Small Collections Herbarium Workshop

Hello everyone,

Last weekend we had some exciting things going on ! The CMC Herbarium hosted the "Small Collections Herbarium Workshop" here on campus. Botanists from all over Michigan and the Mid West participated in the workshop and learned a bit more about digitizing their  herbaria! Basically the wokshop passed the following message: " You can digitize your herbarium and those that did before can help you with this process."

It started at 9:00 am and went untill 6:00 pm. It was definetly a big day, but also very very informative!

Abigail and I participated on the talk " The bottle neck of pre-digitization curation: How do I prepare to digitize?" which was very exciting. It was my first time talking at a conference. I usually present posters which is a bit different :)

I talked about the process of verifying the names of the herbarium specimens! The process is detailed on the PPT slides below!

 I also talked about the lessons I learned while working in the herbarium for the past 5 months!
As you can see below, it involves a lot of learning in the field of plant systematics and taxonomy!

Thank you so much for reading our blog and have a wonderful day,

Emilie

Under the scope

I have been busy in the herbarium. I want to write about two problems that I am currently tackling. The first is determining key diagnostic characters useful in identifying and distinguishing two varieties (var. for short) of a species.  My quarry, Schoenoplectus acutus var. acutus (the autonym) and Schoenoplectus var. occidentalis are nearly indistinguishable.  S. var. occidentalis supposedly has three-parted styles and trigonous achens while the autonym has two-parted styles and plano-convex achenes.  I say supposedly, because I’ve found this trait to be unreliable among other sub-specific taxa in Schoenoplectus.  It takes an examination of several specimens to determine whether a character state is consistent or not. The CMC herbarium has specimens of both Schoenoplectus acutus varieties on loan and from field collections made by Central Michigan faculty and students.

Several specimens on loan have been annotated in the past by a recognized Cyperaceae expert. These are the specimens to really clue into to determine consistent diagnostic features. The unofficially word with these varieties… is again styles are not a reliable character as I found a three-parted style on at least one individual identified as the autonym.

The dissecting scope is a necessary tool to track down three-parted styles!

 

The second endeavor I am engaged in is to annotate all of our loaned Schoenoplectus and Schoenoplectiella specimens. Many of these specimens are from Africa and Asia and that means there is a whole new set of characters and different character states that may differentiate these taxa from each other and from the North American (N.A.) relatives. Luckily, I love learning and identification! To complicate things though, the keys and field guides are often not as well developed for these taxa as they are for the N.A. ones. So my hunt of the specimens also becomes a hunt into the literature to find the keys and species descriptions left by past botanists.

 

I learned that a handful of Schoenoplectiella species have clearly-visible septate culms (see picture below). None of the N.A. taxa display this feature. As an aside, do you see the need to examine the global diversity of a plant genus before you can adequately describe the features that encompass that genus; and the enormous time and collaboration that such a task would entail?

 

A look at septate culms

 

One key I found from a 1981 paper was helpful but the author had only examined species from Australia. When I pulled from the cabinet other similar species that did not occur in Australia I found that what I would have identified as one species was actually one of these newly pulled species. It came down to the number of wrinkles on the achenes! It may seem that adding more species to the mix might confuse things but the opposite is actually true; only when I had all of the known Schoenoplectiella species with septate culms from around the globe was I able to confidently distinguish the [6] distinct taxa.

Happy ID’ing

Derek

Prairie Fens of Michigan

Prairie Fens of Michigan

All of the plants that Hillary and I collected came from prairie fens in southern Michigan. Once finished with identity confirmations, over 800 new specimens will be added to the CMC Herbarium. We even have a few specimens that did not have any representation in the CMC Herbarium yet.

We traveled to ten prairie fens across five counties to collect our specimens. We visited the sites two times: once in late spring, the other in late summer. The sites looked very different between two periods with completely different plants in bloom: In spring, Carex sp., some grasses, and a select few dicots (Figure 1); in later summer, Asteraceae and practically everything else (Figure 2).

Figure 1. In a sedge meadow of a prairie fen in Oakland County, Michigan, in June the Carex sp., other Cyperaceae, and Poaceae show their dominance. White cedar (Thuja occidentalis) and tamarack (Larix laricina) thickets surround the sedge meadow. A stand of the invasive narrow-leafed cattail (Typha angustifloia) is spreading across the central stream.

