The curators at MO are specialists on numerous plant families and are willing to identify collections in their areas of expertise. Each curator may be contacted directly for more information. In addition, special arrangements may be made for the identification of non-specialist groups by contacting the Curator of the Herbarium. The following summaries, written by our curators, provide background material for MO's current activities.
Bruce Allen, Curator, is a bryologist working on the Moss Flora of Central America, revisionary studies of tropical and temperate mosses, North American floristic studies, and bibliographic compilation. bruce.allen@mobot.org
Ihsan Al-Shehbaz, Curator, is the co-director of the Flora of China project (see Projects: Flora of China). His responsibilities include editing and tracking manuscripts, corresponding with authors, collaborators, and reviewers, writing proposals, progress reports, and newsletters, submitting budgets, and assisting with the publicity and management of the project. His main botanical interests are the systematics and evolution of Brassicaceae on a worldwide basis, with emphasis on the South American and Chinese members. Al-Shehbaz is also revising the South American members of Draba. He will be the principal author of the family for the Flora of North America and is actively working with Chinese botanists on the revision for the Flora of China. ial-shehbaz@lehmann.mobot.org
Fred R. Barrie, Assistant Curator, is based at the Field Museum (F), where he works for the Flora Mesoamericana project (see Projects: Flora Mesoamericana). He also represents the Garden on the Linnaean Typification Project (see Linnaean Typification Project) and is a member of the Editorial Committee for the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. His research interest is the systematics of the Valerianaceae, with an emphasis on the New World species of Valeriana, and he is preparing treatments of the family for several Floras, including Flora Mesoamericana, A Manual to the Plants of Costa Rica, and Flora of North America. fbarrie@fmnh.org
Anthony R. Brach,, Editorial Assistant, is based at the Harvard University Herbaria in Cambridge, MA, where he works on the Flora of China project (see Projects: Flora of China). He edits treatments for this flora according to the project's guidelines for contributors, interacts with collaborators, assists visitors associated with the project, and develops and maintains the flora's web pages. He collaborated on the Saururaceae account with Xia Nianhe (IBSC). He also collaborates on various projects including the Internet Directory for Botany and The Ecology Page, and Flora of the Shroud of Turin Home Page. brach@oeb.harvard.edu (Updated 5/00).
Steven P. Churchill, Associate Curator, is working on a moss Flora of Colombia with support from the National Science Foundation (see Projects: Mosses). He recently published Prodromus Bryologiae Novo-Granatensis with co-author Edgar Linares C. (COL) and has compiled a database of nearly 11,000 records with the assistance of Angela Gómez (HUA); both of these efforts will provide the foundation for the Colombian moss Flora project. The project's long-term goal is a treatment of the tropical Andean mosses, a collaborative effort by various Andean bryologists and Churchill. A checklist for the mosses of the tropical Andes, co-authored with Dana Griffin (FLAS), is now being completed for publication. Another project nearing completion is A Guide to the Bryophytes of Tropical America, with S. Rob Gradstein (U) contributing the hepatics and hornworts (about 194 genera) and Noris Salazar Allen (PMA) and Churchill contributing the mosses (about 395 genera). Intended to promote and stimulate interest in these organisms, this illustrated guide will provide descriptions of all neotropical families and genera of bryophytes, as well as information on their diversity, distribution, ecology, and literature. Both an English and a Spanish version will be published. schurchill@lehmann.mobot.org
Thomas B. Croat, P. A. Schulze Curator of Botany, concentrates on the study of neotropical Araceae. Because of his efforts, the Missouri Botanical Garden has become a principal center of research in Araceae, with the largest collection of herbarium material and the most species-rich collection of living material in the world. A number of major revisions have been completed by Tom, including Anthurium and Philodendron for Central America, and complete revisions of Syngonium and Anthurium sect. Pachyneurium, all funded by the National Science Foundation. Floristic accounts for the Araceae have been completed for Nicaragua, Venezuela, Central French Guiana, Paraguay, Guyana and Hawaii, and florulas have been prepared for several species-rich tropical areas, including La Planada (Nariño) and Bajo Calima (Valle) in Colombia. The latter project was funded by the National Geographic Society.
