BULLETIN

SPRING   2009

                      VOLUME 55

              NUMBER 1

2@2

PLANT SCIENCE

ISSN 0032-0919

The Botanical Society of America: The Society for ALL Plant Biologists

THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Leading Scientists

and

Educators

since 1893

Welcome to 2009 – The Year of Science in the United States...............................................................2

News from the Society

Botany & Mycology 2009....................................................................................................2
Membership News.................................................................................................................4
Vision and Change in Biology Undergraduate Education: A View for the 21ST Century.....4
BSA Science Education News and Notes..............................................................................6
Editor’s Choice......................................................................................................................8
Applications Solicited, Editor, Plant Science Bulletin, 2010 – 2014....................................9

In Memoriam:

Dr. Steven Clemants  1954-2008.........................................................................................10

Personalia

Warren Abrahamson Selected Fellow of the American Association for the

Advancement of Science.......................................................................................11

Randy Moore Wins National Evolution Education Award.................................................12
Dr. Gregory Mueller named Vice President, Science and Academic Programs at the

Chicago Botanical Garden....................................................................................12

Peter Raven Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from the  National Council

for Science and the Environment..........................................................................13

Bringing Modern Roots to a Traditional Collection After 10 years in New York City,

Ken Cameron was Ready for a Change................................................................14

Courses/Workshops

National Tropical Botanical Garden Fellowship for College Biology Professors...............15

.

Symposia, Conferences, Meetings

13th Natural History Conference Celebrating 25 years of Annual Conferences at the

 Gerace Research Center, Bahamas......................................................................16

ICPHB 2009 International Conference on Polyploidy, Hybridization and Biodiversity....16

Positions Available

Director, Steinberg Museum of Natural History.................................................................17

Other News

Missouri Botanical Garden Celebrates 150TH Anniversary in 2009.................................18
JSTOR Expands Free Access in Developing Nations.........................................................19
National Tropical Botanical Garden earns LEED Gold.......................................................19

Reports and Reviews

Growing SEEDS of Sustainability at UBC: Social, Ecological, Economic Development Studies(SEEDS)

 Program at the University of British Columbia..................................................................20

Darwin in the Year of Science, 2009....................................................................................................24

Books Reviewed...................................................................................................................................28
Books Received....................................................................................................................................46
Botany and Mycology, 2009...............................................................................................................48

2

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to:

Botanical Society of America
Business Office
P.O. Box 299
St. Louis, MO 63166-0299

E-mail: bsa-manager@botany.org

Address Editorial Matters (only) to:

Marshall D. Sundberg, Editor
Dept. Biol. Sci., Emporia State Univ.
1200 Commercial St.
Emporia, KS 66801-5057
Phone 620-341-5605

E-mail: psb@botany.org

ISSN 0032-0919

Published quarterly by Botanical Society of America, Inc., 4475 Castleman Avenue, St. Louis,
MO 63166-0299.   The yearly subscription rate of $15 is included in the membership dues of
the Botanical Society of America, Inc.  Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, MO and additional
mailing office.

News from the Society

Botany & Mycology 2009

Dear Members of the Botanical Community,
Plans for Botany & Mycology 2009 are well under
way!

Botany & Mycology 2009 is the one conference you
can’t afford to miss this summer!

The days are growing longer, and although most of
us are in a deep freeze, we are all starting to think
about this coming summer and our annual
conference.  We are very excited about the location,
the exploration and the scientific research that will
be shared with this global community of scientists
and scholars.  If you have never attended our
annual joint conference, this is the year!

This year we will be meeting with a new partner, the
Mycological Society of America, as well as our
traditional partners: the American Fern Society, the
American Bryological and Lichenological Society,
the America Society of Plant Taxonomists, and the
Botanical Society of America.

The conference will include some events that have
taken place at past meetings such as field trips,
workshops, discussion sessions, social events
and plenty of time for networking and catching up
with old friends—all in the beautiful setting of the
Wasatch Mountains at the Snowbird Conference
Center in Snowbird, Utah.

In light of the current global economic situation, we
have been working hard to make this conference
affordable to all and especially to all students.
We’ve kept registration rates as low as possible for
2009; in fact, we have rolled back the early
registration rates to the Botany 2006 level!  We have
contracted great room rates for the conference,
including condo units with full kitchens that can

Welcome to 2009 – The Year of

Science in the United States.

The BSA contribution to the celebration already has
begun with the special first issue of 2009 of the
American Journal of Botany dedicated to the
botanical works of Darwin.  Plant Science Bulletin
adds to this effort with an article on Darwin’s science,
presented as three case studies that can be
incorporated into teaching introductory-level
students.  Darwin is an icon for evolution, and rightly
so, but his contributions to botany and the scientific
way of knowing are too often overlooked.

Also featured in this issue is an article based on one
of the Botany 2008 workshops last year in Vancouver.
The SEEDS program (Social, Ecological, Economic
Development Studies) at UBC is a model for
interdisciplinary collaboration to promote
sustainability on university campuses.  “Green” is
the rage on many campuses today, but examples of
bottom-up commitment and innovation are rare.
The authors provide a snapshot of what has become
a very popular and productive program on their
campus.

Finally, you may have noticed a slight change in
format with this issue of PSB.  For the past nine
years, contributed (or solicited) articles have had
prominent placement at the front of each issue with
the intention of luring readers into perusing the
issue.  Whether or not this was a successful strategy
is inconclusive, but it has not stimulated increased
article contributions.  One reason must be that
articles generally are not reviewed (on occasion
they have been) and for many of us only peer-
reviewed papers “count” as scholarship.  We are
considering some changes in PSB to include peer-
reviewed 

Reports and Reviews,

 which will follow the

informational 

News from the Society.

  Let us know

what you think.

  – the Editor.

3

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Editorial Committee for Volume 55

Joanne M. Sharpe (2009)

Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

P.O. Box 234

Boothbay, ME 04537

joannesharpe@email.com

Nina L. Baghai-Riding (2010)

Division of Biological and

Physical Sciences

Delta State University

 Cleveland, MS 38677

nbaghai@deltastate.edu

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Jenny Archibald (2011)

Department of Ecology

and Evolutionary Biology
The University of Kansas

Lawrence, Kansas 66045

jkarch@ku.edu

Root Gorelick (2012)

Department of Biology

Carleton University

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1H 5N1

Root_Gorelick@carleton.ca

Elizabeth Schussler (2013)

Department of Botany

Miami University

Oxford, OH 45056

schusse@muohio.edu

sleep up to six, and we have negotiated special
dining options each day for all attendees to help
keep costs of attending the conference affordable.
At Snowbird there are seven different restaurants
ranging from “get-it-quick pizza” to full-service fine
dining options opening early and staying open late!
There is also a General Store on site if you wish to
eat in your room…or stop and stock up before you
come up the Mountain. There will be several ticketed-
event lunches as well as kiosks to grab a quick
sandwich and sit out in the sunshine between
scientific presentations.

Again this year there is special pricing for students
to attend society banquets and other social events—
so spread the word and bring your students with
you!  Students can also invite their non-member
friends to register and come along.

Plan now to arrive early to take advantage of the
variety of field trips being offered.  Each offering is
designed to show off the botany of the Salt Lake City
area.  Highlights include a trip to the Stanley Welsh
Herbarium at Brigham Young University; a visit to
the Milford Flat Restoration Project, an area being
restored after a devastating wildfire; or join with our
mycological friends on their annual foray!

Sunday’s schedule will include FREE workshops
and more field trips.  Be sure to attend the Plenary
Lecture with noted ethnobotanist Nancy Turner on
Sunday evening.  Following the lecture, come to the
All Society Mixer where you can connect with your
friends and colleagues as the conference officially
begins.

Monday morning kicks off a week of Scientific
Presentations including a full line-up of compelling
symposia.  Times and information can be found on
the conference website:

www.2009.botanyconference.org

Something new this year—poster presentations
will take place in the Exhibit Hall both Monday and
Tuesday late afternoons.  This time has been
selected to be sure attendees and presenters have
enough time to view all the posters and not feel
rushed! Posters, Mixers and Exhibits…it doesn’t get
any better!

Monday evening attendees can choose from the
Paleobotanical Section Banquet or a Bar-B-Que on
the Mountain.  Everyone is invited to catch up with
friends and colleagues and dance to the music of
Hearts Gone Wild! (Again, we offer special pricing
for students)

On Tuesday evening, plan to attend the ASPT
Banquet, and on Wednesday, come to the All Society
Banquet & Auction for dinner, award presentations
and joint auction fun supporting programs of the
MSA and ASPT.

With its relevant and groundbreaking scientific
presentations, the incredible field trip opportunities,
all the networking and mingling, Botany & Mycology
2009 is the one conference you can’t afford to miss
this summer!

Submit your abstracts now.
.
Conference Registration and Housing are also
open and ready for you!   All available at

www.2009.botanyconference.org.

Abstract Submissions:

w w w . 2 0 0 9 . b o t a n y c o n f e r e n c e . o r g / e n g i n e /
login.php?next=abstract

Registration:

  https://crm.botany.org/engine/

login.php?next=registration

Housing Information:

w w w . 2 0 0 9 . b o t a n y c o n f e r e n c e . o r g / L o d g i n g /
index.php

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

We look forward to seeing you at Snowbird!

The Conference Team
Botanical Society of America

www.2009.botanyconference.org

P.S.  Remember the beautiful mountain setting for
this meeting and bring your family.  Camp Snowbird
will be open for your kids to enjoy.  For the
adventurous—daily wildflower hikes up the
Mountain, the great climbing wall, the historical city
of Salt Lake—lots to do and see!

Membership News.

January 1st kicked off a new year for Botanical
Society of America and for American Journal of
Botany subscriptions. There has been so much to
get excited about this year at the BSA. The Society
is growing and evolving with record membership
achieved in 2008. We continue to remain THE home
for ALL plant scientists, educators, students and
plant enthusiasts. New to the Society is AJB Advance
Access, which allows us to post your finalized
articles in advance of print, providing everyone with
faster access to the latest research and potentially
higher citation rates. We are also very excited about
the enthusiastic response to the American Journal
of Botany’s special Darwin issue, published in
January 2009. Individual issues of the special issue
are available for purchase at the special member
price of $50. Please visit 

https://

crm.botany.org/bsamisc/specialajb.php

 or

contact the BSA office in order to purchase an issue.
If you have not done so, please renew your
membership in the Society today. Please go to
https://crm.botany.org/joinbsa/. If you have
any questions regarding your memberhip, please
contact me at 

hcacanindin@botany.org

.

This year, we again offer you the opportunity to
provide $10 student gift memberships to the current
crop of potential botanists gracing your classes,
offices and labs through the online membership
renewal system. We understand that the best way
to grow support for botany and the BSA is to replicate
the experience most of us shared early in our
careers, when a professor or mentor took the time
to ensure we joined the right organizations. With
just an extra click, you can add to our ranks and
introduce an aspiring plant scientist to this
supportive botanical community.

We also invite you to take advantage of the
opportunity of giving gift associate memberships to
colleagues from developing countries at the special

rate of $10. Last year we extended this “botanical
hand of friendship” to a number of botanists who
may not have had the opportunity to join the BSA.
Use this web address to renew your membership
and/or give a gift securely online in just a few
minutes. 

https://crm.botany.org/joinbsa/

During the renewal process, you can volunteer to
get involved in BSA Committee work as well as sign
up to be a mentor in the BSA-led PlantingScience
program. We value your contributions in time and
effort to support Botany!

The BSA is such a wonderful community of scholars
and scientists serving the science of Botany. Please
consider renewing your membership today and
spread the word…….BSA is THE home for ALL
plant scientists! Thank you for your dedication and
loyalty to the Botanical Society of America, and for
the work you do every day. You really are part of the
“greening” of this planet.

Remember, think sunshine and mountains and
we’ll see you in Snowbird at Botany & Mycology
2009!

Vision and Change in Biology

Undergraduate Education: A View

for the 21ST Century

Scientific Societies are being asked to step forward
as leaders, and to participate in providing meaningful
change in undergraduate education by: setting new
standards for how we view the scholarship of
teaching and learning in all of our activities; holding
conferences on education; serve as stewards of
our disciplines by acting as repositories of content
knowledge, developers and stewards of educational
materials, and providers of professional
development activities for our disciplines; provide
membership for educators; and collaborate with
other societies.

In November of 2008, BSA representatives--BSA
Past-president Dr. Christopher Haufler, BSA Student
Representative James Cohen, and I (Executive
Director, Bill Dahl) -  attended a meeting of biological
societies organized and hosted by the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
with support from the National Science Foundation
(NSF) Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE)
and the Directorate of Biological Sciences (BIO).
The meeting was the second in a series to explore
how professional Scientific Societies might be
engaged as leaders in supporting needed changes

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in undergraduate education as it pertains to biology.
The meeting organizers hope that this series of
meetings will give the biological community and the
community at large some insight into the changes
that need to take place, how best to effect those
changes, and how best to support evolving efforts
for change.

The premise of the organizers was that the
disciplines of biology and of science education
have undergone a revolution. The major focus of the
biological sciences – understanding life – remains
unchanged; but, breakthrough discoveries of the
second half of the 20th century have changed the
basic nature of the questions asked, while new and
emerging technologies are changing the ways key
questions are addressed.

It was noted that in undergraduate science,
technology, engineering and math (STEM)
education, new approaches and new technologies
are emerging based on evolving theories of learning.
New developments in the nature of institutions of
higher education have changed the manner in
which people pursue higher education and there is
a growing appreciation of the need to broaden
participation within the sciences by advancing the
education of all students including those from
underrepresented groups and those who will enter
careers other than those related to science. There
is also a growing realization of the necessity to fully
inform and educate all students about the wealth of
professions available to those who study the
sciences and about the way science is done.

BIO2010 was quoted to rouse interest in the need
for reform of undergraduate biological education
raising many important issues and giving
suggested approaches, mostly applied to those
students preparing for a career in biomedical
research. It could serve as a base for a broader
approach that would encompass all the sub-
disciplines within the biological sciences.

Snapshot Presentation from Societies - Sharing
Our Experience

Each of the societies present at the meeting was
asked to share their experiences contributing to
undergraduate education. I presented what the
BSA group felt were the most relevant activities in
conjunction with the discussion. They included:

Membership - getting young scientists involved in
the Society and encouraging participation/
networking at all levels with a focus on getting
people to join the BSA as a first step. It is important
to note that the BSA acknowledge student members
as an investment in the future, not an income

stream.
-

New student members - BSA opened the

opportunity for gift memberships from professors/
peers ($10) as well as reduced the cost of new
student memberships ($15 early in the year) in
2007.

-

Renewing student members rates were

reduced to $15 to coincide with the new student &
gift membership program as noted above.

-

Dramatically reduced the student costs for

all society related activities, including conference
registrations.

-

Inclusion of teachers as a membership

group, including K-12 and Community College
involvement.

Resources Student Research Profiles - sharing
the young scientist experience - 

botany.org/

students_corner/profiles/

-

Undergraduate Research Awards -

rewarding those who take the time to share their
experience (new this year).

-

Materials/activities for teachers/students -

what we provide at present teaching awards, slides/
images, scientist profiles, teaching aids, job fair,
web networking, educational forum.

Outreach

-

PlantingScience, a collaborative approach

- science is as cool as we make it!

www.plantingscience.org/

Other groups presenting included: American
Association for the Advancement of Science,
American Institute for Biological Sciences, American
Physiological Society, American Society for
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, American Society
for Cell Biology, American Society for Microbiology,
American Society for Plant Biologists, Biophysical
Society, Botanical Society of America, Ecological
Society of America, Genetics Society of America,
NAS/NRC, Society for Integrative and Comparative
Biology, Society for Neuroscience, Society for the
Study of Evolution, and the National Association of
Biology Teachers.

Actions & Commitments Moving Forward
Recognizing the wealth of expertise and diversity of
experience represented amongst the attendees,
organizers structured the meeting into discussions
orchestrated to generate ideas designed to shape
individual society and the collective biological
community agendas for action. The core questions

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

being:
(1) What are biological sciences professional
societies currently doing to foster change in
undergraduate biological sciences education?

(2) What else can biological sciences professional
societies do to foster change in undergraduate
biological sciences education?

Meeting attendees were broken into discussion
groups and asked to review the program in
conjunction with a series of background questions
and in light of the various activities other participants
had shared with the group. The first group meeting
was designed to provide exposure to as broad a
grouping as possible, mixing up attendees in a
manner that separated the individual society
representatives. The second was by sphere of
responsibility in society - Presidents, Board
Members, Executive Directors and Senior Staff and
Colleagues. The charge was to explore possible
“best ideas” for collective action by the community
of biological sciences societies. The “best ideas”
were required to be a specific strategy that could be
implemented. Strategies were to involve all units of
professional societies, including governance,
programs, meetings, communications, and
journals and publications.We then regrouped in
our specific organizations to develop plans specific
to our Society to share with the meeting.

As you may be aware, the BSA is undergoing a
number of activities that coincide well with the call
for support - specifically our bylaws review (which
passed) and the BSA strategic planning process
(still underway). Given education is key component
in our mission and appears to be one of the planks
in our strategic plan, we were pleased to take part
in the discussions. Chris Haufler presented the
BSA action plan to the group. He articulated our
need to complete our internal strategic planning
process before providing an in-depth response.
With this complete, he ensured the meeting the BSA
would move forward in requesting BSA members to
engage in a solution, with our initial response being
to:

Identify the core knowledge and concepts in
Botany/Plant Biology

-Networking to establish a common vision and
understanding of the core knowledge and concepts
one needs to have when entering and leaving an
undergraduate biology program.

-Across sections within the BSA (topical

disciplines)

-Across ALL Plant Societies

Compile the available resources required to meet
the agreed core knowledge and concepts in
Botany/Plant Biology and share these with the
broader biology education and learning
community

- Solicit & Network amongst BSA Sections and
Members, asking for the sharing of our best
resources covering the agreed core knowledge
and concepts in Botany/Plant Biology

-Evaluate and review submitted resources

(stamp of approval)

-Link with textbooks/learning materials

-Integrate with other biological/science

societies

As your representatives, we were aware of the depth
of the commitment and the reality that, as a Society,
our true resources are you, the BSA members and
the materials you have collected and designed over
the years, be it through teaching, learning or research
activities. With that in mind, central to our participation
moving forward, our request to you is to engage in
helping the Society to deliver on our stated objectives.
Please consider this a pre-emptive “Call to Action”,
asking members to participate through providing
the needed time and resources to complete the
task. We will make more information available as
we conclude the strategic planning process on the
BSA web site at 

botany.org

.

It is likely AAAS/NSF will call for a broader meeting
of biological societies sometime in the coming year
as they move to engage the broad spectrum of
Scientific Societies in the challenge to upgrade the
undergraduate biology as never before.

BSA Science Education

News and Notes

BSA Science Education News and Notes is a
quarterly update about the BSA’s education efforts
and the broader education scene.  We invite you to
submit news items or ideas for future features. 
Contact:  Claire Hemingway, BSA Education
Director, at 

chemingway@botany.org

 or Marshall

Sundberg, PSB Editor, at 

psb@botany.org

. 

 
Call for Education Workshops at Botany &
Mycology 2009 — submit by Feb. 15
Have you hit on an effective way of providing students
in your classroom or lab section an authentic science
experience?  Do you have career development
strategies you would like to share? Are you engaged

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

.

in an innovative outreach effort?  Your colleagues
would like to hear about new ideas for teaching,
outreach, or training activities.  What better place to
share with them than Snowbird, Utah.  Join us on
Sunday, July 26. Workshops are typically hands-on
sessions; they are free to participants and can be
two-hour, half-day or full-day in length. Submit your
workshop abstract online by February 15.

  http://

www.2009.botanyconference.org/2009Calls/
2009ls_Workshops.php 

PlantingScience — BSA-led student research and
science mentoring program

The winter break is a busy time for the
PlantingScience project, as we review the past Fall
session and prepare for the Spring session of
online mentored inquiry projects.

Special thanks to Antonio Arroyo, Robyn Darbyshire,
David Giblin, Tony Haigh and his son Andrew, and
Melissa Islam for assistance preparing for the
Spring Session by testing new website features. 
The Spring Session will run from Feb. 2 to Mar. 31. 
Check out some of the student team plant
investigations and their conversations with online
scientist mentors at 

www.plantingscience.org

.  You

can search student projects in the Research Gallery.
 
Approximately 100 new mentors were welcomed to
the program over the winter break. What a thrill to
see such commitment from BSA members at
various stages of their careers as well as from
scientists representing diverse societies.  We
deeply appreciate the time you are volunteering to
share your passion for plants and understanding of
science with middle school and high school
students. 

The next call for new mentors and an announcement
inviting graduate students to join the 2009-2010
Master Plant Science Team, a special set of mentors
with a greater time commitment, will go out late
spring/early summer.  

Since the 2005 proof-of-concept forerunner to
PlantingScience, the project has changed as well
as grown.  Originally, middle school, high school,
and college students shared the same website
platform and pool of scientist mentors.  To
encourage peer-to-peer mentoring, we restructured
college participation to College Collaborations 

http:/

/college.plantingscience.org/.

  A handful of 2-year

and 4-year professors are dedicated to providing
their students with online science collaboration
experiences.  Are you interested in joining them? 
Or organizing sister-school interactions?   

As you see there are a wide variety of opportunities
in addition to mentoring in PlantingScience, including

authoring new inquiries and reviewing curricular
modules. 

 Please feel free to contact

chemingway@botany.org 

if you are interested in

these.    

Summer Opportunities for High School Teachers
— apply by Mar. 9
We invite high school teachers to apply for two
residential NSF-funded Summer Institutes held at
Texas A&M University.  Brochures and applications
are available online. Apply by March 9 for guaranteed
consideration. 

PlantingScience Summer Institute (June 8-16). 
Collaborate with plant scientists on plant genetics
and pollination investigations.  Explore strategies
for supporting student inquiries in your classroom
and online communication with scientist mentors. 
The Summer Institute is designed especially for
high school teachers to integrate plant biology
content with authentic science learning experiences
that allow students to think and work like scientists.   
Participants have opportunities to work with Paul
Williams, Larry Griffing, and Beverly Brown, who
authored PlantingScience units.   

http://www.plantingscience.org/ 

Plant IT Careers, Cases and Collaborations
Summer Institute (July 6-17). Plants and people,
one of today’s critical interdisciplinary areas, is the
content focus of this workshop for high school
teachers.  Participants will explore investigative
cases on ethnobotany and seed technology and
learn ways to customize collaborative, active learning
cases that are rich in data, tools, and real world
applications, and practice new investigative case
skills with students who participate in summer
camps.   

http://www.myPlantIT.org/ 

 
Spotlight on BSA Member Contributions to
Science Education
Announcing an innovative Research Coordination
Network in the Undergraduate Biology Education
Track to mobilize undergraduate faculty and reform
biology courses:  “Preparing to Prepare the 21st
Century Biology Student: Using Scientific Societies
as Change Agents for the Introductory Biology
Experience.”   

