DAVIS BOTANICAL SOCIETY LASTHENIA LASTHENIA, the Newsletter of the Davis Botanical Society, is published in collaboration with the staff of the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory UPCOMING EVENTS! and Center for Plant Diversity. Editor: Katherine Mawdsley Issue Contributors: E. Dean, E. San- doval, D. Potter, S. Schoenig, J. Carter, O. Hinojosa, A. Colwell, T. Gordon, K. Mawdsley. Saturday April 18 Picnic Day Herbarium and Design: Susan Gloystein Conservatory open houses Layout: Ellen Dean DBS OFFICERS, 2019-2020 Saturdays or Sundays April 4, April 26, May 9 President: Elina Nino Arboretum/Conservatory Plant Sales President-elect: Thomas Rost Membership Vice President: Thursday May 7 Spring Meeting and Speaker: Tom Starbuck & Johanna Kwan Secretary: Chris Walden Andrew Latimer will speak on “California’s Treasurer: Robert Rhode Changing Forests” at the Davis Public Library Past President: Jeffrey Clary Members at Large: Alison Colwell, Saturday May 16 Field Trip to Pine Hill Steve Schoenig Student Member at Large: Maureen Page Ex officio: Dan Potter, Ernesto Sandoval, Teri Barry UC Davis Mail ID: BTNY BTNY ID: Mail Davis UC Davis, CA 95616 95616 CA Davis, University of California California of University One Shields Avenue Avenue Shields One Plant Sciences Mail Stop #7 Stop Mail Sciences Plant Center for Plant Diversity Diversity Plant for Center 8 No. 53 Winter 2020 LASTHENIANEWSLETTER OF THE DAVIS BOTANICAL SOCIETY MEET THE NEW HERBARIUM CURATOR! As many of you know, UC Davis Center milk carton from lunch, opened the for Plant Diversity Curator, Ellen Dean, top, poked a hole in the bottom, filled retired at the end of January, 2020. We are it with dirt and planted a bean. I forgot delighted to announce that Dr. Alison Col- to poke the hole in the bottom, and well has been selected as the new Curator, so the only thing that came up in my and she begins her position on March 16, carton was a drowned earthworm; but 2020. In this article, Alison introduces the miraculous appearance of glossy, herself to the Davis Botanical Society. fast-growing bean plants in everyone Welcome Alison! else’s milk cartons from those hard little beans was astonishing to me. I took As a little kid, my goal was to be a home all the cartons of bean plants that gardener, and as a big kid, I revised that the other kids didn’t want. to botanist. I grew up in Maryland, just That might have been the start of outside of Washington, DC. We lived the plant-collecting bug, because my near the Potomac River, and so I spent allowance money was dedicated to the Alison Colwell. Photo courtesy of the subject. a great deal of my childhood explor- purchase of increasingly esoteric garden ing the riparian corridor there, which and house plants. At some point, I Mom is still caring for some of those remains surprisingly wild. My first figured out that I could bargain for the plants, now massive. memory of noticing a plant was during “dead” plants in supermarket displays, In high school, I developed a metric a class project in school: we saved our which stretched the funds further. My for choosing a college to go to: I spent hours poring over class catalogs in the high school counselor’s office and chose BOTANICAL CONSERVATORY SUPPORTS A Cornell because it offered the largest DIVERSITY OF UC DAVIS COURSES number of classes with “plant” in the title. UC Davis must have been right up You might be asking yourself, “Exactly how many UC Davis courses does the there, but my parents would have nixed Botanical Conservatory serve and support?” While an exact number is a bit it as too far away. I took pretty much all challenging to provide, there are more faculty and graduate student instructors of the plant courses offered, but nothing every year that discover how the resources of the Conservatory can be useful truly grabbed me until I took Plant Sys- for their courses. Most of the time they use our diverse collection of plants… tematics and Evolution with a new pro- but not always. For example, this past fall Chemical Engineering graduate student continued on page 6 James Allen brought his 15 Freshman Seminar students to tour the Sciences Laboratory Greenhouse. The course is titled “The Hidden Technology: Process Control,” and we discussed the sensors and controls of the computer IN THIS ISSUE controlled system (Argus) that regulates the climate in the SLB greenhouse. New Herbarium Curator .................1 James discovered this opportunity for in-the-field teaching as a visitor to our facilities when we hosted the Davis Chancellor’s Club this past September. Conservatory Supports Classes ......1 Participants learned how the Conservatory greenhouse, the Joe and Emma Lin Law Family Awards .........................3 Biological Orchard and Gardens, and the Sciences Laboratory greenhouse all support teaching at UC Davis. The DCC group also observed how Introduction Northern Californa Black Walnut....4 to Biology (BIS 2C) students experience live examples of