From aceska@victoria.tc.ca Wed Feb 2 23:27:29 2005 From: aceska@victoria.tc.ca (Adolf Ceska) Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 15:27:29 -0800 Subject: [BEN-L]BEN # 342 Message-ID: <001001c5097e$c70b1a10$0828b440@HPLAPTOP001> BBBBB EEEEEE NN N ISSN 1188-603X BB B EE NNN N BBBBB EEEEE NN N N BOTANICAL BB B EE NN NN ELECTRONIC BBBBB EEEEEE NN N NEWS No. 342 February 2, 2005 aceska@telus.net Victoria, B.C. ----------------------------------------------------------- Dr. A. Ceska, P.O.Box 8546, Victoria, B.C. Canada V8W 3S2 ----------------------------------------------------------- BOTANY BC 2005 - LYTTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA - MAY 26-29, 2005 To past and future Botany BC participants: The evening of Thursday May 26th 2005 marks the start of the 20th Botany BC. This year's event is being held in the thriving village of Lytton BC at the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers. Botany BC 2005 will continue until Sunday May 29th 2005 and will feature exciting trips into the Stein and Botanie Valleys, scintillating, humorous and educational speakers/presentations as well as other creative activities. Further details, including an itinerary and registration forms will be posted on the Botany BC website http://members.shaw.ca/dmeidinger/botanybc/ by the end of February. SOMEWHERE OVER THE HERBARIUM: A BOTANIST LOOKS AT THE MOVIES From: Sarah Gage [sgage@seanet.com] I want to thank the members of the Academy for inviting me to speak here tonight-the first ever keynote address at the Oscars. It is a great honor, and I feel privileged to be in the company of the other incredibly talented nominees. Addressing all you glittering stars here in the Kodak Theatre, and all of you, the billionsome movie fans in the worldwide television audience, well, truly it's stunning! As you know, I am an educator as well as a botanist, so to introduce my topic I want to start out with a quiz. Please don't get nervous; you'll get to grade yourself! But see if you can identify the movie in which the following botanically oriented character appears: 1. This timid botany professor compares his bride to the delicate windflower, _Anemone nemorosa_ (1941). 2. A fern taxonomist-heiress is married for her money (1971). 3. A scientist is charged with preserving Earth's botanical heritage in a greenhouse-spaceship (1972). 4. The male cousin has worked as a mycologist, among other professions (1975). 5. This couple, on a plant collecting trip to Earth, gets separated from their offspring (1982). 6. A horticulturist marries an illegal alien to obtain a greenhouse apartment (1992). 7. A greenhouse volunteer has bad luck with childcare (1992). 8. An ethnobotanist with a gray ponytail, working in the Brazilian rainforest, finds and then mislays the cure for cancer (1992). 9. Giant reptiles terrorize a palaeobotanist (1993). 10. A toothless, stringy-haired plant fanatic wades a swamp in search of a rare orchid (2002). How did you do, Jack? And you, Nicole? The answers will follow, I promise. The function of this quiz is to point out to you how often we don't notice what is right in front of us. Scholars tell us that one of the best ways to learn is to have questions in mind, to always be looking for something. As a movie lover and a botanist, I notice when plants and botanists show up in film. It's an Aha! moment. And believe me, these moments don't occur as often as I would like. In my remarks tonight, I want to subject the movies to the lens of botanical science-the study of the foundation of all life on the planet. Without the photosynthetic mechanism of green plants to capture the sun's energy, life on earth would not exist. Their role in our daily lives as food, fuel, fiber, medicine, building material, and aesthetic objects gives them importance as a filmic subject. Is it just that familiarity breeds contempt? Yet how many people are actually familiar with the plants (or the botanists) around them. One of our roles as botanists is to name the diversity of plants, and by naming it, make it visible. A first question we all ask is "what is it?" You have to know what to call something if you are to see it well. Plants of power and mystery do crop up in the movies every now and then. The bloodthirsty plant in _Little Shop of Horrors_, the tree that kept Merlin captive in _Camelot_, the edelweiss in _The Sound of Music_, and the poppies in the _Wizard of Oz_ -these and more populated the movies I grew up with. As my eye for plants developed, I also noticed some botanical howlers. The Southern California oaks and chaparral out back of Los Angeles stood in for "the West" in countless westerns. I saw green clothespins holding on the bean leaves in _The Milagro Beanfield Wars_. _The Last of the Mohicans_ featured tall shrubs of _Rhododendron_ in what was supposed to be upstate New York. If you film in South Carolina, the botanists in the audience are going to figure it out. I don't mention these botanical gaffes to demean my colleagues, the "greens" staff whose names are buried in the credits. Their work often creates remarkable and diverse impressions, such as the gardens in _Howard's End_ and _A Room with a View_, or the topiaries in _Edward Scissorhands_. No doubt the greens workers, like most botanists, labor under difficult conditions, tight schedules, and budgetary constraints. Plants in movies are rarely central to the plot, even if they figure large in the setting. The same can be said of botanists in film. Their work seldom drives the plot, unlike that of cops, murderers, and spies. You'll see that botanists frequently portray stereotypes or personify societal anxieties. Throughout the nineteenth century, botany ruled. Clubs, outings, and specimen exchanges enrolled participants in the tens of thousands. When botany was so popular, it was considered a genteel and healthy activity for girls and women, thus tainting it as an endeavor for boys and men. Botany held less value than more masculine pursuits. One editorial lamented that "the boy who, having an eye to see and a heart to feel the beautiful in nature, undertakes to master the charming science is taunted as a 'girl-boy' and as unmanly." By 1887, when botany was shifting from the study of natural history and an emphasis on taxonomy to more experimental work in fields such as plant physiology and ecology, the journal _Science_ published an article titled "_Is Botany a Suitable Study for Young Men?