Fall 2015 Page 1 Botanic Garden News The Botanic Garden Volume 18, No. 2 of Smith College Fall 2015 Plant Life Through the Ages: The Plant Evolution Mural Michael Marcotrigiano W hen I was a child I wished I could travel into the future. Perhaps Tyrannosaurus rex or saw every Jurassic inspired by The Jetsons, Lost in Space, and Star Trek, I would fantasize about Park movie, you would be missing out on what Earth would be like in the future and what life existed beyond. Now, a bit most of the major changes in plants over wiser, I’m sure I would rather go back in time to see if what we’ve patched time. Since all animals ultimately depend together as our Earth’s distant history is really accurate. Oh, to have a video on plants, understanding plant evolution, camera set up millions of years ago! Think how different a planet not and the processes which drive it, is manipulated by humans might be. Which brings me to plant evolution. As a important. botanist, I find the lack of knowledge about the plant kingdom’s past surprising. For some time, the mural idea remained How many of us know if land plants existed when the first fish swam the oceans, in the back of my mind as more pressing or if flowering plants were around before dinosaurs went extinct? issues were being handled. Then one day in I always thought that our long, barren hallway from the Church Exhibition 2006, Madelaine Zadik, our manager of Gallery to the Palm House needed something interesting. Then one day a education and outreach, handed me a copy question popped into my mind—Is there a plant evolution mural anywhere? The of The Daily Hampshire Gazette saying, answer, which I think is true, is “no!” As far as we can tell, there have been only “You were looking for a muralist?” She small depictions of certain moments in plant evolution. To date, only animals showed me an article with a picture of a have received the honor of a set of large panels depicting great moments in their van, its side adorned with a very realistic evolution (as at the Peabody Museum at Yale University). A very relevant point forest scene. It was a Massachusetts state to make here is that animal murals do not depict the great moments in plant vehicle (Department of Conservation and evolution because the important moments in plant and animal evolution did not Recreation) used as an educational tool as it occur at the same time. So even if you sought out every depiction of drove from one place to another. We tracked down the muralist, Rob Evans, who lives in a suburb of Boston, and met with him to see if he was interested in putting in a proposal to paint a plant evolution mural. Rob had done many large murals for aquaria, zoos, and history museums (www.robertevansmurals.com). With approval to underwrite the project with Friends of the Botanic Garden funds, we marched forward. This would be Rob’s first shot at painting landscape scenes of extinct plants. And scenes they are. We decided early on that we did not want clinical textbook depictions but rather works of art devoid of labels or text. In fact, because the First panel of the mural: Age of Stromatolites — about 3,500 to 1,250 million years ago (Continued on page 4) Page 2 Botanic Garden News Fall 2015 Alumnae Updates Madelaine Zadik K yle Boyd ’15, former education/exhibition intern at the Botanic Botanic Garden News is published twice a year Garden, is working at the Hitchcock Center for the Environment in Amherst, by the Friends of the Botanic Garden Massachusetts, where she is teaching science to home-schooled students each of Smith College. week as well as leading after school nature programs. She said the job is going well so far and she is enjoying teaching children about the natural world. The Botanic Garden of Smith College After a summer job at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 413-585-2740 Massachusetts, Jessie Blum ’15 was offered a full-time gardener position www.smith.edu/garden there starting on August 17. Her responsibilities include care of perennial, vegetable, and ornamental gardens, display greenhouse, fields, and woodland trails. Jessie was one of the Botanic Garden’s 2014 summer interns and also Director Michael Marcotrigiano Manager of Education and Madelaine Zadik worked as an outdoor garden assistant her senior year at Smith. Outreach Alex Julius ’09 began her tree climbing career as a summer Botanic Garden Manager of Living Elaine Chittenden intern in 2007. She’s now a board certified master arborist and the educational Collections development manager of the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) in Conservatory Manager Rob Nicholson Champaign, Illinois. She spends a lot of time going to climbing competitions Landscape Manager Jay Girard and working to build ISA’s competition program with a variety of programs, Administrative Coordinator Sheri Lyn Peabody Office Assistant and Tour Pamela Dods AC ’08 including training, workshops, and job aids. Alex describes herself