Revisions of the genera Rhodospatha and Dieffenbachia of Central America, both National Science Foundation-sponsored projects, are nearing completion. Floristic accounts are being prepared for Ecuador, Veracruz (Mexico), and the Guyana region. Field work for a revision of Anthurium sect. Porphyrochitonium has already begun and, along with Richard Mansell (University of South Florida), work is progressing on a revision of Anthurium sect. Semaeophyllium. Other staff involved with Araceae include Michael Grayum, who has revised the Araceae for the Manual to the Plants of Costa Rica, as well as Philodendron subgenus Pteromischum and Guanghua Zhu, who has revised Dracontium and will begin work on other members of the Lasioideae, Montrichardia and Urospatha. Petra Malesevich, Senior Herbarium Assistant, coordinates most of the project work and manages various databases of Araceae. The living collection of more than 6,500 Araceae, managed by horticulturist Cheryl Neuman, along with its database, is the source of much new information on the biology and taxonomy of this diverse family. To see more about his work, visit the International Aroid Society web page at http://www.aroid.org/. thomas.croat@mobot.org
Marshall R. Crosby, Senior Botanist and Senior Advisor to the Director, divides his time among various muscological projects, many of the activities in Scientific Publications, and special projects assigned by the Director. In muscology, he is coordinating the production of a worldwide checklist of the species of mosses. The checklist, now about 80% finished, is being compiled by the Garden's bryologists with outside contributions from specialists in some genera and families. It will contain an estimated 10,000 species, with geographical distribution indicated for each. The checklist will be published directly from data downloaded from MOST, the Garden's bryological database. marshall.crosby@mobot.org
Gerrit Davidse, John S. Lehmann Curator of Grasses, directs the Garden's participation in the Flora Mesoamericana project (see Projects: Mesoamerica). In this capacity he interacts frequently with Mario Sousa S. (MEXU) and Sandra Knapp (BM), London. An editorial meeting was held in London during June 1996. Davidse's research interests include monographic and floristic work on Poaceae and Cyperaceae. Current work continues to concentrate on the description of new taxa in connection with ongoing floristic projects. Two species of bamboos endemic to Colombia, Neurolepis silverstonei and N. petiolata, were recently published with co-author gerrit.davidse@mobot.org
Calaway H. Dodson, Senior Curator, is working on a project to computerize information concerning the Orchidaceae of the world. This project will merge and edit existing databases and enter data and images that are lacking in those databases. At present, there are 57,000 orchid records in the database and it is considered to be relatively complete. Access to the database is available through the Internet in TROPICOS. The end product will be a catalog of the Orchidaceae that will contain a record for each published name, with pertinent information concerning author, literature citations, synonymy, present status, types and their locations, etc. Those records considered to represent valid species will contain information concerning exsiccatae (100,000 specimen records are now available), distribution, conservation status, original description, illustrations, and photos. Collaborators include Phillip Cribb (K), Robert Molly (CBG), John Atwood and John Beckner (SEL), Gustavo Romero (AMES), and Eric Hagsater (AMO). Dodson continues to coordinate the treatment of the Orchidaceae for the Flora of Ecuador. A CD-ROM version of Icones Plantarum Tropicarum with 2,400 illustrations and accompanying text has been prepared by Lightbinders, Inc. cdodson@pi.pro.ec
Robert Dressler, a specialist in the morphology, classification, and evolution of the Orchidaceae, will soon complete the treatment of the family for the Manual to the Plants of Costa Rica, and is now collaborating on the orchids for Flora Mesoamericana. From his base at the University of Florida (FLAS), he works with John Atwood (SEL) and other orchid specialists. rdressl@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu
Randall J. Evans, Associate Curator, is interested in the flora of eastern Amazonia (the Brazilian states of Pará and Amapá). In collaboration with Regina C. V. Martins da Silva from the Botany Laboratory of Embrapa Amazônia Oriental in Belém, he recently obtained funds from the National Geographic Society for a botanical survey of the upper Rio Jari basin in the Serra de Tumucumaque separating Brazil from Suriname and French Guiana. He has also recently begun monographic work on the primarily Amazonian legume genus Tachigali.randy.evans@mobot.org (Updated 5/01).
A. Michele Funston, Assistant Curator, is coordinator of the Flora of China Checklist project and provides assistance to authors and co-authors of the Flora of China project. Her research interests are in the Senecioneae (Asteraceae) and the pteridophyte flora of China.michele.funston@mobot.org (Updated 6/00).
Roy Gereau, Curatorial Assistant, is continuing work on a systematic revision of the Ancistrocladaceae, a monogeneric family of 20 to 25 species in tropical Africa and Asia. His interest in the family originated with the discovery of Ancistrocladus korupensis D. W. Thomas & Gereau, a liana from the Southwest Province of Cameroon whose leaves produce an alkaloid that exhibits a unique mechanism of action against HIV-1 and HIV-2. Gereau is an editor of and contributor to the forthcoming volume of the Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden entitled, "Floristic Studies in Tropical Africa and Madagascar." He will contribute chapters on the floristic composition of the Lake Nyasa Climatic Region and Gombe National Park, both in Tanzania (see Projects: Tanzania). roy.gereau@mobot.org
Michael G. Gilbert, European Coordinator for the Flora of China project (see Projects: Flora of China), is stationed at the Natural History Museum (BM) in London. His primary duties involve checking manuscripts against material in the major British herbaria (BM, E, K) and other European herbaria and cooperating with European contributors to the project. He is also co-author for certain families. His long-term interests are in succulent plants, particularly the Stapelieae (Asclepiadaceae), Euphorbia (Euphorbiaceae) and Aloë (Aloaceae). He is a member of the IUCN's Species Survival Commission special group for cacti and other succulents; other interests are the Vernonoideae (Asteraceae) and a variety of groups within the Centrospermae. m.gilbert@nhm.ac.uk
Peter Goldblatt, Senior Curator and B. A. Krukoff Curator of African Botany, works largely on African plants and is a specialist on the systematics, biology, and phylogeny of the Iridaceae and related families of the petaloid monocots. His work is concentrated in southern Africa, an important center of evolution and diversification of petaloid monocots, including two-thirds of the estimated 1,800 species of Iridaceae.