Gordon Uno of The University of Oklahoma and the
American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), in
collaboration with key national scientific and
biological societies, will establish a coordinated
network involving the full spectrum of biologists and
undergraduate faculty to articulate a shared vision
of biology education of the future, to outline a model
of introductory biology experiences focusing on
how best to prepare biology students to meet that
future, and to coordinate a permanent network that
connects individuals, projects, and societies actively

8

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

engaged in the reform of undergraduate biology
education to increase capacity in the reform
movement.   

Over the next 5 years, the RCN-UBE will host 1)
small face-to-face meetings to promote innovation
in reform activities aimed at the Introductory Biology
experience; 2) larger face-to-face meetings to
coordinate disparate approaches in Introductory
Biology and to increase the use of existing best
practices throughout scientific societies; and 3) a
communication network linking scientific societies
and their members to promote widely both
innovation and adaptation of best practices and
research in biology education.

Science Education in the News
U.S. Science Scores Stagnant in International
Study—Recently released results of the 2007
Trends in International Mathematics and Science
Study (TIMSS) show no change in U.S. fourth and
eighth graders average science scores since the
1995 study.  Among the countries assessed, the
US ranked 8

th

 in average science scores for 4

th

graders, but dropped to 11

th

 place among scores

for 8

th

 graders. 

http://nces.ed.gov/timss/results07.asp 

Slow but Steady Progress of Women on College
Boards—The critical mass of women
representation needed to make an impact is gaining
ground in more institutions, with at least three
women now serving on 90% of boards, according
to a national survey conducted by the Cornell Higher
Education Research Institute. Since the 1980s
women have garnered more positions as trustees
(up from 20% to 31%) and chairs (up from 10% to
18%) on college boards.

h t t p : / / w w w . i l r . c o r n e l l . e d u / c h e r i / s u r v e y s /
2008surveyResults.html  

Career Development Tips and Resources—
Whether you are crafting your first job cover letter,
considering choices between academia and
industry, or learning to manage a lab, the new
version of Science Careers’ Career Basics Booklet
Science/AAAS offers sound advice for early career
scientists.  Individual chapters or the entire booklet
is available as free downloads.

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/tools_tips/
outreach/career_basics_2009 

National Plant Genome Initiative Spreads Message
to the Public—”New Horizons in Plant Sciences for
Human Heath and the Environment” is an
educational booklet for general audiences derived
from the 2007 National Research Council report
Achievements of the National Plant Genome
Initiative and New Horizons in Plant Biology. The
role of plant genomics in food crops, biofuels,

environmental stewardship, and biomedical
advances are showcased in an easily accessible,
visually appealing booklet available as a free
download.

http://dels.nas.edu/plant_genome/report.shtml 

National Science Foundation Focuses Attention on
Cyberlearning—The potential to transform STEM
education through cyberlearning is immense,
according to a recent report “Fostering Learning in
the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity
and Challenge.”  The Task Force responsible for
reviewing the opportunities and challenges offered
five broad recommendations to NSF, including
promoting open educational resources and
promoting cross-disciplinary communities of
cyberlearning scientists and educators.

h t t p : / / w w w . n s f . g o v / p u b s / 2 0 0 8 / n s f 0 8 2 0 4 /
nsf08204.pdf 

Education and Technology Raising Profile in
Science—You might already be accustomed to
looking for the monthly Education Forum piece
published in Science.   Beginning with a Special
Section on Education and Technology, Science will
increase its commitment to education coverage. 
Don’t miss the Special Section in the 2 January
2009 issue.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol323/
issue5910/index.dtl  

Editor’s Choice

Crane, Lucy and Mark Winterbottom.  2008.  Plants
and photosynthesis: Peer assessment to help
students learn.  Journal of Biological Education
42(4): 150-156.
This study, geared to H.S. students, chose
photosynthesis as a “conceptually challenging” topic
to investigate the effectiveness of peer assessment
at promoting a richer understanding of the material.
Can peer assessment help students learn?  The
results were equivocal, but it was clear that students
learned the material as well, if not better, than with
traditional instruction.  It was also clear that as a
result of their experience with peer assessment,
students felt more confident in their ability to be
autonomous learners.

D’Avanzo, Charlene.  2008.  Biology Concept
Inventories:  Overview, Status, and Next Steps. 
BioScience 58:  1079-1085.
Concept inventories, made famous more than a
decade ago by the Force Concept Inventory in
Physics, are tests developed to measure student
understanding of particularly difficult topics.
Biologists are finally getting there.  This article

9

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

provides an introduction to what they are and
references the few available or in preparation dealing
with biological concepts.

Firooznia, Fardad.   2009.   An Ode to PSII.   American
Biology Teacher  71: 27-30.
A scripted play to actively engage students in
performing steps of the photochemical reactions of
photosystem II, inspired by a photosynthesis play
filmed at Cornell University. 

Frisch, Jennifer Kreps and Gerald Sanders.  2008.
Using stories in an introductory college biology
course.  Journal of Biological Education 42(4):164-
169.
This article presents case studies of four college
professors who effectively use different kinds of
stories either to engage students at the beginning
of class or to anchor difficult concepts covered in
class.

Miller, Sarah, Christine Pfund, Christine Maidl
Pribbenow, and Jo Handelsman.  2008.  Scientific
teaching in practice.  Science 322:1329-1330.
The authors describe a graduate student training
program and the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
that teaches graduate students and post-docs how
to practice scientific teaching.  Scientific teaching
creates a classroom that reflects the true nature of
science, engages student-active learning, and
promotes teaching as a scholarly endeavor.  Less
than half of a typical 50-minute class period employs
traditional lecture (broken up into several 5-10 minute
segments).  Other techniques employed include:
brainstorming, data interpretation, case study and
discussion, think-pair-share, and minute paper
sessions.  Significant gains in skill or knowledge
were demonstrated for all categories tested.

Smith, M.K., W.B. Wood, W.K. Adams, C. Wieman,
J.K. Knight, N. Guild, and T.T. Su.  2009.  Why peer
discussion improves student performance on in-
class concept questions.  Science 323:122-124.
“When students answer an in-class conceptual
question individually using clickers, discuss it with
their neighbors, and then revote on the same
question, the percentage of correct answers typically
increases.  This outcome could result from gains in
understanding during discussion, or simply from
peer influence of knowledgeable students on their
neighbors.”  The authors designed their experiment
to distinguish between these alternatives and found
that peer discussion enhances student
understanding even when no member of the group
originally knew the answer.

Panijpan, Bhinyo, Pintip Ruenwongsa and
Namkang Sriwattanarothai.  2008.  Problems
encountered in teaching/learning integrated
photosynthesis: A case of ineffective pedagogical

practice?  Bioscience Education e journal. 12:
December.  

www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/

journal/vol12/beej-12-1.pdf

The authors present a number of conceptual
questions they used to evaluate understanding of
photosynthesis by secondary students and
teachers, college undergraduates and
postgraduates in Thailand.  The country is different,
but the results are the same - - lecture and rote
learning is not very effective.

Applications Solicited, Editor, Plant

Science Bulletin, 2010 – 2014

Are you looking for a meaningful way to serve the
Botanical Society of America?  Are you interested in
desktop publishing? Would you like to correspond
with botanical colleagues in many disciplines about
books, articles, and matters of interest to the BSA?
The BSA is soliciting applications for the 5-year
position as Editor of the Plant Science Bulletin.
If your answer to ANY of these questions is yes,
please communicate your interest to Dr. Pat
Herendeen (Chair, BSA Publication Committee).
PATRICK HERENDEEN, Chicago Botanic Garden,
1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, 60022 Phone:
202/994-5828, 847-835-6956.  E-mail
pherendeen@chicagobotanic.org

Applications are welcome any time and no later
than July 1, 2009. The BSA Publication Committee
will begin reviewing interested candidates during
summer of 2009.

For a description of the Plant Science Bulletin see:  
http://botany.org/plantsciencebulletin/

1 0

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Dr. Steven Clemants  1954-2008

A passion for plants came early for Steve Clemants,
who went on to become one of the leading botanists
of the day. Born in Minnesota and raised in the
towns of Edina and Minnetonka, Minnesota, and
Chicago and Normal,  Illinois, Steve developed a
love of nature as a young boy. He had an affection
for the flowers that grew in his family’s garden,
particularly tulips, but he especially admired
wildflowers. Throughout his childhood, his mother,
Doris, nurtured his interest, teaching him about
local wildflowers and where they grew.

After completing high school in Minnetonka, Steve
attended the University of Minnesota. He initially
majored in computer science, but he missed the
out-of-doors and his nature studies. This led him to
change his undergraduate major to botany, his
childhood love. His dual interests of botany and
computer science served Steve very well later in his
career; he was instrumental in developing a number
of important databases for plant location records.
Steve graduated from the University of Minnesota in
1976 but remained there to pursue a master’s
degree in botany with a minor in horticulture, which
he obtained in 1979.

Steve’s botanical pursuits took him to the City
University of New York  (CUNY) where, working at
the New York Botanical Garden with curator James
Luteyn, he pursued a doctorate in botany. His
graduate work focused on New World members of
the blueberry family in the genus Bejaria, and this
allowed him to conduct field trips in the tropics. He
obtained his  doctorate in botany from CUNY in
1984. It was during his graduate studies that his
friend and fellow graduate student Brian Boom
introduced Steve to Grace Markman, then a volunteer
tour guide at the New York Botanical Garden. They
later married.

After a brief teaching appointment at Bard College
in Annandale-on-Hudson, Steve accepted a
position as a botanist with the New York Natural
Heritage Program, and he and Grace moved to the
Albany area in 1985. Utilizing his skills in botany and
computer science, Steve developed a database of
rare  plant occurrences in New York State. He also
conducted extensive fieldwork in search of rare
plants. During this time his interests in plant research
expanded beyond the blueberry family to other
families, including the rush family and goosefoot
family.

In 1989, Steve accepted a position as a research
taxonomist at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where he
later served as director of Science; vice president of
Science, Publications, and Library; and senior
research scientist.  As Steve continued his botanical
research, he developed additional interests in urban
ecology and conservation. Shortly after arriving at
the Garden, he founded the New York Metropolitan
Flora program, which has become an international
model for studying plants in urban environments.
Data from this pioneering project are now yielding
important information on how human-caused
phenomena, such as global warming and
development, are affecting the region’s plants.

During his time at BBG, Steve published dozens of
research papers. In 2006 he coauthored Wildflowers
in the Field and Forest: A Field Guide to the
Northeastern United States (Oxford University
Press) with New York Botanic Garden researcher
and photographer Carol Gracie. This book has
become one of most popular field guides for the
Northeast. It is also used as a college textbook for
field botany, enabling people to learn more about
the wild plants Steve had admired since he was a
boy. Steve also furthered botanical education by
serving on the faculty at Rutgers University and the
City University of New York.

Steve recognized the need to protect the plants he
loved so much and served on numerous committees
and boards of organizations active in local, national,

In Memoriam:

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Personalia

Warren Abrahamson Selected

Fellow of the American Association

for the Advancement of Science

Warren Abrahamson, David Burpee Professor of
Biology at Bucknell University, has spent 36 years
studying the interaction of goldenrods and gall flies
and received more than $2 million from the National
Science Foundation and other sources for his
laboratory at Bucknell.  He is recognized for
“distinguished contributions to the field of biology,
particularly for discoveries about evolutionary
ecology and plant-insect interactions.”

Abrahamson has published more than 142 papers;
nearly a third of the papers are co-authored by post-
doctoral fellows, masters-level and undergraduate
students, giving them exposure to “science in the
real world,” he said. “To me, this is really neat,
because I think it crystallizes the significance of
having endowed chairs and of supporting young
faculty. We have successfully competed with higher
level research institutions for grants. The fact that
this has been done with students is significant.”

and international conservation efforts.  During his
career he was president of the Nature Network;
chair of the Invasive Plant Council of New York State;
president of the board of Botanic Gardens
Conservation International’s U.S. office; historian
of the Torrey Botanical Society; chairman of the
Long Island Botanical Society; and member of the
Woodland Advisory Board of Prospect Park.  He was
also codirector of the Center for Urban Restoration
Ecology (CURE), a collaboration between Brooklyn
Botanic Garden and Rutgers University, the first
scientific initiative in the U.S. established to study
and restore human-dominated lands. He served
as editor-in-chief of Urban Habitats, a peer-reviewed
scientific e-journal on the biology of urban areas
around the world, which was launched in 2003.

In 2008, Dr. Clemants was instrumental in
developing an agreement between the NYC Parks
Department and Brooklyn Botanic Garden
committing the resources of the two institutions to
the conservation of plants native to New York City,
the first comprehensive conservation initiative
targeting the City’s native plants. “Steve was a
colleague and the leader of our mutual efforts to
discover, preserve, and publicize local botanical
biodiversity,” said Adrian Benepe, NYC Parks
Commissioner. “He will be deeply missed by all
who care about natural New York and the great
beauty of its parks and wild spaces.”

Steve was a remarkably kind, giving, and patient
man, who always found time to assist students and
other members of the public who came to the
Garden with questions and requests. Shortly before
Steve’s passing, his extraordinary kindness was
displayed when he learned that a Ukrainian
colleague and his wife -- who had never before been
to New York -- would briefly be in town during a flight
layover. Steve picked them up, took them on a
whirlwind tour of Brooklyn, and returned them to the
airport in time for their flight. Gerry Moore, director of
Science at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, said, “Steve’s
extensive knowledge of botany and willingness to
help all who came to him with questions was a
combination that served the Garden and the public
well. His example inspires us to continue our
research in the plant sciences, while always finding
time to share our knowledge and our curiosity with
individuals, from kindergartners to international
researchers.”

As news of his passing has spread, BBG science
staff received messages from around the world
from colleagues who admired Steve and his work.
Peter H. Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical
Garden, said, “Steve Clemants was a bright light in
the field of botany, a lovely man who was utterly
fascinated with plants, loved people, and made a
marvelous contribution by combining his passions

into every facet of his life. No one has done a better
job in involving the public in the joy of learning about
plants, finding them, thrilling in new discoveries,
and understanding their traits. Steve’s contributions
to science were deep and numerous, and his
contributions to development of the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden over the years, through good times and
difficult ones, were of fundamental importance in
keeping that fine institution on an even keel.

His bright, friendly, pleasant personality will be
missed as much as his outstanding professional
skills, not only in research and in  administration but
in education and in his ability to uplift the spirit of
everyone who knew him.”

The Dr. Steven Clemants Wildflower Fund has been
established to honor our late colleague and friend.
Steve’s widow, Grace Markman, is working with the
Greenbelt Native Plant Center to plan a living
memorial that will foster the planting of native
wildflower species in New York City parks.

Donations in his memory should be made out to
“City Parks Foundation, Dr. Steven Clemants
Wildflower Fund,” and mailed to City Parks
Foundation, c/o Greenbelt Native Plant Center, 3808
Victory Blvd., Staten Island, NY 10314.

1 2

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Dr. Gregory Mueller named Vice

President, Science and Academic

Programs at the Chicago Botanical

Garden

Dr. Mueller joined the Garden in January 2009. As
Vice President, Science and Academic Programs,
Dr. Mueller will lead the development of academic
programs of the Chicago Botanic Garden, including
plant science conservation and research; graduate
student training programs; the Lenhardt Library
and the Joseph Regenstein, Jr. School of the Botanic
Garden. Dr. Mueller will play a critical role in guiding
the expansion of the Garden plant science and

“We are using a multitude of approaches, including
genetics, behavior and ecology, to study how the
interaction works and how the plant defends itself,
how insects find plants and how natural enemies
have evolved in respect to the gall fly,” he said. “All
of that helps us to understand evolutionary ecology
of the interaction. We’re looking at ecological
interactions and how they evolve, how specialization
occurs, how biodiversity is created on this earth. We
mammals are a tiny part of the diversity, but insects
and plants represent the vast majority of the
biodiversity described on earth.”  Abrahamson and
his collaborators discovered that some goldenrod
plants develop a higher tolerance to their predators
while others produce terpenes, an odor that is toxic
to insects that feed on them.

Abrahamson is co-author of the book, Evolutionary
Ecology Across Three Tropic Levels: Goldenrods,
Gallmakers & Natural Enemies, (Princeton
University Press, 1997) and edited, Plant-animal
Interactions, (Macmillan, 1987).

Randy Moore Wins National

Evolution Education Award

Randy Moore, a professor in the University of
Minnesota’s College of Biological Sciences, has
been named winner of the National Association of
Biology Teachers Evolution Education Award.
Moore will receive the award, given to one K-16
biology teacher annually, at the association’s annual
meeting on Oct. 17 in Memphis, Tenn.

For nearly 30 years, Moore has taught biology
based on evolution, incorporating it as the unifying
theme of biology as well as his classes. “There is
no controversy among biologists over whether
evolution occurs, nor are there science-based
alternative theories,” Moore said. “Teaching
evolution as a unifying theme is the best way to
show students what biology is all about and to help
them understand our world. It’s one of the most
important, useful and liberating ideas in science.”

Moore has also worked outside the classroom to
improve public understanding of science by advising
states on science education guidelines, conducting
teacher workshops and media interviews and
building dialogue between scientists and religious
groups.

“I was raised to understand and respect religious
traditions, but I strongly oppose the teaching of
creationism in science classes,” Moore said.

Moore has authored four books on evolution, most
recently “More Than Darwin: An Encyclopedia of the

People and Places of the Evolution-Creationism
Controversy,” which he wrote with his colleague,
Mark Decker.

As a professor in the biology program, which is run
by the College of Biological Sciences, Moore teaches
introductory biology, a popular class entitled “The
Evolution-Creationism Controversy,” and a learning
abroad course called “”Biology of the Galapagos,”
which takes students on a research-based trip to
see “evolution’s workshop.”

To view a multimedia presentation on “Biology of
the Galapagos,” go to 

http://www.cbs.umn.edu/

main/multimedia/galapagos/

The education award, which is given for innovation
in classroom teaching and community education
efforts to promote the understanding of evolution, is
co-sponsored by the American Institute for Biological
Sciences and the Biological Sciences Curriculum
Study.

Moore, who has earned numerous other teaching
awards from local and national organizations, holds
a doctorate in biology from the University of California,
Los Angeles. He is available for interviews about
evolution in the classroom and the evolution-
creationism controversy.

1 3

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

conservation efforts, as the Garden grows in its role
as an international center for research in rare and
endangered plant biology, ecological restoration,
horticultural ecology and soil science.

Dr. Mueller has served as the President of the
Mycological Society of America and as International
Coordinator for Fungal Programs at the Costa
Rican National Biodiversity Institute.  He is a member
of the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature, Species Survival Commission, Fungal
Specialist Group; and the Science Advisory Council
for the Illinois Chapter of the Nature Conservancy.
He also serves as Associate  Chair and Lecturer,
Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University
of Chicago; and as Adjunct Professor, Department
of Biological Sciences at the University of  Illinois at
Chicago.

Dr. Mueller’s research focuses on the biology and
ecology of fungi, especially mushrooms, providing
vital information for the management and
conservation of temperate and  tropical forests,
particularly in the Chicago region, Costa Rica,
Guatemala, and China.  He has authored six books
and nearly 100 journal articles.

Dr. Mueller worked for more than 23 years at the
Field Museum, most recently as the Curator of
Mycology in the Department of Botany.  He was
Chair of the Field  Museum’s Department of Botany
from 1996 to 2005, during which time the Department
renovated its collections facilities, added lab and
research space, and significantly increased the
size of its curatorial and professional staff.

“My work will focus on expanding an already
outstanding science program that will continue to
address the critical needs of the 21st century.  I
would like to build capacity, make connections with
other organizations and botanic gardens engaged
in similar work and enhance people’s ability to
study the world around them,” Mueller said.

“Greg’s many years of work with the Field Museum,
the University of Illinois at  Chicago, the University
of Chicago and Chicago Wilderness offers the
Chicago Botanic Garden a unique opportunity to
combine the complementary strengths of each
organization to solve the complex issues facing the
plant life of the Chicago area, the nation, and the
world.  Bringing these organizations together in a
unified effort to enhance knowledge and
understanding of plant life holds the promise of
making Chicago an  international center of plant
conservation biology and education,” said Sophia
Siskel, president and CEO of the Chicago Botanic
Garden. Mueller holds B. A. and M. S. degrees in
Botany from Southern Illinois University and a Ph.D.
in Botany from the University of Tennessee.

Peter Raven Receives Lifetime

Achievement Award from the

National Council for Science and

the Environment

Peter Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical
Garden, has received the National Council for
Science and the Environment (NCSE) Lifetime
Achievement Award. The award, “For a
Distinguished Career as an Innovative Leader
Advancing Scientific and Public Understanding and
Conservation of Biological Diversity,” was presented
at a special ceremony in Washington D.C. on Dec.
8, during the 9

th

 National Conference on Science,

Policy and the Environment: Biodiversity in a Rapidly
Changing World.

Peter Raven is one of the world’s leading botanists
and advocates of conservation, biodiversity, and a
sustainable environment. For three decades, he
has headed the Missouri Botanical Garden, an
institution he nurtured into a world-class center for
botanical research and education, and horticultural
display. Described by Time magazine as a “Hero for
the Planet,” Raven champions research around the
world to preserve endangered plants.

Raven is the recipient of numerous prizes and
awards, including the prestigious International Prize
for Biology from the government of Japan and the
U.S. National Medal of Science. He has held
Guggenheim and John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation fellowships. Raven was a
member of President Bill Clinton’s Committee of
Advisors on Science and Technology. He also
served for 12 years as the home secretary of the
National Academy of Science and is a member of
the academies of science in Argentina, Brazil, China,
Denmark, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, the
U.K., and several other countries.