as Coordinator “supernerdy about climber safety.” On campus in June for the Northeast Summer Internship Gaby Immerman Regional ISA tree climbing competition (see page 8), Alex said, “I wouldn’t Coordinator dream of missing it! And I got to hang out with John [John Berryhill, the Special Projects Coordinator Polly Ryan-Lane Botanic Garden’s chief arborist] on the speed climb, so that was pretty sweet.” Curricular Enhancement Nancy Rich You can read an interview with Alex online at www.theclymb.com/stories/ Consultant Greenhouse Assistant Steve Sojkowski interviews/interview-expert-tree-climber-alex-julius/. Greenhouse Assistant Dan Babineau As a biology major at Smith, Samantha Rothman ’99 got involved working Chief Arborist John Berryhill with plants in the Lyman Conservatory. After Smith she got her masters at the Chief Gardener Nathan Saxe Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. In 2009 in New Jersey, Asst. Curator & Gardener Jeff Rankin she founded Grow It Green Morristown, a nonprofit with a mission to create Capen Gardener Monica Messer sustainable farms and gardens that provide access to fresh, local food and to Friends of the Botanic Garden of educate communities through programs focused on healthy eating and Smith College Advisory Committee environmental stewardship. The group works to transform abandoned or Lisa Morrison Baird ’76 underutilized areas into beautiful and useful green spaces. By engaging and Susan Goodall ’83 educating local residents, they aim to be a catalyst for positive change. Marjorie M. Holland MA ’74 Samantha currently serves as the board president. Raising two young children, Shirley Mah Kooyman ’73 she’s excited about connecting kids with the natural environment. Kim Taylor Kruse ’97 Art history major Ceilidh Galloway-Kane ’11 served as an exhibition/ Ilana Moir ’03 education intern at the Botanic Garden. For her museums concentration Diana Xochitl Munn ’95 Constance Ann Parks ’83, Chair capstone project she produced an exhibit, Experiencing Plants through Art, at Dee Flannery Phillips ’73 the Lyman Plant House. (See her article on page 4 of the Spring 2011 Sue Ann Schiff ’69 newsletter.) Ceilidh now Shavaun Towers ’71 runs a small arts nonprofit Ex Officio: in northern Vermont, The Kathleen McCartney, President, Smith College Art House, which curates Susan Komroff Cohen ’62 exhibitions and provides Paula Deitz ’59 education programs for Lynden Breed Miller ’60 children and adults. Cornelia Hahn Oberlander ’44 According to Ceilidh, it is Botanic Garden News “a dream come true!” She © 2015 The Botanic Garden of Smith College is also working on her own Editor and Designer Madelaine Zadik art, which is all about Editorial Assistant Constance Parks exploring landscapes Botanic Garden Logo designed by through aerial paintings, Margaret P. Holden, copyright 1999 specifically how agriculture and development www.smith.edu/garden/Newsletter/botgarnews.html manipulate the land. Painting of Northampton by Ceilidh Galloway-Kane ’11 Fall 2015 Botanic Garden News Page 3 Displaying Botanical Healers Shabnam Kapur ’16 oughly 80% of the world’s population still relies on healing plants as Shabnam Kapur ’16 is a biology major focusing theirR source of medicine. We can see this dependence on plants in the form of the on ecology and conservation. She has worked at numerous traditional medicinal systems present around the world. Some of these the Botanic Garden since 2012, serving as include traditional Chinese medicine from China, Ayurveda from India, education and exhibition intern and curatorial intern. Currently she is developing an exhibit shamanism from Central and South America, and homeopathy which started in on flavor and fragrance plants. After graduation Germany. Many of the allopathic (Western) medicines for sale at markets today she hopes to travel and conduct research with are derived from a plant source, either directly or indirectly. rare and endangered plant species. For this reason, as the curatorial intern at the Botanic Garden of Smith College last year, I decided to focus a commencement exhibit in the Lyman Conservatory on medicinal plants from around the world. I thought this would be a wonderful way to showcase my interest in medicinal plants. To begin the process, I brainstormed with Conservatory Manager Rob Nicholson about which plants we should include in the exhibit. We were interested in plants that have helped change the course of human lives and we also wanted to include plants upcoming in medicine. We conducted a literature search to narrow our scope and short- listed a number of plants. I worked with Madelaine Zadik, Manager of Education and Outreach, to design the layout and signage for the exhibit, and I worked with Elaine Chittenden, Manager of Living Collections, to learn to use the Botanic Garden’s plant records database, BG-Base, to figure out which plants we already had in the Botanic Garden’s collection and which we would need to acquire.