_" It argued that botany was indeed appropriate for men who were "able-bodied and vigorous brained." Botanists of various stripes have been popping up in films since the 1920s, and in the first half of the twentieth century they reflected this idea, that botany wasn't quite a manly profession. This attitude shows up in films such as _Local Boy Makes Good_ (1931) in which a timid, bookish botany major pines for a beautiful coed. He is a proverbial ninety- eight pound weakling, but one who overcomes his limitations (and his interest in botany) to win a track meet and get the girl. In the French film classic _Grand Illusion_ (1937), Erich von Stroheim plays the stern and upstanding German commandant of a World War I prisoner of war camp, complete with monocle and stiffly buttonedup uniform. He summons an imprisoned aristocratic Frenchman to his office. When the Frenchman observes the one bright spot of color in the prison, a potted geranium on the windowsill, the commandant says scornfully "We are not just _botanists_ here." As if to say, botanists could not be soldiers, could not be _men_. In _Ball of Fire_, a 1941 movie starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, this botanist-as-wimp stereotype reaches its peak. Cooper plays Professor Potts, an awkward but handsome grammarian who lives with seven other scholars, including a botanist (Richard Haydn). Cooper recruits Stanwyck, a lounge singer named Sugarpuss O'Shea, to help him with his research into slang. The botanist is the only one of the scholars who is a widower, not a bachelor, so he is considered a man of the world, and capable of giving Cooper/Potts advice on love. But our botanist wears an old fashioned (even for the 1940s) high starched collar, a wing coat, a white bushy mustache, and pince nez glasses that hang from a chain. He walks with his chin thrust forward and his rear stuck out behind, slightly stooped and clearly silly. His voice emerges from halfway down his throat, as if he were gargling with marbles, and he enunciates his words with overelaborate care. Toward the end of the film, when the road to true love isn't running smooth for Sugarpuss and Professor Potts, the botanist tells about his long ago honeymoon in the Alps. He compares women with the trembling windflower, _Anemone nemorosa_, enunciating this scientific name carefully in a cascade of syllables. He emphasizes that a woman must be treated with utmost delicacy, or like an _Anemone nemorosa_ that has been visited by an unruly bee, all will be lost. During their honeymoon, he says that his bride produced a collection of fourteen excellent watercolors, and that each evening he kissed the palm of her hand. Even now he is stunned at his boldness. The botanist's name? Professor Oddly. After World War II, the climate in American films shifted for botanists. While still all male and white, they could be botanists _and_ consummate heterosexuals. In 1949's _Family Honeymoon_, the "bachelor botany professor" is plagued with a scheming ex- girlfriend after he marries a widow with three children. _The Snow Creature_ (1954) features a botanist adventurer whose collecting expedition to the Himalayas nets not only plant specimens, but an abominable snowman who escapes captivity to murder and pillage in New York. _All that Heaven Allows_ (1955) features Jane Wyman as Cary Scott, an upper middle class suburban widow who falls in love with her gardener. Rock Hudson plays Ron Kirby, the gardener who is "taken with trees." He points out to Cary that she has a _Koelreuteria_, or golden chain tree, growing on her patio, and that the Chinese say a house will be full of love with that species growing nearby. Their relationship really takes off when he asks her "Do you want to see my silver- tip spruce?" Kirby/Hudson is tall, dark, and handsome, with a deep voice and a well-groomed pompadour. He wears khaki pants and plaid shirts open at the neck, showing a clean white undershirt beneath. A friend of his says that Kirby "doesn't read _Walden_, he lives it!" A member of Cary's country club calls him "her nature boy." What a dreamboat! He's sensitive, his own man, and an ardent lover. What delicious irony that Rock Hudson, a gay man, plays this masculine heterosexual hero-a war veteran who pulls corks out of Chianti bottles with his teeth. Ron Kirby/Rock Hudson has such a way with those Latin names! He's very botanically oriented although he defines himself a gardener and a nurseryman. He lives in a room next to his greenhouse. Botanists in film all tend to work in greenhouses or in the field. While in real life botanists do work in those settings, we also work in labs, libraries, herbaria, museums, and offices. You members of the Academy may not know that botany can encompass all branches of plant science, from plant physiology, plant anatomy and morphology, to the study of algae (phycology), fungi (mycology), and mosses (bryology), just as filmmaking involves everything from costume design and catering, to accounting and acting. Botanists can study ecosystems, whole organisms, cells, or molecules. Some botanists never set foot in the field, but most will work in a laboratory at some point, or collaborate with someone who does. Labs and offices are less picturesque than greenhouses or jungles, and I can understand why you filmmakers rarely or briefly show them in most movies. Incidental botanist sightings occur in a number of films. In _E.T.