Goldblatt has completed systematic accounts of the Iridaceae for Flora Zambesiaca (100 species, 1993), Flora of Somalia (six species, 1995), and Flora of Tropical East Africa (74 species, 1996), and for the Flora of Ethiopia (27 species, 1998). Working with J. C. Manning (National Botanic Institute, Kirstenbosch), Goldblatt has also completed a generic flora account for the Iridaceae of southern Africa now in press. Together Goldblatt and Manning have now completed a comprehensive florula of the southern African winter-rainfall zone, the Cape flora region. This part of the southern African subcontinent has almost half the total species of vascular plants that occur in southern Africa, about 9,000 species, some 69% of them endemic. All of southern Africa, about ten times greater in area, has some 21,000 species. In the New World, Goldblatt has completed accounts of the Iridaceae for Flora Mesoamericana, Flora de Nicaragua, Manual to the Plants of Costa Rica, and Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana. These treatments were prepared with J. E. Henrich (Denver Botanic Gardens). An account of the Iridaceae for Flora of North America is now in preparation, and Goldblatt has contributed several genera of the family.
Working in close collaboration, Goldblatt and Manning have an active research program, funded by the National Geographic Society, studying the pollination systems in the Iridaceae. They have completed studies of Lapeirousia (40 species) and southern African Gladiolus (165 species), both of which exhibit a wide range of pollination systems, including two novel systems involving different genera and species of long-proboscid flies in the horse fly (Tabanidae) and tangle-veined fly (Nemestrinidae) families of the Muscidae. These flies are the primary or sole pollinators of many species in both genera. The presence of these specialized pollinators and their associated guilds of plant species have permitted the diversification and radiation of species of several genera of Iridaceae, including into niches that apparently do not exist outside southern Africa. Goldblatt and Manning are also documenting several different guilds of plant species and their associated long-proboscid fly pollinators which have now been discovered across the entire southern African region. Three separate guilds of long-proboscid flies encompassing 14 species have been identified that are associated with different suites of plant species that occur in different parts of southern Africa or are active at different times of the years. The guilds invariably include two or more species of Iridaceae, often from different genera of the family, species of Pelargonium (Geraniaceae), and occasionally Amaryllidaceae, Orchidaceae, and Scrophulariaceae. Goldblatt and Manning are now extending their pollination studies to the genera Babiana, Hesperantha, Ixia, Romulea, and Sparaxis. The sub-Saharan African Hesperantha is particularly interesting, as different species exploit long-proboscid flies or settling moths for their pollination, the latter unique in the family, as well as nectar-foraging anthophorine bees, and scarab beetles.
Work on the systematics of the large genus Gladiolus was completed in 1998. A monograph of the genus in tropical Africa (83 species) was published by Goldblatt (Timber Press, 1996) and a second monograph, coauthored with Manning, dealt with 163 species in southern Africa. This work was released in 1998 (Fernwood Press, Cape Town) and included 144 sumptuous watercolor paintings. No sooner was the monograph published than two additional southern African endemics of the genus were discovered. Gladiolus has some 260 species, 250 in sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar and 10 more in Eurasia. Southern Africa is the center of diversity of the genus and 160 of the 165 species that occur there are endemic, while tropical Africa has 76 endemic species of Gladiolus. The basic pollination system for the genus is one using long-tongued anthrophorine bees with nectar as a reward. Within the genus, frequent shifts in the pollination system have occurred, giving rise to pollination by sunbirds, noctuid and sphingid moths, long-tongued flies, a butterfly, and in a few instances, monkey beetles or short-tongued, pollen-collecting female bees. Comparison of the pollination systems with the infrageneric classification developed by Goldblatt and Manning suggests that at least 27 separate instances of a shift in pollinator have taken place. Goldblatt is working with Mark W. Chase (K), Paula Rudall (K), and Gail Reeves (K and NBG) on the generic phylogeny of the Iridaceae. DNA sequences of the chloroplast genes rbcL, rps4, and trnL-f have provided valuable data on generic relationships, and this will be combined with information from morphology and anatomy to analyze the family phylogeny. DNA sequences have shown conclusively that several African genera of the tribe Homeriinae are nested in the larger genus Moraea and accordingly have been sunk in that genus, leaving Moraea with nearly 200 species.