“Peter Raven has demonstrated how to be both a
world-class scientist and a world-class
conservationist,” noted NCSE Senior Scientist David
Blockstein. “His career has combined scientific
research on plant evolution and diversity, leadership
on multi-national collaborative scientific and
conservation endeavors, education and outreach
at the beautiful Missouri Botanical Garden, and
passionate advocacy for humanity to care for our
planet and all its inhabitants.”

Raven received the distinguished award alongside
fellow biodiversity pioneers George Rabb and
Edward O. Wilson.

1 4

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Bringing Modern Roots to a

Traditional Collection

After 10 years in New York City,

Ken Cameron was Ready for a

Change.

As the director of the primary molecular research
lab at the New York Botanical Garden, Cameron
had been working at a world-renowned institution
with a first-rate team of botanists and had access
to some of the finest resources available. But
something was missing.

Ken Cameron, director of the Wisconsin State Herbarium
and associate professor of botany, searches through the
catalogued plant specimens inside Birge Hall.
Photo: Bryce Richter

“I had one of the greatest jobs in my field … But in
the back of my mind I always felt a little unfulfilled,
because I like to teach, and I like to interact with
students, and I like the academic environment of a
university,” he says.

“There were maybe three or four places that if they
ever came knocking or if a position opened up I
might consider it. And the University of Wisconsin in
Madison was one of those places.”

Cameron joined the faculty earlier this year as an
associate professor of botany and director of the
Wisconsin State Herbarium. He cites the botany
department — one of a relatively few remaining
university botany departments, since most have
folded into larger biology departments — as a
strong draw, along with the mix of teaching, research
and administrative duties offered by his joint
appointment.

He brought many of his research interests with him,
including a specialization in the study and
classification of Vanilla and related orchids. He
finds this appealing because of their unusual mix

of complex and primitive characteristics. While his
roots lie in using genetic techniques to decipher
plants’ evolutionary relationships, he also has
extensive experience working in the field and a deep
appreciation of the importance of traditional natural
history collections like the herbarium.

A herbarium is a collection of preserved and
catalogued plant specimens, usually pressed and
dried, used for research and teaching. “The main
purpose is to document plant variation and diversity,”
Cameron says. “People often are surprised to find
that we don’t just collect one of everything, but in
many cases we might have dozens or up to 100
specimens of the same species. The main reason
for that is obvious if you considered the human
species as an example. You couldn’t define Homo
sapiens by one human, you’d have to see the whole
range of variation. We do the same with plants —
and you’d be surprised how variable [they are].”

UW–Madison’s collection is one of the largest at
any public university. Established in 1849, shortly
after the university was founded, the Wisconsin
State Herbarium contains more than one million
specimens of everything from fungi and mosses to
grasses and flowering plants — each carefully
labeled, mounted in a paper folder, and filed in one
of the hundreds of cabinets that fill the herbarium’s
home in Birge Hall. The herbarium also has an
extensive collection of maps, field notes and
botanical literature.

Herbaria hearken back to a time when scientific
study emphasized natural history collections, which
are now largely overshadowed by modern
laboratory-based techniques like genetics and
molecular biology. But Cameron stresses the
importance of combining the modern with the
traditional to answer basic questions about plant
diversity, relationships and evolution.

“There is a notion that a herbarium is kind of an old-
fashioned, dusty-museum kind of a place that maybe
doesnt have relevance in this new,  modern,
molecular age. But I would strongly say that is a
false impression,” he says. “The old techniques
and tools are just as relevant as the new.”

The historical context offered by the herbarium is
also helping studies of contemporary issues such
as climate change and the spread of invasive
species. “What we’ve done, without thinking about
it, is to establish a historical record of which plants
were growing where, when they were flowering, and
what the land features were like,” Cameron says.
“For example, herbarium specimens have been
used in the last few years to document climate
change. Plants are usually collected when they’re
in flower, and by plotting the flowering dates of

1 5

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Courses/Workshops

National Tropical Botanical Garden

Fellowship for College Biology

Professors

Program Operation: June 1-12, 2009

Deadline to Apply: March 13, 2009

Notification of Acceptance: March 20, 2009

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) will
conduct another exciting Fellowship for College
Professors of Introductory Biology at The Kampong,
Coconut Grove, Florida.

The goal of the Fellowship is to improve the quality
of teaching in introductory biology classes at the
undergraduate level. Facilitated by Professor P.
Barry Tomlinson of Harvard University and Dr. Paul
Alan Cox, CEO/Director of the Institute for
Ethnomedicine, the course is designed to show
instructors how to use examples from tropical plants
in discussing issues of form and function, evolution,
and conservation. Fellows will develop teaching
modules to be shared and implemented in the
introductory biology classroom. Basically, we are
looking for the very best biology faculty, those who
can fire the imagination of major and non-major
biology students. Although botanists will be
considered, we also welcome applications from
faculty who lack previous botanical experiences, as
well as those who have not previously worked in the
tropics. The Fellowship will be limited to 12
Professors.

Applications must include:
• Two letters of recommendation.

• Complete curriculum vitae.

• Copy of the most recent teacher evaluation.

• A non-refundable $40 USD application fee in the
form of a check or money order made payable to the
National Tropical Botanical Garden.

The Fellowship will cover the most economical
roundtrip airfare to The Kampong, Florida,
accommodation and meals, tuition and fees, texts,
equipment, and ground transportation.

Requests regarding the Fellowship for College
Biology Professors must be directed to:
Director of Education
National Tropical Botanical Garden
3530 Papalina Road
Kalaheo, HI 96741 USA

Tel: (808) 332-7324, ext. 225 or 226
Fax: (808) 332-9765
Email: 

education@ntbg.org

Website: 

www.ntbg.org

The mission of the National Tropical Botanical Garden is to
enrich life through discovery, scientific research,
conservation, and education by perpetuating the survival
of plants, ecosystems, and cultural knowledge of tropical
regions.

certain species, especially spring-blooming plants,
researchers have been able to show that a lot of our
spring wildflowers are blooming progressively
earlier and earlier.”

As the herbarium’s uses grow, he is also hoping to
expand its audience on campus, throughout the
state and even worldwide, by moving many of its
resources into a digital domain. As of this summer,
the Wisconsin Botanical Information System
(WBIS), an online repository of information about
the state’s plants, fungi, algae and lichen, now
contains data on the herbarium’s entire collection
of Wisconsin vascular plants — more than a quarter-
million records — plus an additional 87,000
specimens from other herbaria in the state.

With the vascular plant database virtually complete,
Cameron and the other herbarium staff are now
developing a similar database of their impressive
lichen collection. The Wisconsin State Herbarium
is also part of a large, multi-institutional project to
scan and digitize many of the world’s most valuable
plant samples, those known as “type specimens”
— the individual physical specimens chosen by
scientists to represent their species. Wisconsin’s
type images will be combined with those from other
institutions to create a standardized online library.
“When I got here, there was already a foot into the
21st century with these databases. My hope is that
my legacy will be to expand that online presence
and our public presence,” Cameron says. “We’re
this gem of an incredible resource tucked away in
Birge Hall that very few people in the state realize
exists.”

by Jill Sakai

1 6

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Symposia, Conferences,

Meetings

13th Natural History Conference

Celebrating 25 years of Annual

Conferences at the Gerace

Research Center, Bahamas

When: June 18-22, 2009

Where: Gerace Research Centre, located on San
Salvador Island, one of the outermost of a chain of
some 700 islands that comprise The Bahamas

Description: Since 1984, scientists utilizing the
Gerace Research Centre have taken part in biennial
meetings to promote a better understanding of the
investigations being conducted on San Salvador,
the Bahamas, and the wider Western Atlantic. The
material presented at these meetings covers a
broad range of topics, including marine
conservation, archaeology, invasive species, and
plant-insect interaction.

Keynote Speaker: Fiorenza Micheli, Hopkins Marine
Station, Stanford University

Keynote Title: TBA

Co-Chairs: Eric Cole, Biology Department, St. Olaf
College; and Jane Baxter, Department of
Anthropology, DePaul University

Organizer: Thomas Rothfus, Gerace Research
Centre

Estimated Cost:
Registration, including Proceedings Volume
$110.00

Airfare: Ft. Lauderdale-San Salvador  $510.00

Room and Board at the GRC

$296.00

Total

$916.00

Student Room and Board $240.00

Deadlines: The deadline for Registration is March
31, 2009. The deadline for Abstract submission is
April 16, 2009.

ICPHB 2009

International Conference on

Polyploidy, Hybridization and

Biodiversity

May 17 – 20, 2009 – Palais du Grand Large

Saint Malo – FRANCE

The International Conference on Polyploidy,
Hybridization and Biodiversity  aims at promoting
knowledge exchanges and discussions on the
latest developments concerning these major drivers
of genome shaping and speciation. A wide range of
topics will be covered such as the consequences
of polyploidy on biodiversity, hybrid and polyploid
speciation, meiosis and fertility in polyploid species,
genome evolution and structure, transposable
elements and DNA methylation, epigenetics and
gene regulation, heterosis, phenotypic variation ...
The conference will focus sessions on all these
areas and therefore illuminate mechanistic and
evolutionary insights into many fundamental
phenomena in biology. This undertanding is critical
for management and conservation of Biodiversity
as well as for breeding programs as most important
crop species are relatively recent polyploids.

Deadlines
• February 28, 2009 : abstract submission deadline.
• March 10, 2009 : registration fees are cheaper
before this date.
• April 10, 2009 : refund for cancellation deadline

Preliminary program
The following scientific sessions are planned:

• S1 - Polyploidy and hybridisation as a source for
genetic and phenotypic novelties
• S2 - Long-term polyploid evolution: Comparative
genomics, gene retention-loss, diploidization
• S3 - Polyploidy: Effects on genome organization
and structure
• S4 - Mechanisms for gene expression in plant
polyploids (transcriptome, proteome)
• S5 - Hybridization, polypoidy and epigenetics
• S6 - Meiosis, reproduction in polyploids
• S7 - Heterosis, gene dosage
• S8 - Reticulate evolution, history of Polyploids,
phylogeny
• S9 - Ecological consequences of hybridisation
and polyploidy, invasion, diversification

For more information see:  

http://

www.icphb2009.univ-rennes1.fr/index.php

1 7

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Positions Available

Director, Sternberg Museum of

Natural History

STERNBERG MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY:
The Sternberg Museum of Natural History occupies
a completely renovated (completed in 1999), unique
building adjacent to Interstate-70 Highway in Hays,
Kansas.  Its 101,000 square feet of floor space
accommodates both public areas and collection
management space.  The collection space houses
extensive research collections representing the
disciplines of mammalogy, ornithology, herpetology,
ichthyology, entomology, botany, vertebrate
paleontology, and paleobotany.  The total number
of specimens in these collections is in excess of 3
million, and the Museum thus serves as a major
research resource for the academic departments
of Biological Sciences and Geosciences.  Public
exhibits of the Museum are internationally known
and focus on animals of the Cretaceous time period.
These are supplemented with a program of
temporary exhibitions, both leased and prepared
in-house, relating to a broad spectrum of natural
history topics.  Educational programming for adults
and especially for children is designed to instill a
fascination for plants and animals in their
environment.  The new Kansas Wetlands Education
Center, located 70 miles away at the largest wetland
area in the central United States, is a branch of the
Sternberg Museum of Natural History that functions
to educate the public about the importance, history,
plant and animal inhabitants, and conservation of
wetlands.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE DIRECTOR:
The Director of the Sternberg Museum of Natural
History reports to the University’s Vice President for
Administration and Finance, who reports directly to
the University President.  The Director is responsible
for leadership and day-to-day operations of the
Museum. It is preferred but not required that the
Director be qualified to be the scientific authority for
the Museum. Specific duties include the following.
·

Administer the various Museum budgets,

including State appropriations, grants and contracts,
Museum endowments, Sternberg Store revenue,
gate receipts, and any others that may exist.
·

Plan and participate in fundraising activities

of the Museum.
·

Formulate, implement, monitor, and

evaluate strategic and long-range plans.
·

Establish and implement Museum policy.

·

Recruit, supervise, and evaluate Museum

staff.
·

Approve and oversee plans for permanent

and temporary exhibits, educational programs, and

public service activities of the Museum.
·

Develop and administer plans to market

the Museum to the public and scientific community.
·

Serve as spokesperson and advocate for

the Museum both within and outside the University.
·

Oversee curation of the collections of the

Museum, ensuring that they are maintained
according to acceptable professional standards.
·

Oversee the functions of the Kansas

Wetlands Education Center, the day-to-day
operations of which are performed under the
supervision of a Site Manager.
·

Conduct and publish scholarly research.

·

Participate in professional activities

designed to promote the scholarly reputations of
the Museum and the University.
·

Provide service to the Museum, the

University, and the community.

QUALIFICATIONS:
Minimal qualifications include an earned PhD degree
in one of the academic disciplines represented by
research collections in the Museum, preferably
biology or paleontology. Experience in museum
administration is preferred.  Exceptional candidates
with only an M.S. degree but having extensive
experience in museum administration will be
considered.  Applicants should provide evidence of
scholarship and must demonstrate aptitude for
administration.  Other qualifications include strong
communication skills and the ability to interact with
diverse constituents.

SALARY:  Commensurate with qualifications.

STARTING DATE:  1 May 2009

CONTACT:
Dr Elmer Finck, Search Committee Chair
Department of Biology
Fort Hays State University
302A Albertson Hall
Hays, KS 67601
Phone 785-628-4214
Email efinck@fhsu.edu

APPLICATION:
Electronic applications are encouraged.
Applications will be accepted until the position is
filled and must include at a minimum:
1.  Letter of application
2.  Curriculum vitae or resume
3.  Statement of professional interests and
aspirations

4.  Copies of representative scholarly work, if
available

5.  Names, mailing addresses, email addresses,
and telephone numbers of 4 references

1 8

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Other News

Missouri Botanical Garden

Celebrates 150TH Anniverary in

2009

The Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG), a renowned
center for horticultural display and scientific research
in the heart of St. Louis, celebrates its
sesquicentennial anniversary in 2009. The Garden
opened to the public on June 15, 1859, making it the
oldest botanical garden in continuous operation in
the nation. The Garden will honor the occasion with
activities and events throughout the year to celebrate
the institution’s heritage and champion a
sustainable future. The anniversary theme,
“Missouri Botanical Garden: Green for 150 Years,”
acknowledges the institution’s past and present
leadership in sustainability. Emerson, a global
manufacturing and technology company based in
St. Louis, is the presenting sponsor of the
sesquicentennial celebration.

Celebrating the Garden’s Heritage
Henry Shaw, a native of Sheffield, England, came to
St. Louis in 1819 and established a business
selling hardware and cutlery on the Mississippi
River. Thanks to the great westward expansion, his
business boomed, and Shaw retired a wealthy man
before he was 40 years old. He spent retirement
touring the world, and was especially taken with the
great gardens of Europe. Inspired, he set about
creating a gift for his beloved City of St. Louis: the
Missouri Botanical Garden. Today, the Garden
showcases 79 acres of landscaped displays and
historic structures.

In 2009, “Shaw’s Garden” will pay tribute to both its
Victorian and St. Louis roots with a custom created
20-foot-by-20-foot  floral clock. Floral clocks date
back to 1903 in England, when they were popularized
as a form of carpet bedding garden displays. In
1904, St. Louis was the site of a famous floral clock
at the World’s Fair. The Garden’s floral clock
showcases seasonal flowers of varying colors and
textures, moving clock hands, and a working cuckoo
bird chirping every quarter hour. The living spectacle
is on display from April through October near the
historic reflecting pools. Shaw kept hand-written
journals of his European travels in the 1850s,
documenting the places he saw, foods he ate,
books he read, and more. These never-before-
seen travelogues are one of the few personal
documents written by Shaw that exist today, and will
be made public for the first time in 2009.

Glimpse history and experience Travels with Henry
throughout the year by visiting the Garden’s Web

site 

www.mobot.org

 for regular postings of Shaw’s

journal entries.

When Shaw established the Missouri Botanical
Garden “for all time for public good,” he could
scarcely have imagined how the institution would
change and grow over time. Take a cell phone audio
tour of the Garden grounds to hear what he might
say about his beloved Garden today. Listen as
“Shaw” describes the landscape in 1859 to discover
how the grounds have been enhanced over the past
150 years.  Gardens and plants may grow and
change, but heirloom plants have stood the test of
time.  “Heirloom” plants have maintained their
original traits for 50 years or more through open
pollination by birds, wind, or other natural methods.
The William T. Kemper Center for Home Gardening
will display several heirloom vegetables  from the
second half of the 19th century in its Family Vegetable
Garden. Beets, cabbage, beans, eggplants,
tomatoes and squash varieties grown from seed
will reach peak bloom from late spring through
summer.

The annual Orchid Show and Holiday Flower and
Train Show will also look to the past for inspiration
in 2009. Jan. 31 through Mar. 15, “Henry’s Garden”
will feature 800 orchids from the Garden’s premier
collection displayed in a formal Victorian setting.
Stroll through lush greenery and past a courtyard
fountain, admiring the Phalaenopsis, Cattleyas,
Cymbidiums and more. Wrought iron lamp posts,
urns, and benches will adorn the scene. The
“Gardenland Express”  will bid farewell to the
sesquicentennial year with a tribute to150 years of
MBG. Colorful holiday blooms will surround G scale
model trains, traveling around mini-scenes of
notable Garden structures surfaced with natural
materials. The show chugs into town on Nov. 25,
2009 and ends Jan. 3, 2010.

Championing a Sustainable Future
Pledge to “Grow Green with the Garden” in 2009 by
resolving to make sustainable lifestyle choices.
Sustainability is meeting the needs of the current
generation without compromising the resources
available to future generations. Pick up a pledge
card on-site or visit www.mobot.org to select one or
more environmentally-friendly choices with
quantifiable benefits to Earth. Monitor the program’s
universal progress throughout the year inside the
Ridgway Visitor Center. Learn more about
sustainable living at the green living expo. Visit the
Brookings Interpretive Center from May 1 through
Oct. 31 to peruse select booths showcasing goods,
services and information with an environmental
edge. The expo is an extension of a Garden-
sponsored green living weekend at the Saint Louis
Science Center in early spring 2009.

1 9

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Learning to care for the planet isn’t just for grown-
ups. Earth’s plants form the basis of life as we know
it, providing oxygen, food, medicine, fuel, beauty,
and much more. Children in kindergarten through
twelfth grades can join the Garden to creatively
spread the word about plant “superheroes” through
the “Power of Plants”  contest. Students are
challenged to pick a plant that does great things for
people and tell its story through a two- or three-
dimensional work of art. Entries are due Jan. 31.
Winning projects will be on display at the Garden
through June 15. Visit www.mobot.org/power for
contest information.

In 2009, the Garden will also offer a first-of-its-kind
lecture series, “The Global Garden.” Six prominent
experts will address today’s important issues
impacting people, plants and the planet. The series
 eflects the Garden’s core objective to help people
throughout the world conserve and manage Earth’s
resources and ecosystems.

Experiencing the “Unseen Garden”
The Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) spans the
globe in support of its mission “to discover and
share knowledge about plants and their
environment, in order to preserve and enrich life.” It
operates one of the three largest plant science
programs in the world, with researchers in 36
countries on six continents. Learn more about this
“Unseen Garden” of science and conservation
efforts  with new display panels illustrating the
countries in the world where Garden programs are
active. New signage on the grounds also informs
visitors about plants that heal and help humankind,
including species that are medicinal in nature or
have other useful properties.

The Garden joins forces with the Siteman Cancer
Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington
University to present a two-day community
celebration of plants on July 17 and 18. Business
leaders and interested individuals are invited to
attend a plant science symposium on Friday,
focusing on the science, study, and business of
plants in St. Louis’s “BioBelt” region. On Saturday,
visitors can pay tribute to the healing power of plants
like the rosy periwinkle (used to treat childhood
leukemia) with engaging activities and informative
offerings.

Several photographic exhibits in 2009 document
the wide world of plants that the Garden works to
conserve. Jan. 9 through Mar. 29, fine art orchid
photography  by Charles Rowden highlights the
world’s largest flowering plant family. Apr. 3 through
June 28, National Geographic’s “Through the Eyes
of the Condor” features images from Latin America
by renowned aerial photographer Robert B. Haas.

July 3 through Sept. 30, “Madagascar,” showcases
works by famed National Geographic nature
photographer Frans Lanting. Oct. 1 through Nov. 15,
“Losing Paradise? Endangered Plants Here and
Around the World,” an exhibition of original artworks
and illustrations by The American Society of Botanical
Artists, reinforces the Garden’s work through the
Center for Plant Conservation.

Commemorating 150 Years
The Garden’s commemoration of its
sesquicentennial kicked off on Jan. 1 at the
Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Ca.
The City of St. Louis float, made possible by
Anheuser-Busch, honors the 75th anniversary of
the Budweiser Clydesdales and the 150th
anniversary of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

The Garden’s historic Linnean House conservatory,
famous tropical water lilies, and a young Henry
Shaw are surrounded by flowers on the Clydesdale-
drawn display. The Missouri History Museum in
Forest Park will present a historical exhibit of archival
Garden images and artifacts from February through
November. Download the exhibit podcast to an mp3
player to hear interpretive commentary about the
Garden’s 150 years.  MBG will host the 2009
American Public Gardens Association  (APGA)
annual conference in St. Louis, June 23 through 27.
The gathering of public garden professionals from
throughout North America will celebrate “The Global
Garden” to honor 250 years of the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew; 150 years of the Singapore Botanic
Gardens; and 150 years of the Missouri Botanical
Garden.  From Memorial Day through Labor Day, the
Garden will keep its doors open late on Thursdays
from 5 to 9 p.m. for sesquicentennial summer
nights. Enjoy entertainment for all ages, or take a
scenic stroll through blooming display gardens.
Plan a daytime visit earlier in the year to see over
150,000 bulbs  in springtime bloom to honor the
historic anniversary.

For more information, visit 

www.mobot.org

or

call the 24-hour recorded hotline at (314) 577
9400 or toll-free, 1 (800) 642-8842.

2 0

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Growing SEEDS of Sustainability at

UBC

Social, Ecological, Economic

Development Studies (SEEDS)

Program at the University of British

Columbia

This article is based on an educational workshop,
entitled “Growing Sustainability through
Undergraduate and Graduate Research-UBC
Social, Ecological, Economic Development Studies
(SEEDS)”, contributed/presented by Carolina
Chanis, Davis Chiu, Kelly Coulson, David Grigg,
Brenda Sawada and Santokh Singh at the BOTANY
2008 conference on July 27

th

, 2008 in Vancouver,

Canada.