-The Extraterrestrial_ (1982) the space creatures come to earth to collect botanical specimens-that is what E.T.'s parents are doing when he gets separated from them. They are hurriedly gathering species in the dark, a difficult working situation for any botanist. In _Jurassic Park_ (1993), Laura Dern plays a palaeobotanist. She has just a little time to ooh and ahh over some living examples of extinct plants before she starts running for her life. In _Cousin, Cousine_ (1975), a French romantic comedy, cousins by marriage start a relationship with each other. Ludovic (Victor Lanoux), the male cousin of this pair, is a free spirit; he changes occupations every three years. The job before last was as a mycologist; he found a prize specimen of _Boletus parasiticus_. When I saw this film, the college-aged audience laughed knowingly, in a way that reminded me that most people think of fungi primarily as mushrooms, and that "mushrooms" can have a psychedelic connotation. This character's charm depended in part on his dilettantism, although in real life a three-year long acquaintance with fungi is hardly sufficient time to develop the proficiency he claims. Botany attracts a certain number of dilettantes, as do other fields, but botany also draws many obsessive-compulsive personalities. How else could people find themselves specializing in phallic and foul-smelling corpseflowers and stinkhorns? _Silent Running_ (1971) is one film in which botany is central to the plot. Bruce Dern (father of Laura Dern) plays Lowell Freeman, a scientist who continues to maintain his spaceship- greenhouse in opposition to the rest of his crew and contrary to orders from the authorities. He is trying to save Earth's plant life after the planet has become too polluted to support it. Freeman sets his spaceship greenhouse loose into the outer beyond, and his only companions are the small robots and the plants on board his ship. The robots take on more and more endearing qualities, but the dialogue devolves into a series of monologues from Dern's character, with some chirps and squeaks from the machines. At least he doesn't talk to the plants. This free man, a man of conscience, is torn over losing human companionship but he commits himself to preserving what remains of Earth's plant life. He'll never know the ultimate fate of his space- bound, photosynthesizing cargo. In this way, his circumstance echoes our own, whether we are botanists or not, as stewards of life on this planet with a responsibility not only to our own species but also to life as it has evolved here. This life that may be unique in the universe, despite the hundreds of science fiction films that posit otherwise. Freeman grows long hair and a beard, and he wears a series of oh-so-seventies caftans. Although he's a man of principle, his taste in clothes strikes us now as laughable, even embarrassing. What to wear in the field is always a troubling mix of practicality and fashion. Another botanist with sartorial difficulties emerged in the 1971 film, _A New Leaf_. Walter Matthau plays Henry Graham, a monumentally selfcentered rogue who has run through all his own money; to stay solvent he must marry a rich woman within six weeks. The object of his scheming is the marvelous Elaine May playing Henrietta Lowell, a socially inept and clumsy botanist and heiress who forgets to clip the tags off her new clothes. She is a fern expert, a pteridologist. The script enhances its botanical credibility by having May's character speak excitedly about receiving correspondence from "Wagner in Michigan." The late W.H. Wagner was an eminent American pteridologist at the University of Michigan for some forty-plus years. Any botanist interested in ferns will recognize his name. In the movie, Matthau's character succeeds in wooing the toothy, spectacled taxonomist. Then, on their honeymoon, he attempts to murder her by pushing her off a cliff. Before her rescue, while clinging to the rocks, she finds a fern species new to science. She names it after her new husband. The character of Henrietta Lowell interests me for several reasons. Despite the "gentility" of botany and thus its suitability for women, May's character is the earliest female botanist in film that I have found. Elaine May wrote, directed, and starred in the movie, but in 1971, during the second wave of feminism, she made Henrietta awkward and mannish. This perhaps follows a comedic imperative, but it also expresses society's uncertainty about women's roles during that time. Still, the character is ultimately, determinedly her own person, with a vocation and a marriage. We see her doing what taxonomists do: finding and naming and classifying life on the planet. Her interest in science is not predicated by any ideas of usefulness for human beings, or any conservation urgency, or any spiritual calling. She doesn't give a reason for her engagement with her study; she doesn't feel that she needs to. Early in the 1990s, as a working botanist, I had a brush with the film industry myself. At the University of Washington Herbarium I received a call one day from an assistant set dresser for the film _The Hand that Rocks the Cradle_. The movie was being filmed in Seattle. My heart beat fast, my face flushed, I was all atwitter-was this the start of my career as Botanist to the Stars? Little did I know I would end up here on stage in front of you tonight! The set dresser asked me to look around and tell her what I saw. What was on the walls of my office? Surely I had some botanical prints they could