Working in close collaboration, Goldblatt and Manning have also published local wildflower guides for local regions in South Africa, and have a wildflowers guide, Fairest Cape Wildflowers, in press, that covers a large portion of the floristically rich Cape flora region. This work will be published in South Africa and will be distributed by Timber Press in Europe and North America. Goldblatt & Manning contribute regularly to popular journals that deal with African flora and natural history and have articles published in Africa and Veld and Flora. A manual of the extraordinarily rich bulbous flora of the Cape region was completed this year by Goldblatt, Manning and D. Snijman (National Botanic Institute, Kirstenbosch). The extensively illustrated work, dealing with over 1100 species of several monocot families including the Amaryllidaceae, Colchicaceae, Iridaceae, Hyacinthaceae, and some smaller families will be published by Timber Press in 2001.
Goldblatt is editor, together with D. E. Johnson (Timber Press, Portland) of the Index to Plant Chromosome Numbers, a project funded by the National Science Foundation. For this project, contributing editors throughout the world collect information on original chromosome counts published in the scientific literature, and the data is assembled in biennial indices published by the Missouri Botanical Garden. An Index covering the years 1994-1995 was published in 1998 and another for 1996-1997 is in press and is expected to be released in September 2000. Marie Johnson works part-time managing data entry and processing for the project. Plant chromosome numbers for the years 1984-1997 are accessible via the Internet through the Missouri Botanical Garden's W3TROPICOS database.pgoldblatt@hotmail.com (Updated 5/00).
Michael H. Grayum, Curator, co-directs the National Science Foundation-funded Manual to the Plants of Costa Rica project (see Projects: Costa Rica) with Barry Hammel. He is also editor of the Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. michael.grayum@mobot.org (Updated 5/00).
William A. Haber is based in Monteverde, Costa Rica, where he is working on a Flora of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve and the contiguous International Children's Rainforest. These private biological preserves encompass 30,000 hectares of tropical rain forest and cloud forest and protect an estimated 3,000 vascular plant species. A species list for the area was published in Brenesia (1991). Haber is currently finishing a popular book on the common trees of Monteverde, which will be followed by a comprehensive field guide. He is participating in a conservation biology project to create forest corridors linking major forest fragments in the buffer zone to the biological preserves. He also helped establish permanent one-hectare tree plots in four different life zones in the area, and he and his assistants have been exploring the flora of the neighboring volcanoes Miravalles and Tenorio, which are part of the conservation management area at Monteverde. He frequently serves as a resource for research biologists and teaches tropical biology courses held in the area. whaber@sol.racsa.co.cr
Barry Hammel, Curator, resides in Costa Rica where he supervises the team working on the Manual to the Plants of Costa Rica (see Projects: Costa Rica) in conjunction with Michael Grayum, who is based in St. Louis. He works closely with both the Museo Nacional (CR) and the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio). His main office is at the latter institution, where he serves as advisor to the Botany Department. He returns to MO for one or two months each year. barry.hammel@mobot.org
Daniel Harder, Assistant Curator, continues to develop a collaboration with the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (IEBR) of Hanoi. This working relationship established the foundation for collections in Vietnam by Thomas B. Croat, Henk van der Werff and Porter P. Lowry II. Support has been obtained to continue with botanical inventories within protected areas and from surrounding areas from the National Science Foundation (see Projects: Vietnam). This project will add significantly to our understanding of the botanical diversity within Vietnam and will assist in developing the technical and physical capacities of our collaborators. Harder and his family moved to Hanoi in early 1999 to begin Garden operations and to oversee program development in Indochina. daniel.harder@mobot.org
Si He, Associate Curator, specializes in the study of Chinese and Asian mosses. He is the Project Coordinator for the Bryophyte Flora of China, English version, and has been awarded, together with Marshall R. Crosby, a second grant (2000–2003) from the National Science Foundation for continuing the project. The first volume of the Flora was published in July 1999, and the second one is expected to be published in September 2000. He is coordinating manuscript preparation of the third and future volumes of the Flora. He continues to work on the Garden's Asian bryophyte collections, especially the Chinese ones, providing identifications and transliterations of the collection data. He is also developing a reseach plan to study the moss flora of South Korea in the next five years. si.he@mobot.org (Updated 5/00).
