………………….….. 9 collectors’ activities is the specimen, and Denis Filer and Jan Wieringa show how The history of discovery of Aglaia (Meliaceae) in Australia images of specimens can be made available Caroline Pannell ……………………………………………………...... 10 to the widest possible audience. As the issue of OPS goes to press, Oxford University Herbaria has just made available William Baxter’s 1812 botanical excursions around Oxford images of the entire contents of the Stephen A. Harris ……………………………………………………..... 11 herbarium of William Sherard (c. 20,000 specimens) online Sherardian Library Reprints Collection (http://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/Sherard). Eoin Davies …………………………………………………………..… 12 This collection was described by James Edward Smith, founder of the Linnean News from the Herbaria Society of London, as 'perhaps, except that Fielding-Druce (OXF) and Daubeny (FHO) of Linnaeus, the most ample, authentic, and Serena Marner ………………………………………………………..… 12 valuable botanical record in the world'. The activities of plant collectors more than three centuries ago remain relevant today. Imaging specimens with BRAHMS – two very different approaches Collectors may have little idea of how their Denis Filer & Jan Wieringa ……………………………………………. 14 collections will be used in the future, and users may have little appreciation of just Oxford Plants 400 how difficult material may have been to Heliamphora nutans Benth. (Sarraceniaceae) collect. Alison Foster ………………………………………………………….... 15 Stephen A. Harris Curator of Oxford University Herbaria Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RB, U.K. Tel. +44 (0) 1865 275000 Typesetting and layout of this issue of OPS by Oxford Plant Systematics Research Group website: http://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk Serena Marner Oxford University Herbaria database at: http://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/oxford 2 Oxford Plant Systematics OPS 20 May 2014 The Florilegium Project Pressed for time – Oxford University Herbaria is replete with botanical treasures including some of the – update Plants 400 website first collections made in eighteenth-century North America and South Africa, some of the earliest collections of Australian plants The object of the Oxford Botanic Garden Dedicated individuals have created and used (made in 1699), collections made by and Harcourt Arboretum Florilegium group comparative collections to understand the Carolus Linnaeus and Charles Darwin, tens is to produce botanical illustrations, either natural world for centuries. At the core of of thousands of type specimens and many line drawings or paintings, of a high such collections are specimens; preserved species which are now extinct. Illustrious standard, for archival purposes. These objects, such as rocks, fruits or bones, or botanists have contributed to, and studied, illustrations will further the documentation living objects in botanic gardens, zoos, specimens in the Oxford herbarium over of the living collections at the Garden and culture collections and gene banks. Today, centuries, leaving their marks on its Arboretum, providing us with an invaluable such physical collections are augmented by evolution. However, stewardship of such resource for the future. Each illustration the vast digital collections contained in on- treasures has not always been at its best. For will be fully comprehensive, showing line databases. example, one of the world’s oldest plant flowers, fruits and enlargements and When Henry Danvers gave the University collections (dated 1606), made by the monk dissections where necessary. Our first £5,000 to establish a Botanic Garden in Gregorio da Reggio, laid abandoned and themes are the medicinal plants, species 1621, he perhaps saw the function of the forgotten in the Botanic Garden until the from the 1648 border and plants with a Garden as bringing together the ‘vegetable late-nineteenth century when it was special association with Oxford. Towards products of Creation’ and increasing our unearthed from ‘a pile of material in the the end of 2013 we added “Trees” to the list. understanding of them. The first Keeper of coke-house’. (See the illustrations on the front and back the Botanic Garden, Jacob Bobart the Elder, On July 25th 2021, the Botanic Garden, pages of this issue of OPS.) recognised that botanical research needed Herbaria and Department of Plant Sciences The first full year has been very rewarding. living and dead plants, and that such celebrate their quadricentenary. As part of Through the spring, summer and early collections should be amassed from across the lead-up to these celebrations 400 plants autumn we met monthly in the garden and the planet. Consequently, a herbarium was are being profiled in 400 weeks (in 400 everyone enjoyed walking round, looking to essential. Herbaria provide information words) at the Plants 400 website see if there were flowers and later fruits about species identity and occurrence in http://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/plants400. available on their chosen species. Selected time and space. They are central to the Profiles will be of plants growing at the pieces were then cut for us by Alison Foster initiatives to catalogue plant life on Earth, to Botanic Garden, include images of material or Tom Price. A particularly valuable part understand plant evolution and in from the Herbaria and reflect the botanical of the project is the few hours that we then discussions about the future of plant research and teaching interests of Oxford spend in the Garden library when Barbara diversity in the face of global planetary academics across four centuries. For an McLean and I (Rosemary Wise) can help change. Oxford University Herbaria has example, see page 15. the team with any botanical or technical been concerned with these issues, in various queries they may have. It is also good to guises, for nearly four centuries. Stephen A. Harris make a start before the plants wilt! The herbarium in Oxford had its roots in Druce Curator of Oxford University In the winter Barbara and I ran workshops the Botanic Garden, opposite Magdalen Herbaria in the Department of Plant Sciences, College, but in the 1950s the whole covering techniques of pen and ink work, collection moved to the Department of Plant drawing from herbarium specimens, Sciences; Oxford has Britain’s oldest dissections and the composition of a plate. herbarium. Worldwide there are approx- The Fungal Survey of Twenty-five paintings were handed in for imately 2,600 herbaria containing over 300 our panel of botanists to scrutinise; many million specimens; Oxford University Oxfordshire were accepted outright while a few others Herbaria contains approximately one were thought to need additions before they million specimens. can be resubmitted. Specimens are a permanent scientific The Fungal Survey of Oxfordshire (FSO) Unfortunately,