rent for their set? I told her about the dull brown metal bookshelves, stuffed with fraying nineteenth century books. I described the smudged white walls that surrounded me, and how ranks of seven-foot tall cabinets filled most of the room. I explained that I sat in a windowless basement, with a ten- dollar wildflower calendar hanging above my desk. In _The Hand that Rocks the Cradle_ (1992), Annabella Sciorra plays Claire, who is building a greenhouse in her backyard. The house she shares with her picturesque family sits in one of Seattle's tonier neighborhoods. Unlike my office, her home is clean, bright, cheerful, and tastefully decorated with art prints and area rugs. My input didn't appear to have had much effect. Claire also volunteers at a city park greenhouse (filmed at Seattle's Volunteer Park Conservatory), which provides another colorful backdrop. She says that the Conservatory is "one big botanist family" that talks about "root rot and the drainage properties of shredded bark." I think the script consultant who talked with my colleague at the University greenhouse paid better attention than the set dresser; drainage and root rot _are_ big topics. In the film, Claire and her husband hire a nanny, the toogood-to-be true Peyton Flanders (Rebecca De Mornay). This woman proves to be a psychopath, and she uses the backyard greenhouse to commit a grisly, glass shattering murder. The botany here is subservient to the plot's expression of societal tension. The film demonstrates a profound misogyny, in keeping with 1990s apprehensions about yuppie women "having it all." While purportedly showing Claire's fulfilling life with her loving husband, cute kids, affluence, and satisfying avocation, the real message is that Claire should stay at home with her children. She shouldn't need a nanny. The early 1990s were a hard time to be a woman botanist in the movies. In _Green Card_, Andie MacDowell plays Bront‰ Mitchell, a New Yorker desperate for an apartment that includes a greenhouse. This is no little rooftop hothouse built from a kit, with listing shelves of vegetable seedlings. Rather, it's reminiscent of a Victorian conservatory, with high arched ceilings and mature plantings. To be able to lease this apartment, she must convince the building's board that she is married, which is how she hooks up with Georges Faure (Gerard Depardieu), a French musician who wants to stay in the United States. At the beginning of the film, Bront‰'s occupation is the nicest thing about her: she facilitates the provision of garden spaces in the city. Otherwise she is a hard driving hardass, selfish, self-centered, dishonest, and unethical. During the course of the film, the sensitive artist Georges teaches the rude scientist Bront‰ how to be nicer, more genuine, and more compassionate. Then consider the treatment of Dr. Rae Crane (Lorraine Bracco) in _Medicine Man_ (1992). This film intends to show the environmental urgency of rainforest destruction-how the tropical rainforest is the repository of so many of the planet's resources, and yet we don't know or understand all that lives there. Sean Connery plays Robert Campbell, a botanist who has requested a research assistant from the private foundation that funds him. He's been incommunicado for the past three years but now he seems to have found something important, although he's not saying what. Rae Crane's occupation isn't explicitly stated although her self introduction implies that she is a plant biochemist. She journeys to Campbell's rainforest compound, bringing with her a gas chromatograph and the other supplies he requested. Campbell is by turns rude, arrogant, demanding, mysterious, and officious. He expresses scorn for Crane on all levels. He ridicules her expectations for food and a place to sleep. He jeers at her boots and her lack of field experience. And he derides her gender. Bracco's character shrieks and gesticulates, repeatedly demands a bath, and threatens to withdraw funding for his research program. Clearly, they deserve each other. All this bad behavior must be for dramatic effect, of course. We moviegoers rarely reward films in which people are nice to each other with blockbuster attendance records. In my experience, however, most scientists in remote field locations go to great lengths to extend courtesies to one another across divides of culture, gender, age, and nationality. If field biologists are new to a location or a culture, they will go without rather than presume. If they are hosting visitors, they will try their utmost to provide information and comforts to new arrivals. Incivility and arrogance can certainly be found in plant science, but among botanists in the field I have rarely encountered it. Despite his rudeness, Connery's character is deeply, almost fanatically, committed to his research, to the rainforest, and to the people he is living among. Early in the film he subjects Crane to a medical exam so that she won't infect the native people with any diseases she might be carrying. A noble sentiment, profoundly at odds with historical precedent, but made ludicrous by the superficial medical knowledge portrayed in the exam; it is the screenplay's excuse for Campbell to probe Crane and to set up the inevitable love-thang between them. Unfortunately, this begins a long series of scientific inanities in the movie. When Connery's character says, in his mellifluous brogue, "I _found_ the cure for cancer, but I _lost_ it," he is giving voice to farcical popular misconceptions about science. The idea that one scientist, working alone in a rustic, palm- roofed, field station, could _know_ that he had a cure for anything-let alone cancer, which is really many different diseases.well, that is so ludicrous that I choked, laughing, on my popcorn. Now, my point here is not that