On the west coast of Canada, individuals,
businesses, and institutions are scrambling to get
green. At the University of British Columbia (UBC)
in Vancouver, British Columbia, the SEEDS (Social,
Ecological, Economic Development Studies)
Program is already in its eighth year, promoting
sustainability with students, faculty, and staff on
campus. SEEDS brings together these groups in
an academic setting, imagining and implementing
projects to promote a more socially, ecologically,
and economically sustainable campus.

Sustainability at UBC: A Historical Perspective

While SEEDS is the first academic program of its
kind in Western Canada, UBC’s commitment to

Brenda Sawada, Manager of the UBC SEEDS program,

discussing a SEEDS project with student, Maira Avila

JSTOR Expands Free Access in

Developing Nations

In 2006 JSTOR, which includes the American
Journal of Botany, announced the African Access
Initiative in which not-for-profit institutions across
the continent of Africa receive free access to the
archive. Since the launch of this initiative, nearly 400
institutions are participating in 37 African countries.
In November JSTOR launched the Developing
Nations Access Initiative, extending their efforts well
beyond Africa. Under this initiative, not-for-profit
institutions in 41 additional countries may gain
access to the archive free of charge or at very low
costs. This new initiative further complements
JSTOR’s Developing Nations Fee Model – in place
since 2005 – and eliminates or further reduces fees
for institutions in many nations. As a result, all of the
collections in JSTOR and Aluka, an initiative uniting
with JSTOR, are now free in 64 countries and
available at low cost in 30 others.
Bruce Lyons
Associate Director, Publisher Relations
 

Reports and Reviews

National Tropical Botanical Garden

earns LEED Gold

The National Tropical Botanical Garden was recently
awarded “Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) Gold Certification” by the U.S. Green
Building Council for their new Botanical Research
Center at the Kalaheo headquarters.

“The implications go far beyond the building itself
and have the potential to influence people in all
spheres. Conservation of natural resources and
protection of the environment is integral to NTBG’s
mission, so building green just made perfect sense
to us,” said NTBG Director and Chief Executive
Officer Chipper Wichman .

Among the features that set this building apart from
others in terms of being green are its rooftop
photovoltaic system, which allows natural light to
flow through the upper floor, and a rain catchment
system that feeds into a 25-gallon underground
storage tank which is then used to irrigate native
plant sections of the McBryde garden adjacent to the
NTGB headquarters.  Other features are its clerestory
windows, motion sensor lighting and high efficiency
plumbing.  Builders used certified sustainable
reclaimed tropical hardwoods from Southeast Asia
that would otherwise have gone into landfills and
gravelpave permeable-surface walkways.  The
surrounding landscape was designed toward
conservation of resources, and native plants, by
using drought-tolerant species.

2 1

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

sustainability did not begin at its inception. In fact,
UBC has been a leader in sustainable issues in a
variety of ways. In 1990, UBC, with over a hundred
other universities, signed the Talloires Declaration,
an official statement adopted by university
administrations of commitment to sustainability
issues on campus. As well as encouraging
individuals – staff, students, and faculty – to consider
sustainable issues in all facets of their work, UBC
also continued to develop programs and initiatives
to keep sustainable issues at the forefront of life on
campus. UBC became Canada’s first university to
adopt a sustainable development policy in 1997,
and in 1998, continued to lead the country in green
issues by opening the doors of Canada’s first on-
campus Sustainability Office. These developments
provided both a rich context and a demand for a
program that would bring together students, staff,
and faculty to work toward sustainability on campus.
SEEDS was born, and since its beginning in 2001,
UBC has become Canada’s leading university in
sustainable issues, with sustainability consultation
processes involving 20 faculties, 89 specific targets
for sustainability, and over 300 sustainability-related
courses.

An Introduction to the SEEDS Program

UBC’s “Policy on Sustainable Development,” or
“Policy 5,” when adopted in 1997, called for the
establishment of a Sustainability Advisory
Committee, consisting of faculty, students, and
staff. This committee advised on the development
of programs and initiatives to reach the goals set out
by Policy 5, including a program to focus on campus
sustainability. Out of this goal, the SEEDS program
was developed.

The SEEDS program invites campus staff, faculty,
and students to share their ideas for sustainable
improvements in their area of work or study. Staff
members supply the ideas and students research
solutions with the help of a faculty advisor. The
benefits are multitudinous: students gain credit for
their work, while gaining experience with directed
studies, and feeling that they are making a personal
contribution to campus life; faculty become involved
in sustainable issues often relating to other faculties
or departments; staff are able to see their ideas
implemented, often improving their own jobs or
workplaces; and the university community benefits
from cost-effective solutions that create a more
sustainable UBC campus.

The primary goal of the SEEDS program is to bring
together and build relationships between members
of the university community who would normally not
find themselves sitting around the same table,

working toward a common goal. Through working
together, and learning from each other, SEEDS
participants not only help develop campus
sustainability, but also improve research, applied
learning and project development skills. SEEDS
encourages its participants to continue to be involved
with on-campus sustainability after their projects
are completed, and to become ambassadors of
sustainability in the university community.

SEEDS Projects

The first SEEDS project, completed in the first year
of the program, brought together a landscape
architect and a master’s student in the School of
Community and Regional Planning, to map the
network of heritage sites that are situated all through
the campus landscape. This project, “Place-making
at UBC: Planning a Heritage Trail,” set the stage for
relating sustainability to place – the buildings,

landscape and plant resources, infrastructure, and
art on campus. Since this inaugural project, SEEDS
has facilitated numerous projects in a wide variety
of faculties, from engineering to sciences to arts, for
example, a plan for can and bottle collection, a
sociological analysis of graffiti, and research on
local food.

The development of a stormwater management
stream on campus has also served as the basis for
many SEEDS projects: Sauder School of Business
students provided a cost-benefit analysis, a
Biological Engineering student researched the
feasibility of using the stream as a fish habitat, and
a Civil Engineering student laid the foundations for
the detailed design of the stream itself. Because the
stormwater management system has yet to be
built, the options for future SEEDS projects are
numerous.

Fourth-year mechanical engineering students design

locally sourced bollard for UBC campus

2 2

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

SEEDS has also facilitated a number of botany-
related projects. Some examples of such projects
are: UBC Farm: Plans for Sustainable Organic
Growth; The Effectiveness of an Infra-red Weeder
Applied at Varying Speeds and Time Intervals in
Controlling Weeds at Two Sites on the UBC Campus;
Macmillan Precinct Oak Management Plan;
Roundup at UBC: The Road to a Pesticide Free
Campus at UBC, and Examination of Quercus rurba
Along Main Mall at the University of British Columbia.
Recently, a number of Botany students have been
working on a SEEDS project involving gas exchange
measurements in trees and shrubs growing on
Sustainability Street in University of British Columbia.

This year, a panel of UBC faculty, staff and students
presented an overview of the SEEDS program as a
workshop, entitled “Growing Sustainability through
Undergraduate and Graduate Research-UBC
Social, Ecological, Economic Development Studies
(SEEDS)” at the BOTANY 2008 conference held at
UBC. SEEDS student Carolina Chanis recently
presented the details of her project on physiology
and sustainability of ferns. Through the SEEDS
program, she was able to use her knowledge and
interest in both plant science and sustainability to
monitor ferns on UBC’s Sustainability Street for
photosynthesis and transpiration rates, as well as
conduct hormone and red/blue light experiments
on the plants. SEEDS connected her with faculty
and staff advisors who helped facilitate the project,
but also allowed her unprecedented freedoms in
learning, highly valued and unusual in
undergraduate-level courses.

Contributions to Learning

The SEEDS program significantly contributes to the
education of students, and to the ongoing
experiences of faculty and staff; however, its
influence stretches beyond those directly involved
with the program. The analyses conducted by
students for SEEDS add to the rich body of research
on sustainability at UBC. Research by SEEDS
students has led to 20% biodiesel usage in Plant
Operations vehicles, UBC as a pesticide-free
campus, the development of seven new gardens,
and sustainable seafood consumption by UBC
Food Services. SEEDS participants are given a
unique opportunity in their studies to not only conduct
research on sustainability, but to actually put their
ideas into action, for the benefit of the university
community as a whole. All projects are available for
public viewing on the SEEDS website
<www.sustain.ubc.ca/seeds> so that research can
be shared within both the UBC and the greater
community, and drawn upon for future sustainability
efforts.

As well as contributing to research efforts, SEEDS
has also spread its influence to the classroom.
Projects have been adapted from the original model
of a student, faculty member, and staff-person
involved in a student directed studies course, to fit
within the teaching curriculum. In the 2007-8 school
year alone, two departments incorporated SEEDS
into entire undergraduate courses. A Food Systems
project assessing food services on campus allowed
210 fourth-year students, five teaching assistants,
and 22 staff members to participate in campus
sustainability. In Civil Engineering, 117 second-
year students under the direction of four instructors
and three staff members collected data first-hand
in order to create a water balance model for South
Campus. SEEDS projects in the classroom provide
students with a focus their learning, through local,
sustainable, relevant projects rather than abstract
examples.

Economic Savings to the University

UBC’s leadership in sustainability stems from a
commitment to creating unique opportunities for
students, faculty, and staff to participate in programs
like SEEDS, which provide the opportunity for
environmental, social, and economic innovation
throughout the university. Continuing to advance
sustainability at UBC has had positive impact on all
levels. The Sustainability Office website

www.sustain.ubc.ca

 tracks resources saved at

UBC’s Vancouver campus in real-time, so viewers
can watch the numbers increase with each passing
second. As of September 2008, savings to UBC
include: nearly 200 million sheets of printing paper,
almost 200 million kWh of electricity, over 20 billion
liters of water, nearly 80,000 tonnes of greenhouse
gases reduced, and over 33 million dollars. The
SEEDS program specifically, has saved the
university untold resources in the forms of pesticides
and unsustainable fuels and food. SEEDS research
has also lead to an increase in composting, thereby
reducing the amount of garbage produced on
campus. In addition, SEEDS has saved the university
more than $187,000 in consulting fees between
2003 and Spring 2008.

Perspectives of SEEDS Participants

Projects facilitated by the SEEDS department have
numerous benefits, including research-based and
economic, for the UBC community, but they also
truly enrich the lives and learning of those directly
involved. Below are statements from UBC students,
staff, and faculty, who have participated in the SEEDS
program.

2 3

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Feedback from Students:

“The SEEDS program for me was my favourite
university experience. It was so much more
rewarding than a regular course. It balanced out my
schedule and my life with something that was my
own and really exciting. I learnt a plethora
of practical skills such as time management,
speaking in public situations and communication.
I would whole heartedly recommend this to any
student with some determination and passion for
a topic.” – Forestry Student

“The SEEDS program has really changed my attitude
towards sustainability issues. I feel more optimistic
and more willing to take action in my everyday life.”
– Commerce Student

“UBC is not an inaccessible institutional block. It is
a community of individuals doing their best. Getting
to personally meet this network and play a role was
hugely rewarding.” – SEEDS Participant

Feedback from Staff:

“My involvement with SEEDS has been very beneficial
in terms of enabling me to connect with students
who are eager to embark on new research initiatives
that build on an existing foundation of knowledge,
and that provide useful information for my
department.” – Land and Building Services Staff
Member.

“SEEDS has certainly been of great benefit to Plant
Operations, not only because of the free research
but because it has allowed our staff to become
directly involved in learning mission of the university
through participation in a multitude of student
projects.” – SEEDS Staff Advisor

Feedback from Faculty:

“The project report was unbelievable! The students
tied in the entire course. It’s like nothing I’ve ever
read! I always benefit hugely from SEEDS when I
see students taking the theory and applying it to a
practical, relevant project.” – SEEDS Faculty Advisor

“The sustainability challenges our world faces are
increasingly complex. No longer can these
challenges be addressed in isolation within the
specialized towers of academia, behind the glowing
screens of our students. Rather, these challenges
require multi-stakeholder collaboration, curriculum
greening, interdisciplinary teaching, learning, and
research that is action orientated. The SEEDS
Program provides an opportunity for this necessary
endeavor. It helps creates opportunities on campus
to unite our academics with the communities they

are embedded within in working together to not only
share knowledge but also to ultimately put into
practice collaboratively. When I think of the future of
education, I think of the SEEDS Program.” – Land
and Food Systems Senior Instructor

The Future of SEEDS

As well as focusing on the projects that are currently
shaping UBC, SEEDS staff are also looking at the
future of sustainability on campus. Over 30 projects
are in motion for the 2008-9 school term, building
on previous sustainability initiatives, and developing
new facets for growth at UBC. SEEDS hopes to see
more involvement in faculty members’ curriculums,
and more awareness of the program throughout
campus. In addition to projects at UBC, SEEDS is
also exploring a community program, which would
apply sustainable practices to off-campus needs,
and give students, faculty, and staff the ability to
connect with a greater community. Since its
inception, SEEDS has been contacted by university
administrations worldwide, asking for advice on
starting an academic sustainability program. A
SEEDS-style program could be integrated into any
university or college, regardless of its size, and
hopefully, other campuses will begin to implement
such programs. With the example of SEEDS at
UBC, and the possibility of green programs and
institutions in universities across the country and
the world, the future looks bright for campus
sustainability.

Allie Slemon is a 4

th

 year Honours English student

at the University of British Columbia. She is currently
working on a SEEDS project on green buildings
podcasts.

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Darwin in the Year of Science, 2009

Marshall D. Sundberg, Department of Biological
Sciences, Emporia State University, Emporia, KS.

In the public mind, Darwin is The Origin of Species;
in the mind of many of our biologist colleagues you
could add the Galapagos finches and natural
selection.  With little formal scientific training Darwin
became a well-respected botanist, geologist, and
zoologist whose idea of natural selection is arguably
the most significant hypothesis in Western science
– on a par with Newton’s mechanics and Einstein’s
relativity.  As noted by Judy Jernstedt (2009) in the
forward to the special Darwin Bicentennial issue of
the American Journal of Botany, this year marks the
200

th

 anniversary of the birth of Darwin, “who

considered

himself first and foremost a botanist.”  It

is also the 150

th

 anniversary of the publication of On

the Origin of

Species by Means of Natural Selection,

Or the Preservation of

Favoured Races in the Struggle

for Life (and of Darwin receiving the prestigious
Wollaston Medal in geology).  Judy also notes that
these are only two of several momentous
anniversaries in the history of scientific events or
science policy being celebrated this year in the
United States as the Year of Science.  “This year-
long event is sponsored by the Coalition

on the

Public Understanding of Science (COPUS; 

http://

www.copusproject.org/

)

and the American Institute

of Biological Sciences (AIBS).    The

objective is to

engage the public in science and improve public
understanding of how science works, why science
matters, and

who scientists are.”   The Botanical

Society is a participating member of the COPUS
coalition.

In this brief article I want to highlight three examples
from Darwin’s life that can easily be incorporated
into class work to illustrate how science works.
These examples come from the beginning, middle,
and end of his career and demonstrate different
aspects of Darwin as a scientist.

Most of us teach the Beagle voyage in our introductory
courses as an entry to the topic of evolution.  In most
cases the emphasis is on the animals of the
Galapagos Islands.  The Beagle example I want to
develop focuses more on geology while integrating
plants and animals.  Darwin began the voyage in
1831, a recent graduate Cambridge University where
one of his most influential teachers was the geologist
Adam Sedgwick.  Sedgwick, one of the founders of
geology, proposed the Devonian Period of the newly
developing Geological Time Scale and staunchly
advocated the catastrophic theory.  That is,
geological formations resulted from of a series of
“Devine creative acts” over a long period of time.
One of the books Darwin brought on the voyage was
the recently published (1830) first volume of Lyell’s

The Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to
Explain the Former Changes of the Earth’s Surface,
by Reference to Causes now in Operation.  He
received subsequent volumes during the voyage
as they were published.  Lyell proposed an alternative
theory that came to be known as uniformitarianism.
Geological formations resulted from natural
processes and these processes re-occurred
gradually over a long period of time.  Land could rise
from the sea, even forming mountains, which in turn
eroded and flowed downstream to be re-deposited
as sediments on the sea floor.

In this early stage of his career, Darwin expressed
keen interest in geology, as evidenced by the content
of his notes and letters, particularly those concerning
the 8 extended overland expeditions he took in
South America (Barlow, 1934).  The 7

th

 expedition,

and the month preceding, are the focus of this case
study (Figure 1).  By late 1834 the Beagle rounded
the tip of South America and began charting the
coast of Chile.  On 20 February, 1835, he wrote:
“This day has been remarkable in the annals of
Valdivia for the most severe  earthquake which the
oldest inhabitants remember…I was on shore &
lying down in the wood to rest myself.  It came on
suddenly & lasted two minutes…The rocking most
sensible…There was no difficulty in standing upright;
but the motion made me giddy. – I can compare it
to skating on very thin ice or to the motion of a ship
in a little cross ripple…An earthquake like this at
once destroys the oldest associations; the world,
the very emblem of all that is solid, moves beneath
our feet like a crust over a fluid; one second of time
conveys to the mind a strange idea of insecurity,
which hours of reflection would never create…”
(Barlow, 1834, p 277).

Two weeks later they arrived to a sight of utter
destruction at the coastal city of Conception.
Darwin’s March 5

th

 description of the devastation

fills 6 pages - - one of the most extensive daily

Figure 1.  Darwin’s overland travels from Valparaiso to

Mendoza (7), from Barlow (1934)

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

entries in the diary.  Notably he mentions “During my
walk round the island I observed that numerous
fragments of rock, which form the marine
productions adhering to them must recently have
been lying in deep water, had been cast high up on
the beach.”  Captain Fitzroy was more explicit in his
notes: “It appeared that the southern extreme of the
island [of Santa Maria in Conception harbor] was
raised eight feet, the middle nine, and the northern
end upwards of ten feet.” (Fitzroy, 1839,p. 412)

Ten days later Darwin began his trail expedition to
cross the Andes from Valparaiso to Mendoza
(Argentina) via the old Spanish road across Portillo
Pass.  On March 21 he recorded: “The cordilleras in
this pass consist of two principal ridges, each of
which must be about 12,000 ft high … There was a
good deal of fancy even in this, for upon finding fossil
shells on the highest ridge, in my delight I entirely
forgot the Puna [mountain sickness].” (Barlow, 1834,
p 291-2).  Later, on his return via Uspallata Pass,
further to the north, he described a well-known
deposit of about 50 petrified (gymnosperm) tree
trunks, some standing upright and nearly7 feet tall
and 3-5 feet in circumference.  “It required little
geological practice to interpret the marvelous story,
which this scene at once unfolded; though I confess
I was at first so much astonished that I could
scarcely believe the plainest evidence of it.  I saw the
spot where a cluster of fine trees had once waved
their branches on the shores of the Atlantic, when
that ocean (now driven back 700 miles) approached
the base of the Andes.  I saw that they had sprung
from a volcanic soil which had been raised above
the level of the sea, and that this dry land, with its
upright trees, had subsequently been let down into
the depths of the ocean.  There it was covered by
sedimentary matter, and this again by enormous
streams of submarine lava-one such mass alone
attaining the thickness of a thousand feet; and
these deluges of melted stone and aqueous
deposits had been five times spread out alternately.
The ocean which received such masses must have
been deep: but again the subterranean forces exerted
their power, and I now beheld the bed of the sea
forming a chain of mountains more than seven
thousand feet in altitude.” (Darwin, 1962. p 333-4).

The above scenario illustrates Darwin’s powers of
observation and inductive reasoning ability.  Within
a month’s time Darwin experienced an earthquake,
witnessed a resulting 10 foot elevation of the land,
and saw “…shells which were once crawling on the
bottom of the sea, now standing nearly 14,000 feet
above its level” (Darwin, 1962, p. 322).  “Darwin then
traced the formation of mountains to a ‘succession
of shocks similar to those of Concepcion.’” (Herbert,
2005. P 226).  If this type of once-in-a lifetime
earthquake took place every hundred years, and
land elevation increased 10 feet with each such

quake, it is simple arithmetic to calculate a minimum
time required to raise marine shells 14,000 feet- -
40,000 years.  But evidence suggested that at least
5 cycles of land subsidence and re-emergence
occurred so the total time must conservatively
approach 0.7 million years.  Darwin’s observations
supported Lyell’s theory (and challenged  Bishop
Usher’s date for the creation - October 23, 4004 BC).

By the mid-1850s Darwin stood in the prime of his
career and enjoyed a highly regarded scientific
reputation.  Elected to the Royal Society, primarily for
his geological work, he received the Royal Society’s
Royal Medal in 1853 for his work on barnacles.  The
following year he was elected to the Linnean Society.
A wide-spread network of scientific correspondents
communicated with Darwin as he gathered evidence
for his new theory.  “In June 1842 I first allowed
myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract
of my theory in pencil in 35 pages; and this was
enlarged during the summer of 1844 into one of 230
pages, which I had fairly copied out and still
possess.”  (Darwin, 1898, p 68)  He shared the latter
manuscript with two of his closest confidants, Lyell
and the botanist Joseph Hooker.   In 1857 Darwin
sent it to the American botanist, Asa Gray for additional
review.  Thus, only a select group of eminent
colleagues were aware of his transmutation work.
Notable among Darwin’s less distinguished
correspondents was a young field collector, Alfred
Russell Wallace, which leads to a second story
much better known to biologists.

Wallace, born in Wales but with an itinerant
upbringing, came from a working class background
and was self-trained in science.  He possessed a
love of nature and was an avid plant collector but he
had none of the privileges of the scientific class.  By
chance he met a kindred spirit, Henry Walter Bates,
and the two set off to earn their living by collecting
specimens in the Amazon.  For Wallace, the
expedition ended in a disastrous shipwreck on his
return voyage.  Wallace lost hundreds of specimens
of new species,  his journals and notes - -  “all lost
with the ship.” (Browne, 2002, p. 28)  Like other early
naturalists/explorers he published an account of
his journey, but Travels on the Amazon and Rio
Negro (1853) did not recoup his losses.  Unlike
many travel narratives, including Darwin’s “Voyage
of the Beagle,” which became best sellers of the
day, “Travels…” was remaindered by the publisher.
Wallace set out again to collect, but this time to
Southeast Asia.  In 1855 Darwin, who was always
interested in information and specimens from the
tropics, initiated a correspondence with Wallace.
Darwin read a borrowed copy of Wallace’s book,
and made a few notes in his journal. Thus he knew
of Wallace and saw an opportunity to add to his
network of correspondents and collectors.   It was
thus to Darwin, the only eminent scientist of Wallace’s

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

acquaintance, that an infamous letter was posted
from Ternate in 1858.