the diversity of plant Hunting for Marigold Relatives .......6 continued on page 2 Pitch Canker and Grasses ................7 1 CONSERVATORY (CONT. FROM PAGE 1) diversity of individual specimens as they study the details of particular plant taxa, especially in the Taxonomy and Systematics courses. Other courses that rely on plants found in our collections include: PLS 141, Ethnobotany; PLB 10 The Social and Natural Science of Plants; and PLS 002 Botany & Physiology of Cultivated Plants. Several Art classes spend time in the Conservatory drawing plants, and a Fiber and Polymer Science class visits to explore natural fiber and dye plants. Finally there are the courses that we support primarily with staff time such as EVE 119, Population Biology of Weeds, which uses three full benches of crops and weeds planted by students to observe a matrix of combinations Intro Biology 2C students at right demonstrate various methods of plant dispersal to to measure competition. Several their lab mates during the sixth week visit to the Conservatory. Photo: E. Sandoval Environmental Horticulture classes will sometimes informally borrow plants life forms and branches (examples from students are “dropped off “at various to add to the plants that students see the major lineages of plants) on the biodiversity “hotspots” to perform rapid in their plant ID courses. We have plant tree of life during the fourth and assessments of species composition. also helped Freshman Seminars such fifth week labs. The Conservatory staff manage the as one on chocolate and others where This past quarter nearly 1000 BIS plant plots, and 2B staff manage marine students build terrariums and tour 2C students visited the Conservatory organism plots. There are 20 indoor and the Conservatory. Also, there are now during the sixth week lab over three outdoor plant biodiversity sampling weather stations set up at the Biological days in groups of 48 at a time! Many plots altogether. We also grow an Orchard and Gardens in a collaboration students later described this as one assortment of plants for the second lab, between the Conservatory and Peter of the most memorable labs of the which explores resource acquisition and Hartsough’s Environmental Monitoring quarter in their course evaluations. The management, including tomato plants class in Environmental Science and groups spent up to 45 minutes in the displaying various nutrient deficiencies Management. Every spring he brings Conservatory searching for examples and pea plants that display nitrogen- his students out to observe the weather of plants modified to be epiphytes, fixing root nodules. stations “in the field.” with stem modifications, with leaves With the growth in the number of In summary, we support at least 15 modified beyond the normal function undergraduate students at UC Davis, campus lab courses with approximately of photosynthesis, with flowers that enrollment in the introductory biology 6800 students every year. This doesn’t exhibit unique pollination methods, series and subsequently the upper include those campus courses that only or those with different methods division biology classes has grown. As a bring their students for a Conservatory of vegetative and sexual (seed) result, the Conservatory must propagate tour. Our expanding resources, such reproduction. They also saw examples and maintain increasing numbers of as the outdoor teaching garden space of geographic distribution of plants plants in our indoor and outdoor spaces. known as the Joe and Emma Lin in the Cactaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and We recently summarized the staffing Biological Orchard and Gardens, are Didieriaceae families. and material resources that go into how we literally grow our ability to Next the 48 students, divided supporting other courses, and we’re very serve more campus users! into six groups, prepared five-minute proud of how we have expanded the Few universities have a resource with presentations on their observations usefulness of the Botanical Conservatory the range and depth of the Botanical and presented them to the full and our associated resources. Conservatory and its associated indoor group. Marlene Simon and I serve Four popular upper division Plant and outdoor growing spaces. This is as moderators of this exercise, but Biology courses use plants grown part of the proud history of the plant the students taught the subjects to specifically for their lab exercises: sciences at UC Davis, and it is clearly an each other. We find this interactive Developmental Plant Anatomy, PLB essential part of the dynamic future here experience has a more lasting effect 105; Plant Morphology & Evolution, at UC Davis. than the passive-participant tours from PLS/PLB 116; California Floristics, PLB years back. 102; and Systematics & Evolution of E. Sandoval BIS 2B, with its ecology focus, Angiosperms, PLB 108. Although these uses plants during several weeks classes are smaller than the introductory of labs.