I am so much smarter about the workings of science than the screenwriters who developed this script. I understand that drama has exigencies of its own, and that a Hollywood film is primarily about entertainment and not education-although we all learn from movies, whether that is their intention or not. The plot of _Medicine Man_ disappoints me precisely because it has so much potential to say something true, or at least pertinent, about the tropical rainforests' importance to humans and to the planet. At least in _Medicine Man_ the botanist's work is central to the story, which isn't the case in almost all of the other movies in which botanists appear. You could replace "horticulturist and greenhouse" with "photographer and darkroom." Or "botanist on an expedition" with nearly any other kind of field scientist (e.g., geologist, zoologist, entomologist). The occupation of most of these botanically oriented characters is secondary to the main drivers of the plot, which are usually love, murder, mayhem, or all three. With Chris Cooper's Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as John Larroche in _Adaptation_ (2002) to start off the century, I have great hopes for botanical presence in films to come. Are you listening Harvey Weinstein? How about you Steven Spielberg? And you, Martin Scorsese? John Larroche is worlds away from Elaine May's timid pteridologist, but he too follows his own way. He is disrespectful of authority, convinced of his own righteous opinions, but he has a painful past that makes him sympathetic. He's no better than he has to be, but he's awfully good at what he does. _Adaptation_ works on many levels, but John Larroche fascinates Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), the journalist who is writing about him, precisely because of his passion. It's his passion she's hot for. Well, maybe it's the drugs, too. But her urban jadedness contrasts with his rugged, working-class enthusiasms, in a tradition that can be traced at least as far back as Lady Chatterley's lover. The cross-cultural romance is one of film's stocks in trade. Certainly the class transgression is part of the draw in _All that Heaven Allows_. We see it also in _Greenfingers_ (2000) when sexy lout Colin Briggs (Clive Owens) and his fellow prisoners create a garden that attracts the attention of horticulture diva Georgina Woodhouse (Helen Mirren in some fabulous hats). Clive Owen and the diva's daughter start a romance, and the diva herself takes up with one of the other gardener-convicts. Beyond being a working class hunk, what John Larroche does in _Adaptation_ is find and grow orchids. He tantalizes Susan Orlean with his obsessive curiosity. When she meets him, his interest is orchids. Before that it was fish. And will be something else. But when he is interested in something, he gives it his all. That rings true for me. The botanists I know tend to be impassioned about their subject. This can be lucky for them, to be so committed and engaged in their work when so many others have less passion about what they do. Perhaps it is similar to a mania for filmmaking? In _Adaptation_ we see screenwriter Charlie Kauffman (Nicholas Cage) tormented as he wrestles with the unwieldy but fascinating material of Orlean's book _The Orchid Thief_. Ultimately he opts for the conventions of cinematic storytelling, with drugs, guns, car chases, and murder. This serves as a commentary on his creative struggle, but more importantly it slyly scrutinizes-and lampoons-the expectations of Hollywood and the movie consumer. Well, this consumer loves a movie that makes me laugh and cry! Your industry understandably focuses primarily on the human condition. But while some movies do show concern for issues of social justice, more often they dwell on sensationalistic crimes, infidelities, and explosions. Film is another medium where we as a species show our almost complete focus on ourselves. This anthropocentrism may be our ultimate undoing. I suggest that the intersection of humans and nature at large-and not just big animals with sharp teeth-offer a fertile ground for the practitioners of your art. Botanical and other scientific adventures can be exciting and rich. There are big stories to explore here. Spectacular stories could be told about the science of plants: their discovery, their use, the tragedies of habitat loss and the extinction crisis. I'm thinking about Erin Brockovich-type stories of halting development to preserve biodiversity. I'm thinking about the heroism of Soviet scientists who literally starved to death rather than eat the seeds they were charged with preserving during World War II. I'm thinking about larger than life, colorful characters: Adventurous Ernest "Chinese" Wilson, who collected innumerable plants in remote valleys of China that are now familiar in our gardens. Cantankerous and lonely Wilhelm Suksdorf, who roamed the southern flanks of Washington's Mt. Adams and whose ideas were often at odds with the botanical establishment. Wealthy and spoiled Yn‚s Mexˇa, who collected plants in Mexico during the 1920s and 30s, and whose talent for selfpromotion was exceeded only by her ability to alienate others. Brave Alice Eastwood, who rescued plant specimens from a burning building during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and who collected plants well into old age. Charismatic and exasperating Al Gentry, who knew more about tropical trees than any other scientist, who cut a swathe through the hearts of his female colleagues, and who died in a plane crash on a fogcloaked mountain in Colombia. These are just some of the possibilities. You are the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences! I invite you to consider how your art, your science can interact with the green life that supports us all. There