Like Darwin, Wallace took a copy of Lyell’s “Geology”
with him on his expedition along with a copy of
Darwin’s “Voyage.” Both men were familiar with
Malthus’ “Principles of Population.”  Now, sick with
fever in the Malay Archipelago, Wallace penned a
letter outlining a self-acting process through which
competition between individuals of a large and
growing population would result in a gradual
increase in those varieties having more favorable
variations. “It is the object of the present paper to
show…that there is a general principle in nature
which will cause many varieties to survive the parent
species, and to give rise to successive variations
departing further and further from the original
type…The superior varieties…would now have
replaced the species, of which it would be a more
perfectly adapted and more highly organized form.”
(Wallace, 1858).   The accompanying note requested
Darwin to send the letter on to Lyell (for possible
publication) if he (Darwin) thought it was sufficiently
interesting.

Figure 2.  Burlington House, home of the Linnean

Society today.  In Darwin’s day the Society had rooms

in the central section of the building accessible through

the large arched portal on the right.

What was Darwin to do? In a few pages Wallace
virtually summarized the 240 page unpublished
manuscript Darwin wrote 14 years earlier.  On 18
June Darwin wrote to Lyell: “If Wallace had my MS
sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made
a better short abstract!”  (Darwin, 1858a)   A week
later in a second letter to Lyell he wrote:  “It seems
hard on me that I should be thus compelled to lose
my priority of many years standing, but I cannot feel
at all sure that this alters the justice of the case.”
(Darwin, 1858b)  Darwin and Wallace had
independently arrived at a virtually identical theory of
natural selection.    Darwin spent decades gathering

additional support for his version and circulated it in
written form to only a few trusted colleagues – in
confidence.  Wallace only now developed the idea
but immediately wrote a draft and sent it off to be
considered for publication.  The compromise
solution, worked out by Lyell and Hooker, was
worthy of King Solomon.  Both Darwin’s earlier
manuscript and his letter to Gray would be presented
along with Wallace’s letter to the Linnean Society on
1 July, 1858, to thereby establish joint priority (Figure
2).  Gentlemanly and scientific ethics would be
maintained (Transcriptions are available on the
Linnean Society website – see Wallace below).
This is the story we know and tell and it illustrates
Darwin’s concern for propriety and scientific ethics.
What is not so well known is that this was not a
regular Linnean Society meeting but an extra one to
read papers postponed from the 17 June meeting.
The Darwin/Wallace paper was a last minute
addition, included at the insistence of Hooker and
Lyell who communicated the paper.  Wallace was
still in Ternate and Darwin was sick at home.
“Hooker recorded ‘The interest excited was intense,
but the subject too novel and too ominous for the old
school to enter the lists before armouring.’  A few
months later in his Presidential Address [Thomas]
Bell …could only say of the period during which he
had served the [Linnean] Society that it had not
‘been marked by any of those striking discoveries
which at once revolutionize, so to speak, the
department of science on which they bear’” (Smith,
1982.)

The third vignette, from the end of his life,
demonstrates Darwin’s deductive abilities, probably
strongly assisted by his son, Francis.  (See review
of Ayres’ Aliveness of Plants in this issue.)  Most
textbooks show the experiments Darwin used to
demonstrate that the tip of a grass coleoptile is
sensitive to light and results in phototrophic
curvature.  Removing the tip, or covering it with an
opaque cap, prohibits bending but a transparent
cover permits the phototrophic response (Figure 3).
What is not mentioned is that these are but a few of
the phototropism experiments performed by the
Darwin’s and reported in The Power of Movement
in Plants (1881, pp 468-483).  A total of 13
experimental treatments were applied to Phalaris
Canariensis, their main experimental organism.
“Finally, although there can be no doubt that the
illumination of the upper part of the cotyledons of
Phalaris greatly affects the power and manner of
bending of the lower part….our experiments were
not conclusive, owing to the difficulty of excluding
light from the lower halves without mechanically
preventing their curvature.”  (Darwin, 1881, p. 477)
To test the generality of their observations they
repeated some of the experiments on Avena sativa
cotyledons,  Brassica oleracea hypocotyls, Beta
vulgaris hypocotyls, and radicles of Sinapsis alba.

2 7

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Figure 3. Wheat seedlings illustrating Darwin’s

phototropism experiments.   A control plant, upper

left, and four treatments as described by Darwin:

decaptiated; foil-covered, glass-covered with and

without India ink covering.

The message for students is that Darwin became
an expert experimenter.  Careful observations led
to experimentally testable hypotheses.  More
importantly, he  analyzed experimental results
skeptically – is there another possible interpretation
and if so, how can it be tested?

Beyond authoring “The Origin…” and becoming an
icon of evolution, Darwin is the master model for
science as a way of knowing and is therefore a
most appropriate “poster child” for the Year of
Science, 2009.

Literature Cited
Ayres, Peter.  2008. The Aliveness of Plants: The
Darwins at the Dawn of Plant Science.   London:
Pickering & Chatto.

Barlow, Nora (Editor from the MS).  1934.  Charles
Darwin’s diary of the voyage of H.M.S. “Beagle”
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Browne, Janet.  2002.  Charles Darwin: The power
of place.  London: Jonathan Cape.

Darwin, Charles. 1858a.  Letter to Lyell.  

http://

www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/
entry-2285.html

 (accessed 23 January, 2009)

Darwin, Charles.  1858b.  Letter to Lyell. 

http://

www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/
entry-2295.htmlTranscription

 (accessed 23

January, 2009)

Darwin, Charles, assisted by Francis Darwin.  1881.
The Power of movement in plants.  New York: D.
Appleton and Company.

Darwin, Charles (annotated and with an introduction
by Leonard Engel).  1962.  The voyage of the Beagle.
New York: Doubleday and Company.

Darwin, Francis (Ed.) 1898.  The life and letters of
Charles Darwin: Including an autobiographical
chapter. Volume 1.  New York: D. Appleton and
Company.

Fitzroy, Robert.   1839.  Narrative of the surveying
voyages of his majesty’s ships Adventure and Beagle;
Volume 2.  Proceedings of the Second Expedition,
1831-1836, under the Command of Captain Robert
Fitz-Roy.  London: Henry Colburn.

Herbert, Sandra. 2005.  Charles Darwin, Geologist.
Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.

Jernstedt, Judy.  2009.  Foreword from the Editor-in-
Chief.  American Journal of Botany 96(1): 1-2.

Smith, K.G.V. 1982.  Charles Darwin & the Linnean
Society.  The Linnean Society of London.  News
Items, Spring 1982.

Wallace, Alfred Russell.  1853.  A narrative of travels
on the Amazon and Rio Negro.  London.

Wallace, Alfred Russell.  1858  On the Tendency of
Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original
Type.  

http://www.linnean.org/index.php?id=380

(Accessed 23 January, 2009)

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Books Reviewed

Developmental/Structural

Fluorescing World of Plant Secreting Cells.  Roshchina, Victoria V. - 

Nina L.

 Baghai-Riding.......................................................................................................29

Ecological

Ecology.  Cain, Michael L., William D. Bowman, and Sally D. Hacker, - Joyce Phillips
Hardy........................................................................................................................................................30

Plants and Vegetation: Origins, Processes, Consequences.  Keddy, Paul A. 

- Sean

Hoban.................................................................................................................32

Economic Botany

Burdock.  Malcolm, Janet. - Carolyn Wetzel......................................................................................34

Gardens and Cultural Change: A Pan-American Perspective.  Conan,  Michel and Jefferey
Quilter (eds.).- Joanne M. Sharpe........................................................................................................35

Tea Roses: Old Roses for Warm Gardens.  Chapman, Lynne, Noelene Drage, Di Durston,
Jenny Jones, Hillary Merrifield, Billy West. - Lawrence Davis........................................................36

Genetics

Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy.  Franklin, Allan, A.W. F. Edwards, Daniel J.
Fairbanks, Daniel L. Hartl, and Teddy Seidenfeld. 

- Lawrence Davis........................................37

Genetic Glass Ceilings: Transgenics for Crop Biodiversity.  Gressel, Jonathan. -
Lawrence Davis......................................................................................................................................39

Historical

The Aliveness of Plants: The Darwins at the Dawn of Plant Science.  Ayres, Peter. -
Marshall D. Sundberg............................................................................................................................40

Systematic

Biology and Evolution of Ferns and Lycophytes.  Ranker, Tom A. and Christopher H. Haufler.-
Linda Graham..........................................................................................................................................41

California’s Fading Wildfowers: Lost Legacy and Biological Invasions.  Minnich, Richard A. -
 -Adrienne Leigh Edwards............................................................................................................................

42

Cycads of Vietnam. Osborn, Roy, Ken D. Hill, Hiep T. Nguyen, and Loc Phan Ke. 

 - James P.

Riser II.................................................................................................................43

Field Guide to the Wild Orchids of Texas, Brown,  Paul Martin, artwork by Stan Folsom. - Nancy
Cowden....................................................................................................................................................44

The Names of Plants, ed. 4.  Gledhill, David, - John Strother........................................................45

2 9

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Fluorescing World of Plant Secreting Cells  .
Roshchina,  Victoria V.   2008, ISBN 9-781578
085156, 338 pages, (hardcover US $98.60), Science
Publishers, Enfield, New Hampshire, USA, an
imprint of Edenbridge Ltd. British Isles.

Autofluorescence occurs in many living cells and
tissues including microbials, animals, and plants
when excited by ultraviolet or violet irradiation.
Stereomicroscopy of luminescence tissues and
cells are especially attractive and distinct and have
become a separate method of cellular analysis in
many biological applications. For example,
autofluorescence endoscopy has been used in
assorted biomedicine applications such as
differentiating between normal and cancerous
animal tissues, looking at eye corneas with regards
to diabetes, and gastrointestinal malfunctions.
Fluorescent proteins found in sea animals also are
used in genetic engineering.  Despite many
achievements with regards to luminescence
microscopy, little has been published about the
compounds that contribute to autofluorescence of
living organisms.

‘Fluorescent World of Plant Secreting Cells’, written
by Victoria V. Roshchina, summarizes information
on autofluorescence of plant secretory cells as
possible bioindicators and biosensors.  She also
provides practical applications of confocal
microscopy and microspectrofluorimetry that can
be applied at many universities and laboratories.
Roshchina is regarded as one of the world’s
authorities on cell fluorescence, having published
more than 63 papers on this topic.  Her book
contains seven main chapters that possess major
themes and subheadings.  At the end of the book
are two appendices including a glossary of biological
terms and color photographs of secretory cells, a
useful bibliography, a taxonomic plant (Latin) index,
and a subject index.

Chapter 1 provides a synopsis of the characteristics
of fluorescence cells, their placement in plant
tissues, techniques used to study autofluorescence,
and roles of fluorescent structures such as attracting
insect pollinators, aiding in defense against
parasites and pests, and transmitting chemosignals
from one to cell to another.  Special attention is given
to secondary metabolites that are present in
secretory cells of various plant species and their
color of fluorescence.  Excellent tables are provided
including the fluorescence maxima of substances
in organs of plant taxa and the autofluorescence of
organisms that are associated with plants including
fungal spores, ticks, spiders, and cyanobacteria.   In
this chapter and throughout the book, Roshchina
notes that particular compounds contribute to
fluorescent intensities: phenols, flavins, alkaloids,

quinines, polyacetylenes, terpenoids, and
coumarins.

Differences in the fluorescence of external
(trichomes, hydathodes, and nectaries) and internal
secretory cells (laticifers, resin ducts, and idioblasts)
among spore and seed-bearing plants is the major
theme of Chapter 2.  More than 141 species are
discussed regarding their type of secreting cells
and secretions and fluorescence maxima.  Many
examples are given that show how fluorescence
colors vary within a plant as well as throughout its
life history.  For example, Roshchina discussed
how 1) secretory cells associated with seeds and
leaves of Thuja  occidentalis possessed different
emissions, 2) capitate and non-capitate trichomes
on the same leaf of Calendula officinalis had different
fluorescence maxima, and 3) the pigment
composition and maxima in the fluorescence
spectra of intact pollen grains of Philadelphus
grandiflorus varied with maturation.

 The third chapter discusses particular aspects of
fluorescing secreting surfaces and compounds
that are contained in secretory cells.  Topics
discussed include crystal excretions on root and
leaf surfaces, exine, intine, and cytoplasm of
sporopollenin, extracts of organic solvents
produced by bud scales, flower petals, and leaves,
and secondary metabolites including flavonoids,
phenols, and terpenoids. She notes that factors
associated with fluorescence are governed by
temperature, pH of medium, the chemical nature of
the compound, and the ability of the external
chemical to oxidize or reduce the fluorescence
substance.

Chapter 4 explores further as to how secretory
structures change throughout their development in
spore and seed-bearing plants.  For example, bud
scales of Alnus,  Betula and Populus fill up with
resin-like secretions that give off a bright blue-
yellow luminescence in the early spring but this
luminescence disappears when the bud scales
drop and the young leaves emerge.  Roshchina
mentioned that this secretory function may be
associated with protecting primordial leaves from
pest and late frost damage.   Additionally, she noted
that oil cells and ducts, glandular trichomes, and
salt-containing glands alter in autofluorescence
during a plant’s development which may reflect
alterations in a composition and/or redox state of
accumulated secondary products.

Interactions between cells of the same plant species
or among different species related to fluorescent
signaling is the focus of Chapter 5.  Roshchina
mentioned that pollen-pistil contact at fertilization,
root-seedling contacts, pollen-pollen interaction

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Ecology.  Cain, Michael L., William D. Bowman, and
Sally D. Hacker.  2008.  ISBN 978-0-87893-083-8.
Casebound.  US $107.95.  552 pp.  Sinauer
Associates, Inc., P.O. Box 407, Sunderland MA
01375.

Ecology begins with physical environment and
biosphere characteristics that influence living
systems.  This text is exemplary in providing this
often-neglected information, as well as explaining
why this knowledge is important in the study of
ecology.  Evolution is woven throughout, and is
introduced in a stand-alone chapter (6).  Populations
follow, with excellent discussions of life histories,
population distributions and abundance, growth
and regulation, and dynamics.  The third unit
separates competition, predation and herbivory,
parasitism, and mutualism/commensalism from
the fourth unit on communities.  Change is a theme
throughout the book, and is carried into the sections
on communities.  A chapter is dedicated to
biogeography.  The ecosystem unit includes
production (oceanic to global patterns of net primary
production, plus secondary production), energy
flow, and nutrient cycling.   The final unit on applied
and large-scale ecology addresses conservation,
ecosystem management/landscape ecology, and
global ecology.  Three chapters were guest-written
by other authors, although the style of writing and
chapter format remain consistent.

Ecology textbook authors strive to achieve the perfect
balance between content and book length.  The
exponential explosion of ecological understanding
handicaps authors as they strive to be both concise
and complete.  Cain, Bowman, and Hacker
recognized this challenge, and developed as their
guiding writing principles “Teaching Comes First”
and “Less is More.”

“Teaching Comes First” is unmistakably manifested
throughout the textbook.  Chapters are clearly
organized in an outline format with highlighted key
concepts.  The chapter subheadings are actually
colored boxes reiterating these key concepts.   The
opening for each chapter is a “case study,” a
quandary that ecologists dealt with, with a
description of the background information needed
to understand the problem and the resulting
questions that arose from the particular issue.
Examples of case studies include Frozen Frogs
(Coping with Environmental Variation chapter),
Nemo Grows Up (Life History Analyses chapter),
Carnivorous plants (Competition chapter), and Killer
Algae (Nature of Communities chapter).  Questions
are often posed at the end of these starting blocks.
The chapter then delves into the theories
surrounding that case study, although the case
study is only occasionally mentioned.  At the end of

(stimulating or inhibiting pollen tube growth), and
microbial parasites entering leaf sheaths of
economically important grass species, all exhibited
changes in fluorescence.  Cell-acceptor or signal-
stimulus responses commonly cause the recipient
to generate a secreting substance that may be a
protein, lipid, oxidant, or antioxidant.  These
mechanisms may be of interest to biochemists and
physicists.

Chapter 6 discusses how fluorescent secretory
cells have the potential of making pharmaceutical
drugs, determining cell viability, and monitoring
ecological disturbance without performing tissue
homogenizations and long-biochemical
manipulations.  Emphasis is given to secretory
cells within microspores of Equisetum arvense and
assorted species of angiosperm pollen that are
capable of responding to ozone fluctuations,
peroxides, and stress.  Charts, graphs, and
reactions showing substrates and products clearly
depict treated and untreated situations.

The final chapter examines how some fluorescent
secretory compounds such as sesquiterpene
lactones and alkaloids may be used as histological
stains in studying intercellular and intracellular
interactions.  Most of the secretory compounds
used in these studies were of weedy angiosperms
and/or medicinal or poisonous pharmaceutical
plants.   In many instances, secretory compounds
are able to bind with ATPase, cyclic AMP, contractile
proteins, nucleic acids and lipids causing them to
fluorescence under the irradiation of ultra-violet
light, therefore, showing the location of particular
structures.

The field of fluorescing cells is a dynamic field.  This
book provides a good basis of understanding plant
secreting cells. Throughout the book there are
overlapping themes, misspelled words, and word
spacing errors.  Data contained in this book,
however, will remain pertinent for years to follow.
This book is an excellent reference for professionals,
researchers, and advanced students that are
interested in ecology, plant science, criminology,
and luminescence microscopy.

-Nina L. Baghai-Riding, Division of Biological and
Physical Sciences, Delta State University

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

the chapter, the reader comes full circle back to the
case study for a clear understanding of the
application of these theories and concepts to the
understanding (and perhaps solving) of the issue.
Woven throughout the highly readable narrative are
scientific processes of study, the iterative nature of
scientific discovering, and the impact of human
action.  Chapter summaries and conceptual
problems follow.  The chapters end with suggested
readings that provide not only citations but also a
brief discussion of why that particular reading is
suggested.  The authors succeeded in aligning this
book with the principle “Teaching Comes First.”

“Less is More” is less evident in this book, thankfully.
The amount of information in each chapter is
significant.   For example, the book begins by setting
the physical frameworks for life on earth….which
includes an amazing discussion of climate,
atmospheric and oceanic circulation, etc.  A unit on
the biosphere follows, with an excellent case study
on Pleistocene diversity on the North American
Great Plains as compared with current Serengeti
plains.   A detailed discussion of photosynthesis,
including leaf development responses to light
intensity and photosynthetic responses to
temperature, is quite extensive for a general ecology
textbook.  A discussion of photosynthetic pathways
follows, and then flows into mechanisms animals
use to cope with environmental variation in food
sources.   This book is literally packed full of example
following example for the presented key concepts.
Illustrations and examples model all life forms,
including human.  Global information is presented
alongside regional (on the same page one can find
a rainfall/temperature chart from Denison Nebraska
USA coupled with a picture of the Altai Plateau in
Russia; later the reader finds photographs on
Corophium volutator-created tidal mudflats and the
consequence of Corophium-parasitism on these
physical structures facing a page with a figure on
disease frequency in Romania before and after
vaccination, for example).    In striving for
conciseness, many textbooks jettison the use of
numerous examples to show how a concept works
across multiple organisms or differing ecological
scale.  Fortunately, these authors chose not to
minimize conceptual examples, and thus perhaps
failed to fulfill their “Less is More” principle.

The authors also had two major goals – to provide
the right emphasis with the right degree of difficulty,
and to ensure integration of ecological functioning
across multiple levels.  Perhaps the reason the
authors so fully achieve the “right emphasis” goal
is their lack of achieving the “less is more” principle.
The abundance and diversity of examples within the
book succeed in articulating common principles
across multiple scales of view.  These fascinating

stories clearly reveal the connectedness of the
world in which we live and the commonality of
processes across multiple ecological scales.
These two concepts are very important for students
to not only know but to understand and be able to
articulate.   A narrative presentation style ensures
that the content is well-integrated and “flows,” while
the case study recapitulation at the end of the
chapter brings student learning full circle.  This
book’s straight-forward, captivating style of
presentation should lead students to a more
sophisticated level of comprehension.

The strengths of this book are many:  clearly
understood narration; significant detail and
examples for each concept;  well-researched
examples across multiple life forms, habitats, and
ecological scales;  informative and excellent
illustrations, diagrams, and photographs;  recent
and pertinent examples;  interwoven discussions
on scientific processes of discovery;  a detailed and
well-illustrated introduction to the physical
processes that shape individual, population,
community, and ecosystem characteristics and
functionalities, etc.

The criticisms of this book are much fewer.   The
narrative writing style is a bit distracting for this
traditional reader….and as I push my undergraduate
students to write in technical style, this book (with
sentences beginning with “It” and “There”) will not
be a good example for them to model.   However, I
think my students would actually read and learn
from this textbook, so that may be an acceptable
concession.  The book is highly detailed, providing
exactly the types of examples I bring to the classroom
to explain the concepts for my students.  If the book
provides these examples, I would have to modify my
lectures to complement the book ….which again
may be a lucrative trade.   This is not a highly
mathematical book.  Some formulae are presented
(population growth, etc.), but very little on quantitative
ecology techniques and interpretation.  These would
need to be presented in an accompanying laboratory,
if one considered quantitative techniques an
essential part of the initial undergraduate ecology
course.  Perhaps the online problem sets could be
incorporated into the class discussions.

Would my students gain from using this textbook?
Absolutely.   Would they have a more useful
understanding of ecological processes?
Absolutely.  Would I need to change how my ecology
course is structured to accommodate this book?
Definitely.

- Joyce Phillips Hardy, Department of Physical and
Life Sciences, Chadron State College, Nebraska.
69337

3 2

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Plants and Vegetation: Origins, Processes,
Consequences.  Keddy, Paul A.  2008.  ISBN 978-
0-521-86480-0 (Cloth US$75.00)  683 pp.
Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY 10013.