Peter C. Hoch, Curator, continues systematic studies of the family Onagraceae in collaboration with Jorge V. Crisci (LP), Peter H. Raven, and others. He is pursuing phylogenetic analyses using morphological/ontogenetic and cytological data in coordination with molecular analyses by Ken Sytsma (WIS), David Baum (GH), and others to develop a comprehensive phylogeny for the family. Hoch recently served as the Secretary General of the International Botanical Congress, which was held in St. Louis in August 1999. peter.hoch@mobot.org
Victoria C. Hollowell joined the research staff (MBG Press) in October as Scientific Editor of the Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, Novon, and other publication projects. She came to the Garden from the USCH Herbarium, Biological Sciences, at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Her research interests center on herbaceous bamboo grasses in neotropical Olyreae (Pariana, Eremitis). In 1997, she contributed a chapter on the systematic relationships of Pariana and allies to "The Bamboos" symposium volume edited by G. P. Chapman. She has written keys and taxonomic treatments for Pariana for t he Flora of Bolivia with Steve Renvoize (K), Flora Mesoamericana with Gerrit Davidse, as well as nomenclature of Parianinae to the TROPICOS database, also through MO, with editors Rob Soreng, Peter Peterson, and Emmet Judziewicz, Smithsonian Contributions to Botany. Her doctoral research in bamboo grasses was directed by the late Tom Soderstrom at US and included field work in Brazil. She did postdoctoral research on molecular and DNA techn ologies with transgenic plants and plant potyviruses in the lab of Vicki Vance at the University of South Carolina. As an assistant professor of biology (1990--1993) at Columbia College, a small women's college in South Carolina, Hollowell was director o f the Honors Program, participating in floristic and DNA fingerprinting research projects with students. victoria.hollowell@mobot.org
Peter Møller Jørgensen, Assistant Curator, coordinated the Catalogue of the Vascular Plants of Ecuador (see Projects: Ecuador)and is now directing the Catalogue of the Vascular Plants of Bolivia, a collaborative project involving four institutions and about 200 collaborators. In addition to Ecuadorian and Bolivian Passifloraceae, Olacaceae, and Santalaceae, his research interests are phytogeography, structural ecology, and diversity and floristic composition of the high Andean areas of Ecuador.peter.jorgensen@mobot.org (Updated 5/00).
Walter H. Lewis, Professor of Biology, Washington University, and Senior Botanist at MO, continues his studies of the medical ethnobotany of the Jívaro Indians of Amazonian Peru and Ecuador. This project, whose object is to discover new pharmaceuticals from plants used by indigenous groups of the Amazonian and adjacent Andean regions, is funded by a five-year grant from the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group through the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health. Lewis' multi-volume ethnomedicinal study of South American plants, also funded by the NIH, was published by Chapman and Hall (London) in 1997. lewis@biology.wustl.edu
Ronald Liesner, Curatorial Assistant, sorts Mesoamerican and South American plants to family so they can be sent to specialists. For families without specialists, he identifies accumulated collections to species and at the same time curates the herbarium using new monographs and Floras, cycling through the flowering plant families once every three years. Special requests for determinations from ecologists, anthropologists, etc. are accumulated and processed once a year. Plants without label information (including latitude, longitude, and elevation) will not be identified. ron.liesner@mobot.org
Porter P. Lowry II, Curator and Head of the Africa and Madagascar Department, is based at Paris (P). His research interests are the systematics and evolution of Araliaceae, and he is preparing revisions of the family for the Flore de la Nouvelle Calédonie, the Flora of Australia, the Flore de Madagascar et des Comores and, in collaboration with Xiang Qi-bai (NF), the Flora of China. Lowry is also completing revisions of several genera, including Reynoldsia and Gamblea (the latter with Xiang), and i s describing several new species from the Pacific and the Comoro Islands. During the last several years he has started working with Alexei Oskolski (LE) on systematic studies of wood anatomy of Araliaceae, and has begun collaborating with Greg Plunkett (V CU) on a series of phylogenetic analyses using molecular and morphological data. Since joining the staff in 1986, Lowry has overseen the rapid expansion of the Garden's programs in Madagascar and Africa (see Projects: Madagascar). pete.lowry@mobot.org
Carlyle Luer continues his work on the Pleurothallidinae (Orchidaceae). Systematics of the genera are currently being published as Icones Pleurothallidinae in the Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden. Also in preparation are the Pleurothallidinae for the Manual to the Plants of Costa Rica and the Floras of the Greater Antilles, Ecuador, the Guianas, and Paraguay.