are a million stories in the naked herbaria, laboratories, and greenhouses of the world. What would happen if you make plants and our planet more central to your art? The winner would be ... all of us. ________________________________________________________________ Subscriptions: http://victoria.tc.ca/mailman/listinfo/ben-l Send submissions to aceska@telus.net BEN is archived at http://www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/ben/ ________________________________________________________________  From aceska@victoria.tc.ca Thu Feb 10 15:42:59 2005 From: aceska@victoria.tc.ca (Adolf Ceska) Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 07:42:59 -0800 Subject: [BEN-L]BEN # 343 Message-ID: <002501c50f87$37851f80$0828b440@HPLAPTOP001> BBBBB EEEEEE NN N ISSN 1188-603X BB B EE NNN N BBBBB EEEEE NN N N BOTANICAL BB B EE NN NN ELECTRONIC BBBBB EEEEEE NN N NEWS No. 343 February 10, 2005 aceska@telus.net Victoria, B.C. ----------------------------------------------------------- Dr. A. Ceska, P.O.Box 8546, Victoria, B.C. Canada V8W 3S2 ----------------------------------------------------------- SCOTT SUNDBERG - OREGON BOTANIST - 1954-2004 From: Aaron Liston [listona@science.oregonstate.edu] Scott Sundberg, director of the Oregon Flora Project, died December 30, 2004 of cancer. He had struggled for many years, most of them privately, with the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Yet it was cancer, only diagnosed in September 2004, which led to his passing. Scott Donald Sundberg was born on February 10, 1954 in Eugene, Oregon. Scott began his botanical career as an undergraduate at the University of Oregon. Among Scott's early scientific mentors were Prof. George Carroll and his wife, Fannie. Scott was involved in studies at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, where he collected the type specimen of a rare lichen, _Nephroma occultum_. Scott became fascinated with plant taxonomy, and soon was conducting independent study projects in the University of Oregon Herbarium. Scott benefited from working with two herbarium curators: recently-retired Georgia Mason, and newly- hired David Wagner. Scott graduated from the University of Oregon in 1978 with a B.Sc.(Honors) in Biology. From 1978 to 1980, Scott was employed as a botanist for the Bureau of Land Management, Coos Bay District. During that period, he gained considerable experience with the flora of southwestern Oregon. He made numerous noteworthy collections, and discovered new localities for many rare plant species. In 1981, Scott moved to Austin, Texas, to begin graduate studies at the University of Texas. He worked under the supervision of Prof. Billie Turner, and, like almost of all of Turner's students, Scott turned his attention to the composite family. Scott's taxonomic research in the Asteraceae continued throughout his career. Scott received his Ph.D. in Botany in 1986. His dissertation was entitled "The Systematics of Aster Subg. Oxytripolium (Compositae) and Historically Allied Species." Scott met his wife, Linda Hardison, in Austin. They married in Jakarta, Indonesia on August 13, 1986. In 1986, Scott began a one-year post-doctoral position at Ohio State University, working with Prof. Tod Steussy. The following year, Scott returned to the Pacific Northwest as Linda began her Ph.D. studies at the University of Washington. Over the next several years, Scott taught courses and conducted plant systematics research in the Department of Botany. From 19911994, Scott was a Botanical Consultant for Ebasco Environmental, Inc. in Bellevue, Washington. During that time he conducted rare plant surveys throughout Oregon and Washington. Scott moved to Corvallis, Oregon in early 1994, and Linda joined him in 1996 after completing her dissertation. Scott was hired to oversee the integration of the University of Oregon and Oregon State University Herbaria. Soon after, Scott initiated the Oregon Flora Project. In 1999, Scott was promoted to a Research Assistant Professor. The same year, Scott and Linda's son Matthew was born. Scott's 29 scientific publications include taxonomic papers (descriptions of new species, nomenclatural changes, and new classifications), laboratory-based investigations in plant systematics, and treatments for checklists, field guides, and floras. The majority of his publications concern the composite family. In addition, Scott has contributed numerous articles to the _Oregon Flora Newsletter_. A complete list of his scientific publications will appear in that publication. Scott devoted the last decade of his life to the Oregon Flora Project. As Coordinator, he directed over 230 volunteers and supervised over 60 student and several professional employees. He established the _Oregon Flora Newsletter_, the _Oregon Vascular Plant Checklist_, and the _Oregon Plant Atlas_. It is tragic that Scott did not live to see the completion of his dream, a comprehensive _Flora_ for the approximately 4,500 Oregon plant species. However, his activities created an extremely strong foundation for the continued growth of the _Oregon Flora Project_. The _Flora_ will serve as an enduring legacy to Scott's commitment to botanical education, and the documentation and conservation of Oregon's unique and diverse flora. A memorial service celebrating Scott's life was held January 16, 2005 in Corvallis, OR. Memorial gifts in his honor can be made to NPSO--Oregon Flora Project, and mailed to P.O. Box 402, Corvallis, OR 97339. IN THE NORTHWEST: WE MUST WAKE UP TO REALITIES OF GLOBAL WARMING From: Joel Connely [joelconnelly@seattlepi.com] Originally published in the _Seattle Post-Intelligencer_ February 9, 2005 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/211310_joel09.html The thermometer on Whidbey Island last weekend hovered in the high 30s, and