This remarkable text presents plant ecology with an
approach that is both intellectually rigorous and
stimulating.  Certainly other plant ecology books
have covered the subject matter, and indeed this is
not the only one you will ever need, but few will be as
delightful and enlightening.  Its noteworthy quality is
the author’s deliberate decision to not just write a
reference book, but to present an engaging
conversation with the reader.  While rich in detail and
examples, the emphasis is less on dogma and
memorization and more about exploring. Overall,
Plants and Vegetation is lively and interdisciplinary,
and is most useful for immersing students into the
discovery of plant ecology. In this review I will first
present three principal merits this text has over most
ecology text books, then describe the content, and
close with some of the negative aspects of the book.
The first strength of the book is that every topic is
presented not only in theory but through dozens of
field experiments.  Most often the field studies (mostly
from primary literature of the past four decades) are
presented in brief, but some include experimental
design, controls and treatments, scope, and
caveats.  Occasionally a long excerpt from the original
paper is given to provide insight into scientific
argument.  In some cases the author outlines an
approach to take, such as how to design herbivore
exclusion experiments, or the difficulties of studying
plant-fungal interactions.  Therefore the reader is
immersed not only in details but in the scientific
process, a rare feat for a textbook.  The scope of
these examples is marvelous: hundreds of plant
species and genera and many habitats around the
world, including oddities like epiphytes, parasites,
and carnivorous plants.  Extreme, unique, and exotic
environments are also frequently drawn from,
including South African desert, the Guyana
Highlands of South America, arctic alpine
environments, and peat bogs.  The end result is an
exposure to real ecological phenomena which
highlight key trends and processes.

A second major strength is that the author does not
stop at description but often presents several
alternative explanations for these trends, and
emphasizes that our explorations are still ongoing.
The author repeatedly notes areas for which evidence
is weak, what the difficulties are in studying them,
and notes “the fine opportunities available for (the
student) who is willing to learn.” The author poses
challenges to the reader, such as to apply a concept
to local plant communities the reader may be familiar
with. He advises “Consider that it may be most

profitable to focus your attention on an area that is
little known, rather than looking for problems that
are currently popular.” Further, he provides criticism
of some of the historical trends in ecology, and
cautions against what he calls an “intellectual
coitus interruptus.”  Because of this angle, and the
wealth of examples, advice, and opportunities, the
book may be useful not only to newer students but
seasoned scientists who wish to expand or enliven
their research program.

A third, and perhaps the most striking, strength is
the author’s extensive forays into history of science
(Raunkiaer’s exploration of plant communities),
biography (Fritz Haber of the Haber Bosch process),
early scientific writings (Antoine Lavoisier),
philosophy (Plato), scientific argument (Clements
and Gleason) and world history (deforestation of
the Mediterranean region).  While the longer asides
are neatly set in Boxes, the immersion in tangential
subjects is unavoidable, which is sure to spark
mixed reactions from readers. This interdisciplinary
approach is more extensive than any textbook I
have read, and is a balance that some would say
is sorely needed in modern science, while other
readers will revolt against it.  To me, the broad
mindedness of this book encouraged an application
of scientific processes to the real world, an
understanding of non-scientific principles, and an
appreciation of the countless efforts that came
before us and on whose knowledge we build.  This
would be useful to any student of ecological
processes (plant or animal), conservation biology,
or ecosystem management, as well as a casual
reader interested in the interface between science,
the liberal arts, and larger societal issues.

As to content, the subtitle--Origins, Processes and
Consequences--is accurate.  After a review of
classification systems (Chapter 2), the bulk of the
book devotes one chapter each to: resources,
stress, competition, disturbance, herbivory,
mutualism, succession, community structure,
diversity, and conservation.  Some chapters are
stronger than others.  For example, Chapter 3, on
resources, is a nicely balanced examination of
resource distributions, gradients, limitations, and
fluctuations. The author has an admirable
knowledge of evolutionary biology and inorganic
chemistry, which are referred to throughout.  In
keeping with the author’s vast knowledge base and
brief historical digressions, I learned of Darwin’s
1881 treatise on earthworms and of the Roman
siege and conquest of Carthage after which the soil
was plowed with salt.  Chapter 4, on stress, is
systematic, clear, and also satisfying.  The author
balances the discussions in long (evolutionary
adaptations) and short time scales (impacts on
community composition).  However, the reader will

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Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

still feel shortchanged--he first major shortcoming
of the book is paucity of individual plant physiological
responses to stress, to which the author offers
further suggested reading.

Chapters 5 through 8 turn the same systematic
approach to competition, disturbance, herbivory
and mutualism (and commensalism).  The author
presents definitions of each, acknowledges
alternate definitions and understandings, gives
useful and engaging examples, synthesizes
material from previous chapters, and shows how
simpler ideas and models have been built upon.
The author frequently iterates the connections
between separate chapters, for example, the
relationship between the resources available
(Chapter 3) and succession and community
structure (Chapters 8 and 9).  I especially
compliment the author on examining these
processes across a broad spectrum of area and
intensity, comparing different sites and processes
at different scales, including “gradients of
topography, flooding, fire-frequency, soil fertility,
and altitude.”  As with much of the book, the author
is honest in presenting various and competing
views on a subject and some of the difficulties
scientists confront when examining these topics.
The second shortcoming of the book comes in
Chapters 7 and 8, where coevolution, pollination
and seed dispersal are all noted as principal
aspects of plant ecology, but are then given scant
attention.  Decomposition and molecular ecology
were also hardly mentioned.  Ideally, each of these
topics warrants another chapter all to itself.  The
reader will have to turn to other texts for a more
complete exploration. (The author does list key
references in each chapter for further reading.)
Chapters 9-12 emphasize change, community
structure, and conservation biology.   Chapter 9
concerns time, particularly succession, and is an
excellent synthesis of the previous 4 chapters.
However, the sections on the origin of angiosperms
and continental drift seemed out of place, and were
too brief to be satisfying.  Similarly, the section on
glaciations cycles were too simply presented,
overlooking recent findings in molecular ecology.
Chapter 10 presents the useful tools of classification
and ordination.  His objective “was not to authorize
you to carry out different kinds of gradient analysis,
but rather to equip you to understand research
papers… (and) to advise those of you who use such
tools to do so wisely”.  The final 100 pages, on
diversity and conservation, include descriptions of
causes and consequences of diversity, tools for
measuring diversity, detailed critiques of specific
case studies, and rigorous rather than vague
guidelines for conservation management.  The
stories of the cypress swamps in the Louisiana

delta and the tortoise species in the Galapagos
Islands are quite poignant and contemporary.

Other weaknesses of the book are quite apparent,
but none are serious enough to counterbalance the
usefulness of the book.  The lack of color
photographs was at first a disappointment,
especially considering the great variety of habitats
and species presented in the book.  However, the
figures in this book are very practical, and are meant
to reinforce, explain, or expand on the text, not to be
a pretty picture.  The use of multicolor, 3D images
in most modern textbooks provides an attractive
picture but can be both distracting and confusing.
On the whole, graphs, diagrams, or sketches are
abundant, simple, and informative (and are often
adapted from primary literature).  There is no
glossary, and definitions are few, which is also a
deviation from many textbooks.  However,
explanations of processes are rich, detailed, and
cohesive, and topics are tied together so well that
a motivated student will rarely if ever flounder.  It
must be noted that by no means is this book a
modeling book.  The few presentations of ecological
models (i.e. herbivory, models of succession, and
cost-benefit models) are easy to understand, but
are generally somewhat superficial.  A final
weakness is the largely unnecessary Chapter 1, a
cursory and disjointed summary of the origins of
life, the endosymbiotic theory, colonization of land,
and atmospheric changes. These seem
unnecessary, as this is taught in high school, and
I believe any reader will be quite bored.

Overall, this is a surprisingly easy to read,
remarkably thorough, and balanced textbook.  The
author has focused less on exhausting every aspect
of plant ecology and more on creating a critical,
engaging, multi-disciplinary, and pragmatic
approach to some major aspects.  Further, the
author shows a great appreciation for older literature
and for the benefits of studying novel and unique
habitats, rather than just those in Europe and North
America.  The ultimate goal of the book seems to be
to instruct and to train plant ecologists, and in this
it will be successful.  Plants and Vegetation is
therefore an excellent teaching tool, but not an
exhaustive reference, for plant ecology.

-Sean Hoban, University of Notre Dame.

3 4

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Burdock. Malcolm, Janet. 2008. ISBN 978-0-300-
12861-1 (US $65.00 cloth), Yale University Press:
New Haven, CT. 64 pages, 27 color illustrations.

This book review is written from two frames of
reference. My first impression was based on an
initial perspective of the book as it stands alone. The
second was a more informed view after attending
an exhibit of Richard Avedon’s photographs, who
was one of the main inspirations for the author. In
both cases the book left me disappointed.

When I first received the book I opened it with
anticipation, expecting from its title a compendium
of the interesting history and facts about Burdock
(Arctium spp.). I’ve taught about Burdock to both
General Botany and Plant Physiology students (the
inspiration for Velcro, its purported medicinal value,
etc.). I’ve cleaned Burdock burrs out of my dog’s hair
and my hiking boot laces. When I first saw the book
title I thought, “What a great idea for someone to
write a book about this common but interesting
plant!” Leafing through the book what I found was a
series of untitled full-page photographs of single
Burdock leaves, cut and standing in a vial of water
against a blank background. “What is this?” I
thought. Backtracking and reading the two page
introduction, I learned that the author had spent
three summers in the Berkshires (rural area in
Western Massachusetts) and while out walking
each day she would collect roadside Burdock leaves
to photograph. She set up a small attic studio in her
house and would put the leaves in water to let them
revive and “come to attention and into their own”
(Introduction, p. 2) before recording them in a
photograph. She chose leaves that showed the
ravages of time; ragged, dirty, insect-damaged,
which to her were more interesting than young
undamaged leaves. Her inspirations for the format
were Richard Avedon’s (1923-2004) portraits of
people and illustrations from old herbals. I was
familiar with some of Avedon’s iconic images and
with herbals, so with a more informed eye I looked
through the photographs again. Still a series of
leaves in vials. Nice green color, some interesting
patterns from disease or insects, but the
photographs still did not stir me. And I was not at all
reminded of illustrations from herbals.

Thinking that I was just lacking in art criticism
experience, I took the book along with me when I
went to visit some friends in the greater Washington,
D.C., area because one of them is a professional
artist and art teacher (Marc Robarge). His opinion
concurred with mine. Then he said, “You might want
to visit the Corcoran Gallery, they have a large
Avedon exhibit going on right now.” What a great
coincidence! I spent several wonderful hours
wandering the galleries of the exhibit “Richard

Avedon: Portraits of Power” (running Sept 13, 2008-
Jan 25, 2009). It was inspiring, moving, and amazing,
due to the impressive power of the photographs, the
people and events that were documented through
a long time period, and the scale of the photographs.
“The Chicago Seven” took up a whole wall in a
gallery, greater-than-life size. Charlie Chaplin, on
the eve of being exiled from the United States,
displayed a comic bravado that did not conceal his
bitterness, captured in turbulent detail by Avedon. I
tried to imagine a Malcolm Burdock leaf photograph
alongside Avedon’s “Roger Baldwin, founder,
American Civil Liberties Union, New York” (1976).
It would be completely out of its league.

Both artists framed their subjects in a similar way.
Against a blank white background the subject of the
photograph is decontextualized, that is, removed
from any context that would influence our
interpretation of the image and that leaves the
subject under stark scrutiny. In the case of Avedon’s
photographs, the subjects are humans so we have
an innate sense of scale and relationship to the
emotional cues on their faces. In the photographs
of Burdock leaves, we are observing “otherness”
and most people lack any familiarity with the subject
that would evoke emotion (except familiarity with the
burrs, which are not in the photographs). My artist
friend Marc commented that he had no idea that the
leaves were up to two feet long until he read the
Introduction – all sense of scale is missing in the
photographs. There are several other major
differences between Malcolm’s Burdock
photographs and Avedon’s human photographs.
Malcolm uses soft color while most of Avedon’s
portraits are rich black-and-white. Her photographs
have a shallow depth-of-field rendering parts of the
leaf out of focus, while Avedon’s are sharply focused
images. Granted, his earlier work did have soft-
focused edges, but most of his career he used a
large-format camera and every detail down to skin
pores, wrinkles, and fabric weave is crystal-clear.
However, the greatest difference between the two is
in motivation and the choice of subject. Avedon
documented people and events that are meaningful
to a wide audience, even out of context. Malcolm
published a photographic journal of her three
summers in the Berkshires collecting Burdock
leaves. I’m glad she enjoyed herself, but I doubt
many if any readers will find much meaning in the
leaf portraits lacking the context of Malcolm’s own
experience with them.

There are a few leaf images that are esthetically
pleasing enough to imagine hanging on the wall,
but none are better than average professional close-
up photographs. Aside from the content, the quality
of the book is excellent with heavy pages and a firm
binding.

3 5

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Gardens and Cultural Change: A Pan-American
Perspective.  Edited by Michel Conan and Jefferey
Quilter. 2007.  ISBN: 978-0-88402-330-2. 110 pages.
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
and Spacemaker Press, Washington, D. C.

The goal of a Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium in
Garden History in 2003 was to engage
anthropologists and archaeologists throughout the
Americas in a discussion of the historic and current
links between garden construction and cultural
change.  Although the editors admit that this
ambitious goal was not quite realized, the book
contains five interesting and very different papers
more or less on this subject from Argentina, Mexico,
the Caribbean and New York that present a hint of
what can be learned from studying the history of
gardens from an economic and political perspective.

 From Argentina come two studies. Sonia Berjman
traces the history of promenades and parks in
Buenos Aires from 1580 to the present, tracking the
Spanish original love for plazas, especially as sites
for bullrings, followed by park plans influenced by
European models, which led to the somewhat
gloomy assessment of present-day parks that reflect
modern urbanization, paving and privatization of
historic parklands and limited accessibility. Daniel
Shavelzon follows a specific Buenos Aires area
park, Palermo, which had started as the consciously
non-European home of  Juan Manuel de Rosas, the
governor of Argentina in the early 1800s.  The
buildings were destroyed, landscaping removed
and land use changed over time as each new leader
sought to impose his own ideas (and statue) on the
landscape.

 Parks are also the subject of Rachel Iannacone’s
discussion of early 20th century efforts in New York
to provide small parks throughout crowded areas of

New York City as public health measures.  These
small spaces were first designed as “picturesque”
landscaped areas where fences kept people from
all but the sidewalks lined with benches.  After
considerable controversy, these parks and others
only gradually began to incorporate areas such as
children’s playgrounds, gymnasiums and even
vegetable gardens maintained by a local farm
school.

The actual form of gardens and their role in the
economics and culture of the wetlands of the Valley
of Mexico is documented by Saul Alcantara Onofre.
Chinampas were ingenious rectangular garden
plots about 20 feet wide and 40 or so feet long and
were built by native populations of the area long
before the appearance of the Spanish in the
sixteenth century.  They were constructed by layering
vegetation from the wetlands and muck from the
bottom and could be moved around on the
waterways.  Incredibly fertile, they were used to
grow shrubs, vegetables and flowers which were
harvested and moved along waterways by small
boat directly to the center of Mexico City.  Gradual
encroachment by the urban areas of Mexico City,
draining of wetlands and diversion of water to
Mexico City has today greatly reduced the number
of these cultivated rafts.

Catherine Benoit addresses the economic role of
gardens as sources of food and private space for
slaves on Central American plantations.  Although
enslaved Africans did not design the layouts of
plantations, they were responsible for building
their own housing and could to some extent control
their plantings, often using plants and customs
from their native lands.  This resulted in a unique
Creole garden culture which outlived the plantation
era and can be seen in urbanized areas in many
parts of the Carribbean and the Americas today.

So, the book contains five well-referenced historical
accounts, each of which is interesting, but the
whole can not really be summarized.  The book’s
format, with text running almost from edge to edge
of pages nine inches wide makes it extremely
difficult to read, and editing, particularly in the chapter
on Mexican gardens, was inconsistent, although
illustrations throughout were well done.  The study
of garden history would perhaps have been better
served if these chapters had been published
separately in appropriate journals where they could
be listed in bibliographic data bases, otherwise it
is difficult to imagine how anyone interested in the
solid research done on these topics would ever find
them.

-Joanne M. Sharpe, Coastal Maine Botanical
Gardens

- Carolyn Wetzel, Ph.D., Department of Biological
Sciences, Smith College, Northampton, MA 0106

3 6

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Tea Roses: Old Roses for Warm Gardens.
Chapman, Lynne, Noelene Drage, Di Durston, Jenny
Jones, Hillary Merrifield, Billy West.  2008  (ISBN
9781877058677 (Cloth US$59.95)  240pp
Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd., P.O. Box 6125,
Dural Delivery Centre NSW 2158, Australia.

As the first book in over 100 years devoted solely to
tea roses, this potentially can fill a very large niche,
because the climatic conditions suitable for tea
rose growth are found right round the world, in some
of the world’s most populous areas, including
portions of India and China. Climate in southern
California or around the Mediterranean is likewise
suitable for roses that need no rest. Also with
changing fashions and the rise of the “English
roses” there is a return to appreciation of prolific
roses not intended for competitive exhibition.

The authors, who have been working together for
over a decade as the ‘Tea rose group’ of the larger
Heritage rose group in Australia, are from the region
around Perth in western Australia. Rarely is a book
written by committee so successful. Somehow they
have managed to combine their expertise in
photography, writing, historical research,
languages, horticulture and botany (not to mention
manuscript editing and book composition) to good
effect.

As the dust jacket says, Tea Roses is “lavishly
illustrated with colour photographs and historical
plates...” I estimate there are over 300 photos, with
3/4 taken by the authors, at least one of whom must
be an expert photographer. Many of the remainder
are of historical documents, including rose
illustrations from botanical magazines of the 19

th

century. The dust jacket photos are truly striking,
with ‘Comtesse de Labarthe’ (a.k.a. Countess
Bertha) on the front and ‘Anna Olivier’ on the back.

The rose known as ‘Anna Olivier’ in Australia
presents many of the usual complications that the
authors found in working with tea roses. They note
that in some European gardens, a soft yellow rose,
known as’ Etiole de Lyon’ in Australia, is called
‘Anna Olivier’. Also, ‘Anna Olivier’ gave rise to an
unstable, reverting sport, ‘Lady Roberts’ (Cant
1902). The authors provide a photo of their rose
which bears an excellent resemblance in both form
and color to a chromolithograph from The Garden
(1891). Such confusion as to identity is typical of the
subject.

The rose ‘Comtesse de LaBarthe’ is commonly
known as ‘Duchesse de Brabant’ in the U.S. As the
old name Countess Bertha persists from older
gardens in Australia, this is likely a Comtesse, not
a Duchesse. For this and every rose grown by one

or more of the authors, there is both a well-written
narrative description and a summary table of
distinguishing features. This provides detailed
information on inflorescence and pedicel, bud shape
and color, sepals, flower size and shape, petal
shape and texture, stamens and carpels, receptable
and hip, fragrance, leaves and bush habit. The total
number of tea roses now in commerce in Australia
is something under 100;  the authors grow all these
and more, many found in old gardens and
cemeteries.

During the 1960s systematic efforts to recover tea
roses were begun in England (Appendix 3), and
somewhat later in Australia about half a dozen folks
began serious preservation work. This bit of history
is well documented here, and laid the basis for this
book. Two other appendices indicate roses bred in
Australia (about 30), and those whose sale was
ended in 1921 as a result of a nurseryman’s meeting.

The authors tell a good story of  the origins, rise and
fall of tea roses in about 40 pages. Another 20
pages are devoted to their culture and a general
description including their growth habits, cold
tolerance, flowering habits, flower form and colors.
A full 130 pages are used for individual entries on
close to 100 firmly known, and some unique but
unidentified Cvs. Despite extensive searching of
catalogs and other sources, it is unlikely that even
another 100 names will be reliably fixed to unique
plants (my opinion). There is simply too little
description in most sources. This is frustrating to
collectors, but of less consequence to those who
simply enjoy roses and have a suitable climate to
grow these older kinds.

The first of the six appendices reproduces Jules
Gravereaux’s color chart of 1902 (from his catalog).
It helps one understand how color names were
used in the late 19

th

 century, when tea rose breeding

was at its peak.  Appendix 4 documents the history
of roses featured in this book, including which
catalogs listed it when, how it was reintroduced to
commerce, likely synonyms and misnomers. This
is a marvelous spreadsheet for historians. There is
also a three page glossary for technical terms, and
a list of abbreviations for the Appendix 4 table.

This book is very well produced, with clear font
(Goudy Old Style), perfect color registration and
rendering, nice layout and good binding. The eight
page index has about 650 entries and the 6 page
bibliography has around 300 references, including
books, letters and papers, journal articles and a
couple of websites. It may not be exhaustive but it is
quite extensive, delving into many obscure corners
for pertinent information. We may never see it’s like
again.

3 7

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy.  Franklin,
Allan, A.W. F. Edwards, Daniel J. Fairbanks, Daniel
L. Hartl, and Teddy Seidenfeld.  2008.  ISBN 978-0-
8229-5986-1 (Paper US$27.95) 330 pp.  University
of Pittsburgh Press, Eureka Building, Fifth Floor,
3400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.

As we move into the world of post-Mendelian
genetics, of RNAi and dicers, it may be worth
reflecting on how this all got started over 100 years
ago. For close to a century, a particular view of
genetics, called Mendelian, was dominant both
amongst professional geneticists, and in general
education extending to the middle school level. It
was while working with middle school and high
school teachers that I first encountered the notion
that Mendel might have perpetrated a fraud. I applied
a good deal of effort trying to understand both the
charges and the various responses that were
appearing through the 1990s. Until recently the
questions raised by Fisher appeared largely
unanswerable. This volume may put that problem
to rest.

 Mendel obviously did not think of himself as a
geneticist, but as a student of hybridization. His
training in physics, and experience in practical
horticulture, allowed him to gain new insights into
the way that characteristics are transmitted from
one generation to another. His discoveries were
largely ignored for the first 30 years, and were
treated as controversial by those who paid attention.
Carl Naegeli, pre-eminent botanist, actively
discouraged him from pursuing his ideas. Other
prominent workers preferred their own more
traditional interpretations. There are no records of
efforts to repeat his work until about 1900.

Controversy is often good for book sales but rarely
nice for the participants. When both are long-
deceased it is mainly about their reputations, and
when the controversy involves science, it is usually
the whole scientific enterprise that suffers. That is
certainly so in this case. Living in a state where
Darwin, another great 19

th

 century figure, is also

frequently ridiculed, I am acutely aware of how
important it is for successful science to maintain the
highest possible level of integrity.