John MacDougal, Conservatory Manager in the Garden's Horticulture Division, continues his taxonomic studies of neotropical Passifloraceae in association with the Research Division. john.macdougal@mobot.org
Robert E. Magill, Curator of Bryophytes and Director of Research, is working on the fourth and final fascicle of his Moss Flora of Southern Africa and is conducting research on several families for Bryologia Africana, an illustrated Flora of tropical African bryophytes. Magill is also studying bryophytes in Madagascar with support from a National Geographic Society grant. His involvement with the computer operations for TROPICOS and the Index of Mosses project continues, and he is revising A Dictionary of Mosses, with Marshall R. Crosby, to provide an enhanced and expanded text for a new edition that will be called Systema Muscorum. Magill edited a multilingual glossary for bryology, Glossarium Polyglottum Bryologiae, that was published in Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden. He directs the activities of the Garden's Research Division in cooperation with the heads of the departments in the division and with the support of Eloise Cannady, Lois Ganss, Kathy Hurlbert, Sandy Lopez, and Brenda Sneed. bob.magill@mobot.org
Gordon McPherson, Curator, continues taxonomic work on the Phyllanthoideae, Acalyphoideae, and Euphorbioideae (Euphorbiaceae) of Madagascar, which he will eventually contribute to the Flore de Madagascar et des Comores. gordon.mcpherson@mobot.org
James S. Miller, Curator and Head of the Applied Research Department, coordinates the Garden's programs in economic botany. These include programs aimed at discovering new pharmaceutical, agricultural, or nutritional products. A project with the National Cancer Institute searches for new anti-cancer drugs in Madagascar. The NIH-funded International Cooperative Biodiversity group looks for new medicines and agricultural products from plants in Suriname and Madagascar, in partnership with six other institutions. Programs with Monsanto, Novartis, and Sequoia Sciences look for new applications of plants to human health in a variety of countries. A new collaborative program with the University of Missouri, Columbia will establish a Center for Phytonutrient and Phytochemical Studies with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Miller also continues his interest in floristics of Madagascar and is completing a botanical inventory in collaboration with P.-J. Rakotomalaza and J. Raharilala of the Reserve Naturelle de Marojejy, a 50,000-hectare protected area in northeastern Madagascar. This project has been supported by the National Geographic Society and the World Wide Fund for Nature. He also studies systematics of tropical Boraginaceae and continues to describe new species from both the old and new world tropics. His current research interests include generic delimitation in the subfamilies Cordioideae and Ehretioideae and preparation of floristic treatments for Madagascar and several regions of the Neotropics. james.miller@mobot.org (Updated 5/00).
David Neill, Curator, has resided in Ecuador since 1985, where he has been carrying out floristic projects, providing technical training for Ecuadorian botanists, and assisting in the institutional development of the National Herbarium of Ecuador (QCNE), part of the Museo Ecuatoriano de Ciencias Naturales (see Projects: Ecuador). In the past Neill also has served as director of the Jatun Sacha Foundation, a private non-profit Ecuadorian organization engaged in conservation of natural habitats, biological research, and environmental education. Neill's taxonomic interest is in the bean family, Fabaceae. During the first half of 1997, Neill resided in St.Louis to work on the treatment of Fabacae for the Catalog of the Vascular Plants of Ecuador. An exciting event was the recent discovery of a new, undescribed genus of Fabaceae (Caesalpinioideae, tribe Detarieae), a large canopy tree now known from a few localities in the forest remnants of western Ecuador. The new genus will be published in the Garden's journal Novon. Neill is initiating taxonomic studies of the genus Lupinus in the high Andes of Ecuador. In the past year he has carried out field work jointly with Ecuadorian botanists from QCNE in various parts of the country and taught a course in biodiversity at the public university in Quito. His wife, Mercedes Asanza, is also a botanist and collaborates on various projects of the QCNE herbarium. neill@mobot.org
Amy Pool, Curatorial Assistant, co-editor for the Flora de Nicaragua project continues to contribute family treatments and manuscripts (see Projects: Nicaragua). Families contributed to the Flora de Nicaragua include Actinidiaceae, Ebenaceae, Flacourtiaceae, Lamiaceae, Moraceae (with W. D. Stevens and C. Todzia, TEX), Nyctaginaceae, Oleaceae, Orobanchaceae, Pandanaceae, Ranunculaceae, Rutaceae (with D. Porter, VPI, and F. Chiang, MEXU), Sapotaceae, Theaceae, Urticaceae, and Verbenaceae (with R. Rueda, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua-León). She has also prepared the Lamiaceae for the Manual to the Plants of Costa Rica and plans to work on the Urticaceae in the near future.amy.pool@mobot.org
Peter H. Raven, Director, is a member of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, which is the highest level, private sector advisory group guiding the President on science and technology matters. Raven also continues to direct much of his efforts to the preservation of biodiversity, conservation of natural resources, and protection of the ecosystems of the world. His personal research program focuses on Onagraceae, a family on which he has worked for almost 40 years, and which, as a result of his work and that of many students and colleagues, is known in great detail. The main goals of the Onagraceae research program are to describe the relationships among species and genera using the precise definitions and methodologies of phylogenetic systematics, and to summarize in book form the overall features of the plants, their nomenclature, and the large body of literature on the family.