Figure 2. Above is the same prairie fen of Oakland County, Michigan, in August. The sedge meadow zone of a prairie fen blooms in many different colors. In this photograph many wildflowers – Eutrochium maculatum, Eupatorium perfoliatum, Solidago - are blooming amongst the dominant sedges (Cyperaceae) and grasses (Poaceae). A few Asclepias species (A. syriaca in the foreground on the left) are also seen in sedge meadows. On the left in the middle-ground are a few dogwood shrubs (Cornus), and in the background are tamarack (Larix laricina) and white cedar (Thuja occidentalis) trees. Beware: Poison sumac shrubs (Toxicodendron vernix) are also common in prairie fens. This photograph was taken at a prairie fen in Oakland County, Michigan.

Prairie fens are a groundwater-fed wetlands dominated by grasses, sedges, and asters, found mostly in the glaciated Midwest. They are one of the most diverse ecosystems in the temperate region. These wetlands also are often source waters for major rivers: the Grand River, Shiawassee River, and River Raisin all begin in prairie fens. Fen existence also helps reduce the effects of global climate! Since prairie fens are fed by a nearly constant source of groundwater, they are wet almost all year long. All this groundwater reduces the rate of decomposition, so carbon and other compounds are trapped in the dead vegetative matter.

There are many different vegetation zones in the fens, each housing a different assortment of species. Typically sedge meadow zones cover the greatest area of a prairie fen (Figures 1 & 2). Sedge meadows are dominated by Cyperaceae, usually Carex sp. and contain many flowering dicots, mostly Asteraceae, and Poaceae, commonly big blue stem (Andropogen gerardii) and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans). Shrubs and small trees (Rosaceae, Cornus, and Toxicodendron vernix) are also common in sedge meadows.

Inundated flat is the zone near lakes and streams usually dominated by sedges (Cyperaceae) with few other small species (Figure 3). In times of heavy precipitation the inundated flat can become flooded. Walking in these zones is often “bouncy” because there is a mat of dead, non-decomposed vegetation you walk on. Sometimes these mats have more water than soil beneath them. These are the zones you may suddenly sink up to your thigh and not feel a bottom, only water and mud in your boot.

  

Figure 3. An inundated flat is a wet zone bordering lakes and streams dominated by Cyperaceae species (upper left). Clockwise from the top are some common and dominant species of inundated flat: Schoenoplectus sp. and Cladium mariscoides, on the lower right Eleocharis elliptica, and on the lower left a mat of Eleocharis rostellata around a Sagittaria latifolia plant and other sedges.

A calcareous groundwater seep is where a spring is allowing the groundwater to seep directly to the surface (Figure 4). These areas are wet all year round and are typically nitrogen and phosphorus poor. Carnivorous plants and other common bog species are found in this area of the prairie fen since it is lacking in nitrogen and phosphorus. Some prairie fens lack these zones; in others the seep may span acres; in others there are several small pockets with no one more than 25 square feet.

Figure 4. The calcareous groundwater seepage zone of a prairie fen is another possible zone of prairie fens that contains many unique and specialized species. In the photograph on the top are shrubby cinquefoil (Dasiflora fruticosa), bog lobelia (Lobelia kamlii), sageleaf willow (Salix candida), Equisetum scirpoides, Carex sterilis, Carex flava, and Schoenoplectus acutus. Below are other seepage inhabitants: left, roundleaf sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) and, right, purple pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea).

The wooded prairie fen zone is commonly along the edge of the prairie fen, transitioning the wetland into upland habitat (Figure 5). Some are dominated by tamarack (Larix laricina), other white cedar (Thuja occidentalis) or red cedar (Juniperus virginiana). One sure thing is that they are smelly: Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is a common and sometimes dominating species in wooded prairie fen zones.

Figure 5. A wooded prairie fen zone is still dominated by sedges, grasses, and asters, but has a canopy layer and other more shady wetland species like skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). The most common tree species of wooded prairie fen is tamarack (Larix laricina, a sapling pictured right). Other species include poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix), dogwood (Cornus spp.), white cedar (Thuja occidentalis), red maple (Acer rubra), and willow (Salix spp.).