So what is the controversy? Simply put, some of
Mendel’s results are “too good to be true” in a
statistical sense, if they represent the complete
output of the clear, simple research program that he
described in his two lectures to the scientific society
of Brno (or Brunn) in early 1865. The publication
describing Mendel’s work, though reasonably widely
distributed, was apparently not widely read until
about 1900. At that time it was recognized for it’s
clarity of presentation of the case for discrete units
of heredity, and as R.A. Fisher described it, was
used for polemical purposes by the “rediscoverers.”

Most interesting is Fisher’s observation that Bateson
used Mendel as a cudgel to beat Darwin, whose
Theory of Natural Selection Bateson opposed.
Darwin had a very fuzzy notion of how heredity
worked, and early on, his thinking was Lamarckian
and he viewed heredity as a blending process.
Mendel’s work describes a clear substrate on which
selection can work ( a collection of discrete
characters), though no description of how change
(speciation) might happen, other than by
recombining (not blending)of already existent traits.
Darwin supplied the concept of mutation, which
Mendel never mentions.

We have no evidence that Mendel himself was
opposed to Darwin’s conclusions about selection
as a force for speciation. Through careful analysis
of Mendel’s copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species,
Fairbanks and Rytting (chapter 7 if this book) noted
that Mendel was well aware of Darwin’s thinking by
the time he published his results in 1865. Some key
passages were highlighted by him. However, there
is no way that Mendel could have known of Darwin’s
work in 1856 when he began his studies in earnest,
or even in 1859. Mendel read little or no English and
had a German translation of Origins from 1863.
Mendel made few recorded comments on Darwin
or his theory, although Fisher argues that Mendel in
fact sought to explain some of Darwin’s observations
of variation under domestication by his own
discovery of discrete factors. Mendel’s text may be
read in that way.

Fisher was not the first to note Mendel’s “too good
to be true” statistics. In 1902, W.F.R. Weldon made
a detailed analysis of the results and applied the
newly invented Chi squared statistic. He published
his analysis in the first volume of Karl Pearson’s
Biometrika. A few years later Fisher, as an
undergraduate, gave a talk presenting a similar
commentary, but it was not until 1936 that he put all
of his detailed analysis into a formally written form,
in Annals of Science. Oddly, Fisher never mentions
Weldon’s work, though he used the same statistical
tool. The centennial year of Mendel’s discovery

-Lawrence Davis, Kansas State University,
Manhattan, KS.

3 8

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

sparked a renewed interest in Mendel, and the “too
good” fit noted so clearly by Fisher. Since 1965 there
have been dozens of detailed analyses of both texts,
with both attacks and defenses of Mendel.

This volume, a well produced collective effort, comes
about 40 years after the “too good” controversy really
took off. The five main contributors to this volume
include a physicist, a statistician, two biologists and
one philosopher/statistician. They have included a
standard translation of Mendel’s work (chapter 2),
that was used by Bateson in the early1900s, with his
1909 commentary, and Fisher’s complete paper
from 1936 (chapter 3). Physicist and philosopher of
science Allan Franklin provides an overview of the
controversy in the first 75 page chapter. In this he
lays out the problem with a thorough review of both
Mendel and Fisher’s works. He also notes the
various proposals pro and con, regarding whether
Mendel cheated, or Fisher tried to discredit Mendel.

Chapter four, a closely reasoned 25 pages by
statistician A.W.F. Edwards, incidentally Fisher’s
last student, thoroughly examines the problem of
the too close results, while a postscript by Edwards
considers alternative hypotheses. The fourth chapter
is reprinted from a 1986 volume. There is little or no
doubt left after Edward’s discussion, that the data
presented by Mendel is really a “best presentation”
of selected results, not a complete record of his
studies. Extreme results with poor chi-squared fits
seem to have been trimmed away

Chapter five gives a summary of the controversy by
V. Orel, a Czech biographer of Mendel, and D.L.
Hartl, a professor of biology at Harvard. They analyze
carefully the cogent notion that a scientific paper is
rhetoric, not a diary. Mendel first presented his work
orally and published it as presented, so his paper
is clearly a rhetorical work. Certain phrases and
ideas are repeated several times for emphasis by
Mendel, while many details are omitted. This chapter
appeared in another volume in 1994.

Much work has gone into attempts to reconstruct the
chronology and estimate the scale of Mendel’s
work, most notably that of Fisher in his 1936 paper.
Over the years, many biologists have added and
subtracted more and less useful bits of information
regarding the behavior of peas and their pests.
Many of those authors are cited by Fairbanks and
Rytting (chapter 7). The conclusion is that Mendel
could have done what he said he did in the space
and time he indicated. Left at issue is just exactly
how he did it. Fisher greatly admired Mendel’s
clarity of presentation, but was bothered by the “too
good” fit. Seidenfeld provides yet another look at the
“goodness of fit” problem in chapter 6, specifically
considering various ways that the data might have

been trimmed or cooked. A very interesting appendix
shows a modern day result with peas where again
the fit is remarkably good.

Finally, Fairbanks and Rytting’s chapter considers
both botanical and historical aspects of the case, in
an article that first appeared in 2001 in the American
Journal of Botany. A very interesting point in their
careful reading of Mendel, is that the first four traits
he chose to study were those already analyzed by
others. In his second year of study he successfully
added three others. Thus Mendel used a completely
logical approach to his work, first confirming and
then extending a series of observations. His special
contribution was to devise a simple mathematical
relationship to explain the observed phenomena,
and to propose a distinct mechanism that allows
that relationship to come to fruition.

Fairbanks, in a postscript to chapter seven, reviews
the ongoing (largely internet) controversy and
provides logical correctives. One point that remains
perhaps insoluble, in the absence of any original
data or notebooks, is the “too good” fit. But the most
reasonable hypothesis for why only a portion of
Mendel’s results are presented, and of those only
the results that fit within a reasonable closeness to
his model is simple. It may be drawn from a passage
that Mendel was surely familiar with- “there is much
else.. but this is written so that you might believe. For
if it were all to be recorded, perhaps the whole world
could not contain the books”. Certainly it would be
more than we would ever want to read. The present
volume should suffice.

-Lawrence Davis, Department of Biochemistry,
Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS.

3 9

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Genetic Glass Ceilings: Transgenics for Crop
Biodiversity.  Gressel, Jonathan. 2008.  ISBN 978-
0-8018-8719-2 (Cloth US$65.00) 461 pp. The Johns
Hopkins University Press.  2715 N. Charles Street,
Baltimore, MD 21218.

When universities are beginning to form “Innovation
Centers for Crop Design”, as ours is doing, we need
to take a look at what has become of plant breeding.
That is the intent of this volume. The “Genetic Glass
Ceilings” referred to in the title are of course the
invisible mechanisms that prevent “Jack and the
Beanstalk” from coming true. Taking a broad look
at the whole question of “Transgenics for Crop
Diversity”,  Jonathan Gressel brings to bear over 40
years of experience as a plant physiologist and
genetic engineer. Gressel argues persuasively
that in order to have the quantum jump in productivity
essential to make healthy, renewable, sustainable
food and fiber available to the whole world, we must
use transgenics. Hence the subtitle..

Forty years ago, genetic engineering was unknown.
Professor Gressel grew with the field, making
contributions in a broad range of areas along the
way. One of his most recent edited volumes deals
with ferality in crop plants, the likelihood that crops
run wild and turn into weeds. Questions such as,
‘What are the odds that we turn clover into kudzu?’
or ‘Can we use the vigor of kudzu for producing
biomass?’ lie at the heart of many fears and
fantasies of biotechnology and transgenics. This
volume addresses those fears, brings realism to
the fantasies, and emphasizes the growing
recognition that most of our limited agronomic base
(maize, wheat, rice, soybean) may soon reach its
glass ceiling. We must consider other crops for
other places that are not part of the huge international
trade economy, not linked to the price of oil the way
the big four are.

This is a serious book, covering a very challenging
range of issues. Gressel does not hesitate to
identify what he sees as problems outside the
organism, such as crop subsidies that distort
markets. He is also willing to present some notions
that are novel or that go against the mainstream of
agronomic thinking. So maybe the glass ceilings
are not just inherent genetic limitations of the crops
themselves, but rather are to some extent glass
ceilings of the kind usually thought of by sociologists.
Either way, we need to break through, soon.

Gressel’s book is divided in to roughly equal halves,
first dealing globally with the situation, and second
using about 15 case studies to indicate potentials
and pitfalls. Although the earliest scientific citation
I noted here is from 1965, a very substantial majority
of the references are from this past decade. That is

as it should be in a rapidly moving field, when only
1200 of the many thousands can be directly cited.
Those 1200 provide a useful entry into the remainder
of the literature.

 The general case for plant biodiversity is provided
in an extensive forward by Klaus Ammann, and a
much shorter argument for crop biodiversity is
provided in the first chapter by Gressel. After
thoroughly stating the case that a glass ceiling has
been reached in the genetic potential of major
crops, the author describes the tools for transgenic
development, the biosafety considerations, the
places where one needs to go through the ceiling
and some specific instances where transgenics
have already been used to make major advances in
productivity or quality. Insect resistance in grains
and virus resistance in papaya re noteworthy
examples.  Insect resistance has both the direct
benefit of decreased predation on the crop, and
secondarily by decreasing mycotoxin production in
damaged seed. And as an incidental incentive to
use, it actually lowers insecticide application
substantially, decreasing both direct costs and labor
costs.

The issue of biosafety is addressed extensively in
a chapter over 65 pages long. Only the chapter on
tools, at 30 pages, approaches this level of detail.
Enhancing total biomass yield through engineering
of photosynthesis or carbon partitioning is not a
focus of this book. Crop diversity and more effective
exploitation of available production potential in many
smaller niches is the theme. Case studies are used
as the basis for this discussion.

Some of the crops considered as good candidates
for transgenic improvement while maintaining crop
diversity, naturally enough, are not among the top 25
in current production. For instance, tef is considered
as a crop for dry extremes and buckwheat (pictured
on the dust jacket in full bloom), is considered for
poor cold extremes. Constraints on and problems
in sorghum, millet, safflower, lathyrus, tomatoes,
olives, and orchids are examined. For most of
these, overall biomass yield is not addressed.
Rather, the specific needs of the crop, such as
reduced allegenicity in olive pollen, or removal of a
specific amino acid in lathyrus, is treated.

Gressel makes his case clearly with much creativity.
He has obviously thought a long time about the
issues at hand. He is a strong advocate of
transgenics, well aware of potential hazards, but not
prone to sentimentality about saving insect-plagued
or mycotoxin-contaminated land race seeds. This
book would serve as a good basis for a serious
course in agronomy departments around the world.
It should also be of interest to crop breeders wherever

4 0

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

The Aliveness of Plants: The Darwins at the Dawn
of Plant Science.  Ayres, Peter.  2008 ISBN 978-1-
85196-970-8 (Cloth US$99.00) 227 pp.  Pickering
& Chatto, 21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH,
UK.

This is the perfect book for every botanist to read
and digest as we begin 2009, the 200

th

 anniversary

year of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150

th

anniversary of his publication of the origin of species.
In fact, it should be required reading for ALL
biologists.  Using the vehicle of three generations
of the Darwin family, Ayres presents a history of the
origin of botanical science from the 18

th

 into the 20

th

centuries – the transition from gentleman
philosophers (Erasmus) doing “country house
experiments”(attributed to Julius von Sachs in
reference to Charles) to experimental scientists in
their laboratories (Francis, who studied with Sachs).
It demonstrates the transition of botany from a
subfield of medicine whose practitioners had
medical degrees to an independent, leading
science.  For our non-botanist colleagues it is
instructive to demonstrate how misleading is the
popular image of Charles the evolutionist because
he studied plants as much as animals.  “It has
always pleased me to exalt plants in the scale of
organized beings…any proposition [is] more readily
tested in botanical works…than zoological.” (Darwin
to J.D. Hooker)

Plants were a hobby for Erasmus Darwin, who was
by training a physician and by inclination a poet and

philosopher.  He inherited financial security and
social position and passed this on to his succeeding
generations.  Erasmus is perhaps best known for
his poem, The Botanic Garden, written in two parts.
In the first, The Economy of Vegetation emphasizes
insectivorous plants while the second, The Loves of
the Plants, describes the Linnaean System.  More
significant, though was Phytologia, published two
years before his death.  Here Erasmus provides a
synthesis of the state of botanical knowledge in
1800.  He includes the works of Hales, Priestly,
Lavoisier, and others (including his own) examining
plants as photosynthetic organisms.  Many of the
individuals mentioned were his personal friends
(also including Benjamin Franklin) and others he
knew indirectly via his friends.  He clearly anticipates
the emergence of plant physiology from within botany
but he also covers sexual selection, insectivorous
plants, artificial selection and expounds a (pre-
Lamarkian) theory of evolution.  Phytologia was the
standard for British botanical thought for the next
several decades and his example of networking
was taken up both by his grandson and great
grandson.

Somewhat surprising is the little credit Charles
gave to his grandfather for some of his ideas and
inclinations – not just on evolution, but on the structure
and function of plants.  For instance, the world knew
little about insectivorous plants until Charles
published his book on that subject in which he
declares “I heard that insects were thus caught, but
knew nothing further on the subject.”  Yet Erasmus
had a fascination with insectivorous plants which
formed a major part of Phytologia  in which he called
Drosera the “Queen of the marsh.”  This is the same
plant referred to by Charles’ wife, Emma, in a letter
to Charles Lyell’s wife, “he is treating Drosera… just
like a living creature, and I suppose he hopes to end
in proving it to be an animal.”  Later, in a letter to Asa
Gray, Darwin admitted “[Drosera] is a wonderful
plant, or rather a most sagacious animal.”  Gray,
long a friend of Darwin, is credited by Ayres of
suggesting to Darwin that he pursue a study of
climbing plants.

The best known of Darwin’s botanical books is The
Power of Movement in Plants,.co-authored with his
son, Francis.  This book grew out of the revision of
The Movement and Habits of Climbing Plants in
which the younger Darwin assisted with editing.
Francis’ mark in the subsequent revisions of all of
his father’s books can be seen in the citations of
others’ works which begin to appear.  Francis’
medical training required a research thesis and he
was trained in the “modern” laboratory where
specialized equipment and careful measurements
were the norm.  Similarly, “modern” standards of
citation were required.  It was natural for Francis to
be concerned that his father’s books met the new

they are located, for its wealth of thought-provoking
ideas.

-Lawrence Davis, Kansas State University,
Manhattan, KS.

4 1

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Biology and Evolution of Ferns and Lycophytes.
Ranker, Tom A. and Christopher H. Haufler.  2008.
ISBN 978-0-521-69689-0 (Paper US$70.00).  480
pp.  Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY 10013.

What botanist isn’t attracted to ferns for their beauty
and diversity of leaf form? We also really appreciate
ferns when teaching the plant life cycle, because
students can so readily see the two alternating
generations and their reproductive organs.
Likewise, lycophytes evoke a wonderful and
mysterious past when they dominated
Carboniferous landscapes, generating amazing
fossils and useful coal deposits. Given such
attractions, chances are that other botanists will be
as interested as I to read this new compilation of
chapters edited by Tom Ranker and Christopher
Haufler. Written for advanced botany students and
professional botanists, this book brings us up-to-
date on diverse aspects of fern biology, which is
covered substantially more completely than that of
lycophytes.

Sporting a spectacular cover that illustrates part of
a frond of a fern (whose species identity I could not
find cited), the book begins with a brief preface that
places the work in a historical context and describes
the contents. Chapters are logically grouped into
four parts: development and morphogenesis,
genetics and reproduction, ecology, and
systematics and evolutionary biology. Authors
include internationally recognized research experts
who uniformly do a good job of explaining the
scientific value of their topics, describing recent
advances, and setting future research agendas.
The black and white illustrations are of generally
fine quality and of appropriate type and number.
Appendices on modern fern classification provide
extra value. I did not note usage errors beyond an
instance of the term “algae” used as a singular
noun (“algae” is plural; “alga” is the appropriate
singular). (The world can’t really expect me to let that
one go!)

Among the interesting things I learned are that
illustrations of fern life cycles in biology texts can be
improved, ferns display a surprising diversity of
gametophyte adaptations and reproductive modes,
high base chromosome numbers typical of many
homosporous ferns likely resulted from ancient
polyploidy events followed by extensive gene
silencing, spore and stomatal size correlation with
ploidy levels might allow inferences to be made
from fossil and herbarium material, and certain
ferns occur with mangroves! I was particularly
impressed with the images of plastid and nuclear
migration in response to light changes in Chapter
1, specific examples of fern speciation processes

standards of scientific publication.

Francis left a promising career in animal physiology
to assist his father and in doing so brought the tools
and techniques of laboratory biology to the
partnership.  Francis, unlike his father, was fluent in
German and made two visits to Germany to study
with Sachs, the world’s pre-eminent plant
physiologist.  The Darwins and Sachs had differing
views on tropisms which is reflected in their later
writings.  Francis recalled that “Sachs was most
kind and helpful [during the first visit], and under his
direction I contributed a small paper to his
Arbeiten…”   Sachs later wrote: “Personal
acquaintances often have their good side.  I first
became aware of the whole wretchedness of
Darwin’s activities when Francis Darwin studied
here…and when the miserable book ‘On
Movements’ appeared, I realized that here we are
dealing with literary rascals.”  As a result, “Power of
Movement” was viewed less favorably when it was
published than it is today!

Francis’ botanical achievements usually are lost in
the shadow of his more famous father. Yet like
Charles and Erasmus, Francis was elected to the
Royal Society based on his own work in plant
physiology - - particularly on the function of stomata
– a topic that was of interest to his great grandfather
a century earlier.  He also played a significant role
in the development of botany as an independent
scientific discipline at Cambridge and of “the new
botany” in Britain.  We are aware of the circle of
friends Charles Darwin gathered around himself
that influenced his studies.  I was intrigued by the
circle of friends and relatives around Francis,
including: F. F. Blackman, Sidney Vines, R.A. Fisher,
Henry Marshall Ward, and especially William
Bateson.

In the last chapter, Ayres briefly traces the Darwinian
botanical legacy deep into the 20

th

 century.  We are

familiar with the thread leading from Darwin through
Fritz Went and the discovery of auxin.  Less familiar
are Francis’ contributions to the statolith theory of
gravitropism, crop physiology in general, and the
links between photosynthesis and transpiration.
The latter thread connects to current work on climate
change.  There are extensive end notes and works
cited and a thorough and complete index.  I would
have liked additional figures, both of the personalities
cited and particularly from Francis’ works.  It was an
enjoyable read for me and would be accessible to
my students.

-Marshall D. Sundberg, Emporia State University,
Emporia, KS 66801.

4 2

Plant Science Bulletin 54(4) 2008

California’s Fading Wildfowers: Lost Legacy and
Biological Invasions.  Minnich, Richard A.  2008.
ISBN 978-0-520-25353-7 (Cloth US$49.95)  360
pp. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

The overall thesis of this book is to put nails in the
coffin of the paradigm that perennial bunchgrasses
dominated all California grasslands prior to
European settlement, and that overgrazing largely
facilitated the transition to exotic annual species.  In
his influential relict analysis of grasslands, F. E.
Clements (1934) concluded that the widespread
native perennial bunchgrass Nasella pulchra was
the historical dominant in California grasslands, in
part because annual plants were ruderal species
that could not be considered dominants in a climax
community.  Minnich argues that many grassland
vegetation analyses since that time were based on
Clements and a “shifting baseline system” where
the presumed baseline data were already different
from that observed by the first European explorers.
Only recently have researchers begun to arrive at a
consensus that annual forbs were the likely
dominants in most non-wetland, treeless habitats
in California.  Vegetation dominanted by perennial
bunchgrasses was likely only in the foothills of the
Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range.  Minnich’s
book provides historical data that should convince
remaining naysayers.

Minnich crafts well-researched arguments to
support his hypotheses regarding the evolution of
California’s herbaceous landscape:  “1) California’s
pre-Hispanic vegetation consisted of vast carpets
of wildflowers, not bunch grasslands; 2) the
introduction of European species triggered a
biological invasion without the help of man’s
activities such as grazing; 3) the transformation of
herbaceous cover began along the coast and shifted
inland, the pace of change being dependent on
habitat, climate variability, and, most importantly,
the time of arrival and adaptive modes of the
invaders; and 4) the collapse of indigenous
forblands over most of California happened right in
front of our eyes with the invasion of bromes in the
twentieth century.”  He reconstructs past grasslands
through an exacting analysis of travel accounts,
plant matter preserved in mission bricks, surveys,
newspaper and magazine accounts, and livestock
and weather records.  Through that process, Minnich
reveals patterns of prescribed burning by Native
Americans, the timing of exotic plant invasions and
simultaneous displacement of native herbs, and
the history of livestock grazing across the state.

Minnich has created a must-have compendium for
students, managers, researchers and historians
interested in herbaceous vegetation in California.  If
the book is read cover-to-cover some repetitive use
of data and arguments occur, but this repetition is

and homage to Irene Manton’s work in Chapter 10,
and list of structural characters that seem to best
correlate with molecular phylogenetic patterns
provided in Chapter 16. I was pleased to see the
argument in Chapter 11 that patterns of plant
evolution cannot be inferred from studies of extant
species alone, so fossils should receive due
attention, a concept with which vertebrate
paleontologists would surely agree. Readers will
discover many other valuable ideas and information.

Despite these admirable features, the book has at
least one deficit in my view. An introductory chapter
providing an overview of the special features of fern
and lycophyte biology would have been immensely
helpful in preparing the reader to dive into the
specialized topics to follow. For example, such an
introduction could have defined what is meant by
the terms “fern” and “lycophyte,” useful because the
authors of at least two chapters differ in their concepts
of what taxa should be considered ferns. Readers
who are unfamiliar with this ongoing systematic
issue will likely be somewhat confused until they
finish reading the book. Some readers would
probably have appreciated an overview of fern
structure and a generalized life cycle, as well as
definitions and illustrations of eusporangia and
leptosporangia, before plunging into the more
focused chapters. Several authors, while lamenting
relatively low research funding, cite perceptions
that ferns and lycophytes are less economically/
ecologically important than seed plants. Although
human uses of these plants are mentioned in
some chapters, more attention to ethnnobotany
and economic botany would have excited readers
as well as providing grant proposal writers with
useful supporting information. Lastly, I was
disappointed not to find much attention paid to
lycophytes, psilotophytes, equisetophytes, or
heterosporous ferns. Despite these complaints, I
enthusiastically recommend this readable and
authoritative book to scholars interested in the
latest research on ferns.