P. Mick Richardson, Manager of Graduate Studies (see Graduate Program), is interested in the evolution of secondary plant compounds in plants, especially higher plants. Cladistics has allowed our knowledge of these compounds to be used for taxonomic purposes in a more rigorous manner. The investigation of taxonomic congruence, especially the study of cladograms based on morphology with those based on the occurrence of phenolic compounds such as flavonoids, xanthones, and tannins, is another area of interest. Richardson has organized the Annual Systematics Symposium for the last few years with the invaluable assistance of Kathy Hurlbert and the Research support staff. mick.richardson@mobot.org
Jon Ricketson, Curatorial Assistant, coordinates incoming collections for projects in Peru, Paraguay, and projects in Colombia. He is preparing the treatment for the family Myrsinaceae for Flora Mesoamericana and continues to prepare treatments for most of the aquatic families for the Vascular Plants of Arizona. jon.ricketson@mobot.org
Jan Salick [Photo], Curator of Ethnobotany, has worked with indigenous peoples and useful plants around the world. In Southeast Asia she has worked principally in Indonesia, Malaysia, and most recently in southwest China. In Latin America she has worked extensively in the Amazon Basin (Brazil, Peru, Columbia, Venezuela) and Central America (Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico). In Africa her experience is limited to South Africa, Nigeria and the Cameroon. In the United States she conducts research on population dynamics, cultivation, and harvest of useful plants including herbal medicines. Her research integrates ethnobotany with evolutionary ecology and particularly plant/people interactions and with conservation and development. She has received research funding from NSF, Mellon Foundation, McArthur Foundation, US Fish and Wildlife, USAID, USDA, USTitleVI, World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF), UNDP, Swedish Government, Norwegian Government, IBPGR, etc. As past President of the Society for Economic Botany, she works with AIBS and NSF to strengthen funding for ethnobotany as a discipline. jan.salick@mobot.org (Updated 9/00).
George E. Schatz, Curator, coordinates a project to make information on the vascular plants of Madagascar widely accessible (see Projects: Madagascar). This collaborative effort involves the two principal Malagasy herbaria (TAN and TEF) and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (P) in Paris. In Madagascar he continues to focus on the wet forests, the most diverse but least known vegetation zone, and is currently establishing a series of permanent one-hectare inventory/long-term ecological monitoring plots. In 1996 he organized a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) workshop for graduate students and staff, led by GIS specialists from the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University, with whom Schatz has been collaborating on GIS projects in Madagascar. He leads the GIS Interest Group (GISIG) at MO and continues taxonomic and floristic studies of Annonaceae worldwide. george.schatz@mobot.org
Tatyana Shulkina joined the Garden staff in 1992 after a distinguished career at the Komarov Botanical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia. While at the Komarov, she was Curator of the herbaceous plant collection from 1965 to 1984 and Curator of the entire living plant collection from 1984 to 1991. She also organized many field expeditions to collect plants for horticultural introduction and display in the garden. One of her major proj ects since her arrival in the U.S. is a study she is conducting on the flora of the former Soviet Union as a source of new ornamental plants. She is an expert on the Campanulaceae and ornamental plants of Russia and adjacent regions, and has a particular interest in the biomorphology of certain groups of plants. In 1997 she and James Solomon collected in the Caucasus region of the Republic of Georgia in collaboration with botanists from the Institute of Botany of the Georgian Academy of Science. At MO she has worked on projects in Onagraceae, the China Checklist, and the Peru project. At present she is coordinating the Garden's project in Paraguay. tatyana.shulkina@mobot.org
James C. Solomon, Associate Curator and Curator of the Herbarium, manages the herbarium collections (see General Curation). He also specializes in the study of neotropical Cissus (Vitaceae) and Cactaceae and is presently working on treatments of these families for the Manual to the Plants of Costa Rica. He continues to work on floristic studies in Bolivia and is particularly interested in the Yungas region near La Paz. In addition, recent efforts have been directed at increasing collaborative activities with institutions in Russia, Kazakstan, and other republics of the former Soviet Union. jim.solomon@mobot.org
Brenda Sneed does most of the purchasing and ordering for the Research Division. In addition, she manages and oversees the daily operation of the Trelease House and the Anderson House, both maintained by the Research Division to house visiting researchers and other Garden visitors. When Brenda first started in 1989, the Division maintained only two apartments with four beds. Now she oversees eight apartments with over 35 beds. Each furnished apartment has a fully equipped kitchen and can be reserved by calling Brenda at (314) 577-9576 or through email. She accepts payment by Visa, Mastercard, check or cash for lodging and other invoices issued by Missouri Botanical Garden. brenda.sneed@mobot.org (Updated 5/00).