a cold rain was pounding our corner of the Puget Sound convergence zone. "Isn't this terrific?" exclaimed landscaper Ginny Snyder as the drops poured down our faces. Hardened Northwest residents have learned a basic truth: Gray is beautiful. The rains sustain us in a multiplicity of ways. We ski on the winter snow pack. Gradual runoff, lasting through early summer, makes the Columbia Basin bloom and generates inexpensive electric power. Melt from glaciers and ice fields as far distant as the Canadian Rockies keeps up the flow through fall, when October rains send salmon up rivers and begin the cycle all over again. It is disturbing, then, that our region is starting to feel effects of global climate change in a drip, drip, drip kind of way. The climate impact researchers at the University of Washington have made gloomy not-so-long-term predictions: The snow pack will shrink. The runoff season will grow shorter. Glaciers will disappear. Somehow, public opinion has been slow to respond. "Global warming" isn't a term to elicit worry: Many of us head south to warmer climes during the winter. Alarmist scenarios, the mega-droughts and monster hurricanes envisioned by some scientists, have created feelings of helplessness. What can be done about something global and unstoppable? Chiefly, we ignore Cassandra-like warnings. Ex- Sens. Warren Rudman and Gary Hart headed a task force that predicted a major terrorist act on U.S. soil. The government and the public paid no heed. Our media paid more attention to the breakup of movie stars' marriages. We should be reading signals coming our way on the climate front. Back in the late 1950s, scientists began to study the advances and retreats of North Cascades glaciers. Arthur Harrison of the University of Washington mapped advances of the Coleman and Roosevelt glaciers on Mount Baker. The Coleman Glacier was chewing up slide alder along its flanks. Two tongues of the Roosevelt Glacier curled around the ends of a vertical cliff. The remote South Cascade Glacier came under intense scrutiny at the same time. It appeared pretty healthy, except during the long, hot summer of 1958. Not so today. The glacier has retreated markedly in years since. Between 1958 and 2001, the South Cascade Glacier lost about one- third of its water volume. A few miles north, the National Park Service has monitored the North Klawatti and Noisy glaciers. Each has lost three feet or more in thickness in just a decade. In the Wenatchee Mountains, hikers in the Enchantment Lakes (myself included) have witnessed rapid disappearance of the Snow Creek Glacier during the past 30 years. Three glaciers in the vicinity have vanished altogether since 1969. Water from these glaciers does vital work. Melt from the Snow Creek Glacier helps sustain salmon in Icicle Creek. It is used for irrigation in the Wenatchee River Valley. It passes through turbines of seven dams on the Columbia River. Another signal is provided by the vast expanse of dead or dying forests in British Columbia. The province has been hit by the worst-ever insect infestation of a North American forest. The mountain pine beetle, the size of a grain of rice, is responsible. Intense, fast-moving forest fires have been sparked in beetle- infested regions. A burn roared out of Okanagan Mountain Park into Kelowna suburbs two years ago. Another destroyed a hamlet west of Kamloops. Climate has made the invasion possible. The beetles used to be held in check by sudden cold snaps in fall and winter, and sustained frigid winters in interior British Columbia. "Successive hot, dry summers combined with mild winter in much of central B.C. have allowed the beetle to multiply, and even expand its range to areas that were once historically too cold for the insect to survive," reports the B.C. government. Before acting, must we wait for further "evidence" -- forest fires, droughts and rising sea levels? "It's like putting brakes on a supertanker," Robert Corell, who supervised the work of 300 scientists in the justreleased Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, recently warned a U.S. Senate committee. On Mount Baker, in the late 1950s, a big black bear on Bastille Ridge felt challenged by the UW's Harrison's measuring devices and ripped several of them apart. It's like that today. A seminar at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., is reserved for industry- financed scientists to rip apart the latest evidence of climate change. The Bush administration won't even acknowledge the problem. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has termed administration performance on the issue as "disgraceful." McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D- Conn., have tried and failed to pass legislation cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Some initiative has come from the state level. Outgoing Gov. Gary Locke was part of a bipartisan West Coast Governors Global Warming Initiative. The govs called for relatively modest measures such as government purchase of fuelefficient cars and developing renewable energy sources. In Olympia today, a state Senate committee takes up a bill to require that new cars emit 30 percent less carbon dioxide, 20 percent fewer toxic pollutants, and up to 20 percent fewer smog- causing pollutants. Auto manufacturers -- who have their way in Congress -- are fighting state action. Seven states, including California and New York, have adopted tighter standards. Seattle, too, has begun to act: Global warming was an improbable, but welcome, theme of Greg Nickels' latest stateof- the-city speech. "Some people will argue, 'This is a world problem. What can we do'?" reflected Jim Luce, the Vancouver, Wash., attorney who chairs the state energy facility siting council. "We can do what is possible. Considering what's