 

As you can see, prairie fen communities are very diverse. The specimens we collected will support our field identification of the plant species for our theses and papers. A great specimen must have all the plant parts, including the roots (a tough job with some Carex and wetland species). These specimens must be pressed and dried for at least two weeks and frozen in a no-frost freezer to prevent insect and mold contamination of the Herbarium collection. For more information on collecting see the CMC Herbarium website (http://cmcherbarium.bio.cmich.edu/collections.html). After confirmation of species identity and properly mounted and labeled, they will be submitted to the Herbarium as specimens.

Rachel

Photos by Hillary Karbowski and Rachel Hackett

Science and Trouble-shooting

The last few weeks have found me working on a variety of projects in the Herbarium. I have been helping Emilie organize the cabinets prior to annotation, instead of during/after, and we have found that it is a far more efficient process. I am sure that all Herbariums, or libraries, for that matter, have the issues that we came face-to-face with these last few weeks. It was alarming to me to discover that within our Juncaceae shelves, (in fact, within most of the families) nothing was organized alphabetically or even by species. Specimens had been placed randomly back in the correct family, but not in the correct genus or species folders. Emilie had discovered this same problem within Cabinet 3 and 4, which is why it took so long to organize and annotate the monocots, especially since she was working alone then.

So, Adriane and I have begun dedicating part of our week to organizing the cabinets prior to Emilie's name-checks and annotations. Even though it means handling the specimens slightly more, it makes the entire process go by faster and more smoothly. This is especially because we encountered huge stacks of specimens that were completely unaccessioned. Without accession numbers, the specimens cannot be placed in our database, nor can they be tracked in any way. In the last two weeks, I must have accessioned at least three hundred specimens, just within Cabinet 5!

I also spent the last two weeks learning more of the ups and downs of the digitization process. We had some trouble with the software, but Michael Giddens was an invaluable help, and now I can proceed with my photographing. I was not bothered by the early software glitches, since it is a brand new program, and we are some of the first guinea pigs to use it. I am gaining more confidence with the software as I realize that it is actually fairly difficult to make a mistake with the photographing itself. The software warns me if I take two photographs without scanning a barcode, or if I scan the same barcode twice. I found the overwrite feature of the software particularly helpful last week, because I had to rephotograph multiple specimens, and I was petrified that I might have to wade through the computer's hard-drive, trying to delete the correct photos before I could retake them. With Michael's help, however, I discovered that the overwrite is extremely easy. You simply rephotograph the specimen, rescan it, and a box pops up letting you know that the barcode is already in the database and associated with a photo. You tell it to overwrite the previous photo, and the deed is done.

I can see such a feature coming in very  handy in the future. I am learning that science, and especially systematics, is an extremely recursive, dynamic process. The phylogenies of plants and their organization--even their names--are constantly evolving.This is especially true because of the recent advances in genetics and technology. The easy overwrite feature will make it simple to rephotograph specimens in the future if they have had to be annotated or re-accessioned for any reason.

Although the last two weeks have been full of trouble-shooting, they have also been very informative, and I have confidence that Emilie, Adriane, and I will continue to discover more efficient ways of completing our mission: the complete reorganization and digitization of 25,000 specimens.

Until next time,

Abigail H.

Organizing and Annotating the Monocots!

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for visiting out Blog!

During the past couple of weeks, I have been working heavily on organizing and annotating the Monocots we have here at the Herbarium!

Our Monocots take up 3 cabinets here at CMC and they are the most challenging group to organize for some reasons:

1. Within the Monocots we have the families Cyperaceae, Poaceae and Juncaceae. These 3 families are very big, meaning they have looooots of genera and species!
2. A lot of name changes happened recently (Scirpus is one good example. Many species of this genus were transfered to Schoenoplectus and other genera!) in such families.
3. At last, our 3 monocots cabinets were a bit unorganized, in a way that we had many specimens of different species in the same folders and everywhere in the cabinet.

I also found many specimens that needed to be accessioned already filled in the collection.

All of these things slow down our organizing process a lot, but I am happy to tell the world that two of these cabinets are down and we "only" have one more to go!

A big thank to Adriane and Abbie that helped during many steps of the organization process!

Until next post,

Emilie