-Linda Graham, Department of Botany, University of
Wisconsin - Madison

4 3

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

Cycads of Vietnam. Osborn, Roy , Ken D. Hill, Hiep
T. Nguyen, and Loc Phan Ke.  2007.  ISBN 978-0-
646-46445-9 (Hardcover).  116 pages.  Published
by Roy Osborne, Brisbane, Australia and Wynand
van Eeden, Cape Town, South Africa.

Cycads are among the oldest extant lineages of
plants with a fossil record extending back 200
million years.  However, far from being “living fossils”,
cycads are a successful and adaptable group of
plants that have managed to flourish and diversify
in tropical regions throughout the world.  The living
cycads are composed of three (some authors
recognize four) familes: Cycadaceae, Zamiaceae,
and Stangeriaceae.  All cycads are essentially
tropical or subtropical in distribution.

Southeast Asia, and Vietnam in particular, is rich in
Cycas (Cycadaceae) species. Cycads of Vietnam
is an elaboration and expansion of the recent revision
of the Vietnamese species of Cycas (Hill et al.,
2004).  Hill et al. (2004) recognized 24 species of
Cycas in Vietnam (not including two Chinese
species occurring close to Vietnam’s borders) while
Osborne et al. describe 26 species.

Cycads of Vietnam begins with an introductory
chapter including a very brief history of Vietnam,
overviews of its geography, climate, flora and fauna,
and ecology and vegetation types.  Chapter 2 focuses
on the biology of cycads and particularly on the
family Cycadaceae (the only one present in Vietnam.)
Also included here are discussions on the origins
of the genus Cycas, the history of cycad discovery in
Vietnam, vegetative morphology, reproductive
features, pollination and seed dispersal, the
occurrence of hybridization (at least three known
hybrids), toxicity, ethnobotany, conservation, and
cultivation.  The section on cultivation is very brief
and serves mostly to show that cycads are generally
quite amenable to cultivation.  However, this is tied
the previous section on conservation.  Cycads are
very popular as cultivated plants both within and
outside of Vietnam.  This has put tremendous
pressure on cycad populations that are often
exploited by commercial collectors.  All Vietnamese
cycad species have been given provisional
conservation status, but only one has been listed in
the IUCN 1997 Red List.  Several of the Vietnamese
species occur within protected areas.

Chapter 3 consists solely of the key to Cycas species
in Vietnam.  This is followed by the 26 species
descriptions in Chapter 4.  Each description consists
of color photographs, a distribution map, a list of
synonyms, description of the vegetative and
reproductive part, distinguishing features, notes
about the species’ discovery and the citation of the
type description, etymology of the species’ name,

necessary to create a handy resource for specific
geographical regions or time periods.  He breaks
the book into three windows of time, pre-Hispanic
herbaceous vegetation, invasions and grazing
during the Nineteenth century, and the invasion by
bromes starting in the late 1800s.  His book ends
on a positive note, with suggestions for managing
today’s California grasslands to tip the balance
back towards native wildflower fields.

It is difficult to find many faults with the contents of
this book.  It would have benefitted from having a
timeline of historical events relevant to the changes
in California’s landscape, and having the locations
discussed in the text included on the maps.  However,
the invaluable first appendix includes historic place
names, modern place names, and latitude and
longitude of all locations discussed.  Extensive
notes, Spanish-English plant name translations,
collections data and historical references to
wildflower displays round out the appendices.

Finally, one cannot help but appreciate the inclusion
of so much lovely poetry and prose portraying the
wildflower fields that once blanketed much of
California’s landscape.  One of my favorites is worth
quoting to here to demonstrate how qualitative
observations can enable one to visualize the
abundance of California’s Fading Wildflowers:

“Along the railroads on either hand runs continuously
the rich and radiant bloom.  Your sight becomes
pained, your very brain is bewildered, by watching
the galloping rainbow.  There are great fields in
which glowers of many sorts are mingled in a
perfect carnival of color; then come exclusive family
gatherings where the blue, crimsons, or the purples,
have it all their own way; and every now and then you
come across great tracts, resplendent with the
most gorgeous of all wild flowers, the yellow or
orange poppy, which...a botanist [gave] the name
Escholzia, but which long ago some poetic
Spaniard...christened it El Copo de Oro (the golden
cup)...reminds one of the ‘Field of Cloth of Gold’.”  -
John Hittell (1874).

-Adrienne Leigh Edwards, Plant Ecologist, Botanist,
Chico, CA  95928 

aledwards@csuchico.edu

References:
Clements, F. E.  1934.  The relict method in dynamic
ecology.  Journal of Ecology 22: 39-68.

Hittell, J. S.   1874.   The Resources of California: Comprising
the Society, Climate, Salubrity, Scenery, Commerce and
Industry of the State.  A. Roman & Co., San Francisco.

4 4

Plant Science Bulletin 54(4) 2008

.

Field Guide to the Wild Orchids of Texas. Brown,
Paul Martin, artwork by Stan Folsom.  2008.  University
Press of Florida: Gainesville.  316 pages.  ISBN
978-0-8130-3159-0 (soft-bound).  US $29.95.

Encompassing more, different vegetation and
physiographic regions and a greater land area than
any other of the contiguous 48 United States, Texas
certainly looms large.  Floristic treatments of Texas
regions and the entire state have produced
prodigious works including the Manual of the
Vascular Plants of Texas (Correll and Johnston
1979) and, more recently, Shinner and Mahler’s

Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas (Digges et
al. 1999).  Both of these volumes are essentials
when it comes to gaining knowledge of Texas’ vast
vegetional wealth, but neither of them is the kind of
thing one wants to carry into the field on a regular
basis.  Reasonably enough one might wish for a
real field guide treating Texas plants, the kind of
thing that fits easily into a backpack or even a large
pocket, and the wish is cleverly fulfilled if your
interest is in orchid identification.

Paul Martin Brown’s Field Guide to the Wild Orchids
of Texas is a sturdily bound volume with a number
of features that make it a joy for orchid enthusiasts.
The text is divided into four major sections:
introduction to Texas vegetation regions and to
orchid terminology and keying; the actual field guide
portion featuring alphabetically arranged genera
found within the state and individual species’
descriptions and accompanying illustrative figures;
a section of references and resources that provides
a smorgasbord of taxonomic vantage points; and a
region-by-region synopsis of what orchids one is
likely to encounter where.  Several appendices, a
glossary, a bibliography, and index complete the
book.

In terms of true utility, the keys to genera and
species within genera are what make this guide
most valuable.  The majority of genera can readily
be determined using the appropriate key, but there
are exceptions.  If confronted with a Malaxis, a novice
would never find it because the key groups it among
genera with basal leaves, but all known North
American species produce cauline leaves.  If one is
familiar with Platanthera species in other locales,
the use of a three-toothed or erose labellum margin
to segregate out species assigned by Brown to the
genus Gymnadeniopsis would surely cause some
confusion (where would Platanthera integrilabia
key if ever found in Texas?).  At the species level
identification tends to be more straight-forward.
Information regarding species appears as a page
of text and one or more illustrations facing
photographs of whole plants, inflorescences, and
vegetation and a distribution dot map for the species
in Texas.  Plant descriptions, habitat, and comments
on species provide good, general information but
are lacking in detail for those with an intimate
knowledge of native orchids.  Likewise, the
photographs and illustrations serve as useful
references in the field but do not suffice for providing
diagnostic characteristics necessary to definitively
nail down an orchid’s identity.  Comparing Wild
Orchids of Texas to two classics of North American
orchid identification, The Native Orchids of the United
States and Canada excluding Florida (Luer 1975)
and Orchids of the Western Great Lakes Region
(Case 1987), Brown’s field guide squarely occupies
the middle ground as an identification tool.  The

the conservation status, and known hybrids.  Many
species have illustrations reproduced from the
original species descriptions.  The species
descriptions are arranged by sections
(Stangerioides,  Indosinensis, and Cycas).  The
descriptions are followed by three appendices:
Vietnamese place names, herbarium acronyms,
and cycad-oriented websites and societies.  The
literature cited and glossary of terms rounds out the
book.

Cycads of Vietnam is an informative book about a
biologically rich but somewhat unheralded part of
the world.  The authors expanded on both their
recent species descriptions (Hill et al., 2004) and
the  Cycas treatments by Whitelock (2002).  The
copious illustrations and photographs help put
faces with the names of these Asian cycad species.
The individual location maps are particularly
informative and missing form earlier treatments
(i.e., Whitelock 2002 and Jones 1993).  Overall, I
would recommend Cycads of Vietnam to anyone
with a strong interest in cycads, and particularly in
the genus Cycas.  While limited to Vietnam, it is nice
to see the detailed treatments that are not possible
with a broader geographic treatment.

-James P. Riser II.

References
Hill, K.D., H. T. Nguyen, and P. K. Loc.  2004.  The genus
Cycas (Cycadaceae) in Vietnam.  The Botanical Review
70(2): 134-193.

Jones, D. L.  1993.  Cycads of the world.  Smithsonian
Institution Press, USA.

Whitelock, L. M.  2002.  The Cycads.  Timber Press,
Portland, OR.

4 5

Plant Science Bulletin 55(1) 2009

The Names of Plants, ed. 4.  Gledhill, David. 2008.
viii + 426 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-86645-3 (hardback
US$95.00); ISBN 978-0-521-68553-5 (paperback
US$45.00). Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue
of the Americas, New York, NY 10013.

For some readers, “Fourth Edition” may be all the
affirmation one needs in order to know that a book
has merit.  Certainly, for The Names of Plants, ed.
4, that is the case.  The introductory pages provide
a concise history of the naming of plants from
ancient to modern times, a synopsis of botanical
Latin, and accounts of formal botanical
nomenclature (based on International Code of
Botanical Nomenclature) and nomenclature of
cultivated plants (based on International Code of
Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants).  Most of the
book (pp. 32—412, some 17,000+ entries) is a
glossary of words and word-elements used in
names of genera and in epithets in binomials and
trinomials.

Botanical lexophiles probably have W. T. Stearn’s
Botanical Latin (ISBN 0-88192-321-4, also an ed. 4
book) and/or R. W. Brown’s Composition of Scientific
Words (ISBN 1-56098-848-7) within reach.  To get
a sense of how Gledhill’s book compares with
those two, I checked a sample of 100 words, prefixes,
and suffixes from Gledhill against Brown and Stearn.
I chose words and elements not based on other
plant names or on names of places or people (e.g.,
from Gledhill: absinthoides wormwoodlike,
aberdeenensis from Aberdeen, South Africa, and
aaronis for the prophet Aaron).  Of the 100, I found
84 in Brown, 53 in Stearn, 43 in both, and 4 in neither.

On most pages in Gledhill, plant names and epithets
derived from names of people, places, or other
plants well outnumber those based on
morphological descriptors.  In that regard, Gledhill’s
glossary is a welcome and useful companion to
those of Brown and Stearn and provides in one
handy volume information not conveniently found
elsewhere.

The following verbatim examples from Gledhill’s
glossary may provide a sense of its substance
[numbers in brackets were added by me to indicate
how many times an epithet was found as a basionym
in International Plant Names Index (http://
www.ipni.org:80/ipni/plantnamesearchpage.do)]:
Abobra  from a Brazilian vernacular name
aboriginorum  indigenous, of the original
inhabitants,  aborigines, aboriginum [2]
abro-, abros  soft, delicate, abroV
Abronia  Delicate, abroV (the involucre)
abrotanifolius -a -um  wormwood-leaved, botanical
Latin from abrotanon with folium  [28]
abyssicolus -a -um  inhabiting ravines or chasms,
late Latin, abyssus-colus, from Greek a-byssoV,

photographs and illustrations in Luer are more
detailed; Case’s species descriptions provide such
clarity that one can envision the plant in its habitat
without ever having visited a field site.  To the good,
Brown’s text is more informative than Luer’s and, in
many instances, with better figures than Case.

Depending on individual predilections different
readers will find the other sections of Brown’s field
guide to be more or less useful.  In part three,
References and Resources, both the species check
list and distribution list by physiographic region
provide the kinds of field tripping incentives well
known to anyone who maintains a life list.  The
comparative taxonomy, complete with Brown’s
commentary on previous publications covering the
orchid flora of Texas, does little more than hint at the
sniping common among rival orchid taxonomists.
Likewise, the synonymies and misapplied names
seem better omitted from a field guide meant to
encourage a passion for native orchids.  Orchid
Hunting, part four of Brown’s text, should be a
treasure for anyone finding him or herself spending
some time in any of Texas’ eco-regions, particularly
if time is available for orchid seeking.  Appendix 1,
a modification of two prior publications, speculates
on Platanthera chapmanii (or P. Xchapmanii) origins
and interactions with other Platanthera species, a
topic of continued debate and investigation probably
better presented in a different venue.  The remaining
appendices (two and three), show distributions
and flowering times, respectively.

In summary the Field Guide to the Wild Orchids of
Texas provides a mix of field-useful and field not-so-
useful information.  Enthusiasts will find this book
handy as a guide to identifying native Texas orchids.
Serious orchid researchers will find parts of it
annoying at best, but those parts aren’t ones to be
read in the field.

- Nancy E. Cowden, Ph.D.  Biology Department,
Lynchburg College, 1501 Lakeside Drive,
Lynchburg, Va.  24501

Literature Cited
Case, F.W., Jr.  1987.  Orchids of the Western Great Lakes
Region.  Cranbrook Institute of Science Bulletin 48.

Correll, D.S. and M.C. Johnston.  1979.  Manual of the
Vascular Plants of Texas.  The University of Texas at
Dallas, Richardson, Texas.

Digges, G.M., Jr., B.L. Lipscomb, and R.J. O’Kennon.  1999.
Shinner and Mahler’s Illustrated Flora of North Central
Texas.  Botanical Research Institute of Texas and Austin
College.  Sida, Botanical Miscellany, no. 16.

Luer, C.A.  1975.  The Native Orchids of the United States
and Canada excluding Florida.  The New York Botanical
Garden.

4 6

Plant Science Bulletin 54(4) 2008

Books Received

If you would like to review a book or books for PSB,
contact the Editor, stating the book of interest and
the date by which it would be reviewed (15 January,
15 April, 15 July or 15 October).  E-mail

psb@botany.org

, call, or write as soon as you notice

the book of interest in this list because they go
quickly!   

Note that books in green are already in

review and no longer available.

  Books received are

now posted on the web site as they become available
and may be requested as soon as they are posted.
- Editor

The Biology of Deserts.  Ward, David.  2008.  ISBN-
13: 978-0-19-921147-0 (paper  US$55.00) 304 pp.
Oxford University Press,  198 Madison Avenue, New
York, NY 10016

Bryophyte Biology, 2

nd

 ed. Goffinet, Bernard and A.

Jonathan Shaw (eds).  2008. ISBN 978-0-521-
69322-6 (Paper US$70.00)  565 pp.  Cambridge
University Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New
York, NY 10013.

The Ecophysiology of Plant-Phosphorus
Interactions. Series: Plant Ecophysiology , Vol. 7
White, Philip J.; Hammond, John P. (Eds.) 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4020-8434-8 (Cloth US$209) 292 p.
Springer. 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013.
Flora of China ILLUSTRATIONS, Volume (12)
twelve, Hippocastancaceae through Theaceae.

Flora of China Editorial Committee.  2008.  ISBN:
978-1-930723-79-5 (Cloth US$125.00) 487 + i-xii
pages. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, P.O.
Box, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299.
Flora of China ILLUSTRATIONS, Volume (13)
thirteen, Clusiaceae through Araliaceae.  Flora of
China Editorial Committee  2008.  ISBN: 978-1-
930723-80-1 (Cloth US$125.00) 492 + i-xii pages.
Missouri Botanical Garden Press, P.O. Box, St.
Louis, MO 63166-0299.

Flora of China,Text Volume (7) Seven,
Menispermaceae through Capparaceae.  Flora of
China Editorial Committee.  2008.  ISBN: 978-1-
930723-81-8 (Cloth US$125.00) 500 + i-xii pages.
Missouri Botanical Garden Press, P.O. Box, St.
Louis, MO 63166-0299.

Grasses and Grassland Ecology.  Gibson, David J.
2008.  ISBN-13: 978-0-19-852919-4 (paper
US$70.00) 320 pp.  Oxford University Press, 198
Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.

If a Tree Falls: Rediscovering the Great American
Chestnut.  Buege, Douglas J. 2008.  SBN13: 978-
1-4363-1609-5 (Cloth US$29.99) 186 pp.  Xlibris

without bottom [2]
abyssinicus -a -um  of Abyssinia, Abyssinian (now
Ethiopia) [100+]
Acacallis  etymology uncertain
achy-, achyro-  chaffy-, chaff-like-, acuron,  acuro-
,  acu-?
acraeus -a -um  of windy places, of hilltops, akrahV
[5]
acreus -a -um  of high places, of the summit, the
highest, akra [0]
Anemone  a name used by Theophrastus. Possibly
a corruption of Naaman, a Semitic name for Adonis,
from whose blood sprung the crimson-flowered
Anemone coronaria
arnicoides  resembling Arnica, arnakiV-oeidhV [7]

As seen in examples above, some epithets included
by Gledhill are seldom used, and “acreus -a -um”
appears never to have been used, as an epithet at
species or infraspecies rank.  Perhaps such entries
should have been omitted to make room for others
(e.g.,  deltata, -um, -us).  Other quibbles include
treatment of glabratus and glabrescens as
equivalents (ditto for orbicularis/orbiculatus) and
defining of disciformis as “having radiate flowers.”

Syntactical anomalies (e.g., “am” for “is” in
discussion of objects and subjects in sentence
structure, p. 19; doubtless the result of “corrections”
made by a grammar algorithm) and typographic
errors (e.g., mixed Roman and Italic letters in affinis,
p. 38) appear to be few and far between.  There is
an error at “Franklinia  Benjamin Franklin (1706—
90) inventor of the lightning conductor and President
of the USA.”  First (1985) and second (1989) editions
lack Franklin, third (2002) has Franklin an “American
President;” perhaps a fifth edition will be justified.
Still, overall, the pros well outweigh the cons and I
am pleased to welcome this book into my library.
-John L. Strother, University Herbarium, University
of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2465

4 7

Plant Science Bulletin 54(4) 2008

Corporation,  International Plaza II, Suite 410,
Philadelphia, PA 19113-1513

The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Illustrated
Dictionary of Orchid Genera.  Alrich, Peggy and
Wesley Higgins.  2008.  ISBN 978-0-8014-4737-2
(Cloth, US$49.95)  482pp.  Comstock Publishing
Associates, Cornell University Press, Sage House,
512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

Orchids of Western Australia.  Brown, Andrew, Pat
Dundas, Kingsley Dixon & Stephen Hopper.  2008.
(Cloth US$80.00) 421 pp.  University of Western
Australia Press, Crawley, Western Australia 6009.

Major Evolutionary Transitions in Flowering Plant
Reproduction.  Barrett, Spencer C.H. (ed).  2008.
ISBN 0-226-03816-2.  (Paper US$30.00) 216 pp.
The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60

th

 Street,

Chicago, Illinois, 60637.

Micropropagation of Orchids, Volumes I and II.
Arditti, Joseph. 2008.  ISBN 1405160888 (Cloth,
US$450.00) 1522 pp.  Blackwell Publishing, 350
Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020.

The Molecular Organography of Plants.  Cronk,
Quentin.  2008.  ISBN-13: 978-0-19-955036-4
(Paper US$70.00)  288 pp.  Oxford University
Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Moss Flora of China, English Version, Volume 7,
Amblystegiaceae—Plagiotheciaceae.   Hu Ren-
liang, Wang You-fang, and Marshall R. Crosby
(eds.) 2008.  ISBN 978-1-930723-77-1(Cloth
US$85)  Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis,
MO.

Plains Apache Ethnobotany.  Jordan, Julia A.  2008.
ISBN 978-0-8061-3968-5 (Cloth US$34.95)  240
pp.  University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture
Drive, Norman, OK 73069.

Plant Nematodes: Methodology, Morphology,
Systematics, Biology and Ecology.  Khan, Mujeebur
Rahman.  2008.  ISBN 978-1-57808-533-0 (Cloth
US$69.00) 360 pp.  Science Publishers Inc., c/o
Enfield Distribution Co., 234 May Street, P.O. Box
699. Enfield, NH 03748.

Plant Signal Transduction, Methods and Protocols.
Methods in Molecular Biology, Volume 479.
Thomas Pfannschmidt, Friedrich-Schiller-
Universität Jena, Germany (Ed.) 2008.  ISBN 978-
1-58829-943-7 (Cloth US$99.00)  357 p.  Humana
Press, C/O Springer Science + Business Media,
333 Meadowlands Pkwy Secaucus, NJ 07094.

Plant Taxonomy: The Systematic Evaluation of
Comparative Data, 2

nd

 ed.  Stuessy, Tod F.  2008.

ISBN 978-0-231-14712-5 (Cloth US$ 99.50) 568
pp.  Columbia University Press, 61 West 62

nd

 Street,

New York, NY 10023.

Seedling Ecology and Evolution.  Leck, Mary Allessio,
V. Thomas Parker and Robert L. Simpson (eds)
2008.  ISBN 97-0-521-69466-7 (Paper US$70.00)
514 pp.  Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of
the Americas, New York, NY 10013.

Self-Incompatibility in Flowering Plants: Evolution,
Diversity, and Mechanisms. Franklin-Tong,
Vernonica E. (Ed.) 2008 ISBN: 978-3-540-68485-5
(Cloth, $219.00) 314 p. Springer. 233 Spring Street,
New York, NY 10013.

Woody Cut Stems for Growers and Florists:
Production and Post-Harvest Handling of
Branches for Flowers, Fruit, and Foliage.  Greer,
Lane and John M. Dole.  2009.  ISBN 978-0-88192-
892-1 (Cloth $39.95) 552 pp.  Timber Press, Inc.,
133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450, Portland, OR
97204-3527

A Zapotec Natural History: Trees, Herbs, and
Flowers, Birds, Beasts, and Bugs in the Life of San
Juan Gbëë.  Hunn, Eugene S.  2008.  ISBN 978-0-
8165-2617-8 (Cloth US$50.00) 288 pp.  The
University of Arizona Press, 355 S. Euclid Avenue,
Suite 103, Tucson, AZ 85719.

4 8

Plant Science Bulletin 54(4) 2008

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