happening here, shame on us if we do not try." A BOOK REVIEW AND SOME BOOK NOTICES FROM THE FEBRUARY 2005 ISSUE OF _TAXON_ From: Rudi Schmid [schmid@socrates.Berkeley.EDU] LEWIS-AND-CLARK BICENTENNIAL EFFUSIA Botkin, Daniel B. 2004. _Beyond the stony mountains: Nature in the American West from Lewis and Clark to today._ Oxford University Press, New York (www.oup.com). xvii, [ii], 284 pp., ill. (most col.), ISBN 0195162439 (HB), $38.00. _Contents:_ L&C near St. Louis; changing Missouri R. (MR); e. woodlands; tall- grass prairie; restoring lower MR; Platte R., Lost Hills; L&C among the Mandans; Amer.'s Serengeti; upper MR; to the Rocky Mts.; Bitterroot Mts.; Snake, Columbia Rs.; forests at mouth of Columbia; in wake of L&C; biblio.; index. Johnsgard, Paul A. 2003. _Lewis and Clark on the Great Plains: A natural history._ University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (www.nebraskapress.unl.edu), w/ the Center for Great Plains Studies, Lincoln. xii, [1], 143 pp., ill., ISBN 0803276184 (PB), price unknown. _Contents:_ hist. overview; Kansas-Missouri, Nebraska-Iowa; Dakotas; Montana; L&C sites of biol., hist. interest in cen., upper Missouri Valley; biblio.; index. Munger, Susan H. (text) & Thomas, Charlotte Staub (ill.). 2003. _Common to this country: Botanical discoveries of Lewis and Clark._ Artisan, New York (www.artisanbooks.com). 128 pp., ill. (most col.), ISBN 1579652247 (HB), $22.95. -- _Contents:_ foreword by V. Klinkenborg; intro; descr. pt.; Lewis and Clark Herbarium; biblio.; note; no index. The jewel in the crown (yes, it was a great 1984-85, 13 part TV series that I recently rewatched on DVD) of the expansionist phase in the history of the United States was the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-06). Botany and zoology were immensely enriched by this expedition, not only by its collections but also by the diaries of its participants, notably Captain Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809). Circa the bicentenary of the expedition we can expect a spate of LewisClarkiana: besides the aforelisted see also: G.E. Moulton (ed.), _The journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition,_ vol. 12, _Herbarium of the Lewis & Clark Expedition_ (1999; for review see L.J. Dorr, _Taxon_ 49: 620- 621), H.W. Phillips, _Plants of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_ (2003), S.A. Ritter, _Lewis and Clark's mountain wilds: A site guide to the plants and animals they encountered in the Bitterroots_ (2002), and G. Wells & D. Anzinger, _Lewis and Clark meet Oregon's forests: Lessons from dynamic nature_ (2001) (respectively, see _Taxon_ 52: 897, 172, 51: 628). Munger & Thomas's little book (128 pages) is an engaging account of 25 plant species, _Maclura pomifera_ (osage orange) to _Oenothera cespitosa_ (gumbo evening primrose), chronologically arranged as they were encountered by the expedition, supplemented with fine watercolors and copious excerpts from Meriwether Lewis's diary. It is a work to savor. Phillips's aforenoted book is comparable but broader in scope, whereas Ritter's aforecited work also includes animals, but focuses only on the Bitterroot Range in Idaho and Montana. The little book by Johnsgard (156 pp.), who has written extensively on Nebraska (see _Taxon_ 45: 173, 51: 224), covers the Great-Plains segment of the expedition. It contains much natural history and is interestingly written, but its fine monochromatic illustration by Johnsgard (39 figures, 5 chapter vignettes, 6 maps) makes this work less colorful than the others mentioned here. Botkin's scholarly work (303 pp.) is a well- written history and natural history of the entire expedition, a fine and ambitious overview with comparisons to present conditions. Illustration is copious: 13 B&W and 81 color photos/paintings, 4 line drawings, but, alas, no general map of the expedition. Botkin's fascinating slant on LewisClarkiana is his then- and-now comparisons, which are facilitated by some repeat photos (see R. Schmid, _Taxon_ 47: 791-792). The book is a gem amidst the bicentennial Lewis-and-Clark effusia. BOOK NOTICES Kerr, Andy. 2004. _Oregon wild: Endangered forest wilderness._ Oregon Natural Resources Council, Portland (www.onrc.com). xvii, [i], 238 pp., ill. (most col.), ep. text, 230x294 mm, ISBN 0962487783 (PB), $29.95 (from www.timberpress.com). _Contents:_ foreword by K. Dean Moore; intro; nat. hist. forests Ore.; unnat. hist. idem; political hist. wilderness (W) protections; political future forest W; long- term vision; Coast Ranges; Klamath Mts.; Cascades; slopes, foothills e. Cascades; Blue Mts.; afterword; notes; biblio.; 7 appendices; bionotes; index. Lowman, Margaret D. & Rinker, H. Bruce (ed.). 2004. _Forest canopies._ 2nd ed. Elsevier Academic Press, Burlington (www.academicpress.com). xxiii, 517 pp., ill. (some col.), ISBN 0124575536 (HB), price unknown. [Ed. 1 1995.] _Contents:_ foreword by T.E. Lovejoy; intro; 26 chaps. in 4 topic areas, each w/ intro (structures; organisms; ecol. processes; conserv.--resp., 6, 10, 6, 4 chaps.); index. Wagner, David H. Fall 2004. _Wagner's 2005 Willamette Valley nature calendar: Nature notes & garden hints, bird, mammal & plant activity, sunrise/sunset times, moon phases, holidays and holy days from around the world._ David H. Wagner, Northwest Botanical Institute, Box 30064, Eugene, OR 97403- 1064, USA. [24] pp., ill., 217x281 mm, no ISBN (spiral- bd.), $15.00 postpaid. A calendar for nw. Ore. well ill. by Wagner and w/ multifaceted info. ________________________________________________________________ Subscriptions: http://victoria.tc.ca/mailman/listinfo/ben-l Send submissions to aceska@telus.net BEN is archived at http://www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/ben/ ________________________________________________________________