W. D. Stevens, B. A. Krukoff Curator of Central American Botany, devotes his efforts to studies of Asclepiadaceae and to completing the Flora de Nicaragua (see Projects: Nicaragua). stevens@mobot.org
Peter Stevens. I have long been interested in the Malesian flora, especially that of New Guinea, and in phylogenetic/monographic studies (currently mostly in Clusiaceae, also Ericaceae). This study of plants is my first and continuing love. Monographic studies in several genera of Clusiaceae are well advanced, needing only blocks of time to finish final editing of generic treatments of Marila, Mammea, Mesua, Kayea, and Poeciloneuron. An extensive study of character variation and phylogeny in Clusiaceae s.l. is in a similar state. In Ericaceae, work focusses on Dimorphanthera (several new species), Paphia (perhaps reinstatement of the genus; new species with very interesting distributions), and Vaccinium (new species). Also, with Nancy Gift and Kathy Kron, a phylogenetic study of Kalmia and its relatives is almost finished. This work draws on experimental studies on character states and compares relationships suggested by different kinds of data; it has important implications for character evolution.
I am also interested in the history of systematic biology, especially the period 1750-1900, in systematic theory, especially the issue of data in systematics and delimitation of character states, and in the relationship between cognitive psychology and systematic theory and practice, past and present. These more theoretical and historical concerns are intimately linked to practice, hence work in one area often has implications in others. Thus debates over species limits in the 19th century mirror current discussions over species limits in the Malesian region. The main issue is under what conditions does the systematist see the discontinuities used to delimit species. Resolution of this issue has implications for biodiversity and ecological studies; in some genera the number of species we recognise may be wrongly estimated by a factor of two or more. Also, by following 18th and 19th century literature on natural history, zoology, and botany, we gain a very vivid idea of how these apparently innocuous words came to have—and still have—very different connotations for different groups of people. It is important to realise how trivial and unimportant the study of botany (= classification) had come to seem to many groups of people by the end of the 19th century!
In general, I am trying to understand just what it is that morphological systematists do, whether sight-identifying herbarium specimens or performing phylogenetic analyses. This understanding will help us improve our practice and clarify how the whole systematic endeavour relates both to other branches of biology and to the public at large. It is both interesting and sobering to see how often apparently quite different issues in the history of systematics and in current practice reduce to the problem posed by continuity and our attempts to solve it, which are all too often confounded by the fact that we have not fully realised the extent of the problem.peter.stevens@mobot.org (Updated 6/00).
Charlotte M. Taylor, Associate Curator, coordinates the Garden's activities in Colombia and its participation in the New Flora of Chile. A specialist in the Rubiaceae, she is collaborating on treatments of the family for Mesoamerica, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, and the Guianas, and continuing revisionary studies in Palicourea and other genera. charlotte.taylor@mobot.org
Nicholas Turland, Assistant Curator, is an Editorial Assistant for the Flora of China (see Projects: China). Formerly of the Botany Department of the Natural History Museum, London (BM), he joined the MO staff in 1997. So far, he has edited the gymnosperm families for Flora of China Volume 4 (published in 1999), and the Dioscoreaceae, Iridaceae, Liliaceae, and Zingiberaceae for Volume 24. He also co-authored several genera in the Liliaceae, and the volume is due in summer 2000. In addition, he is responsible for checking nomenclature, tracking manuscripts, and database management in general for the Flora. At the XVI International Botanical Congress in St. Louis in 1999, he was appointed a member of the Editorial Committee for the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (St. Louis Code). While at the Natural History Museum, he worked for Charles Jarvis on the Linnaean Typification Project . Before that, he co-authored a checklist and atlas of the flora of Crete and collaborated on the Flora of the Cretan Area and the Flora of Madeira which were published by the Museum in 1993 and 1994, respectively. His specialties are the flora of the Mediterranean region and botanical nomenclature, but he is now becoming increasingly immersed in the Chinese flora, as well as learning about native Missouri plants. In 1997, Turland and Gregory Pedano, Herbarium Assistant in Bryology, traveled to China for seven weeks of plant collecting in the remote Gaoligongshan Mountains in northwestern Yunnan Province. nicholas.turland@mobot.org (Updated 5/00).
Carmen Ulloa Ulloa, Assistant Curator, joined the Research Division in 1993 to work on the Flora de Nicaragua (see Projects: Nicaragua). She is editing treatments for the Flora, which will be published in Spanish, and is also coordinating the final stages of the project. She and her husband, Peter Møller Jørgensen are preparing the treatments of the Olacaceae and Santalaceae for the Flora of Ecuador and early this year published a new species of Santalaceae from the Amazon forest, Acanthosyris annonagustata C. Ulloa & P. Jørg. Her research interests are the flora and phytogeography of Andean forests and páramos of Ecuador the Berberidaceae, Santalaceae, and Olacaceae. carmen.ulloa@mobot.org
Rodolfo Vásquez, Assistant Curator, coordinates the Garden's activities in Peru from Iquitos (Loreto Department) and Jaén (Cajamarca Department). He is finishing his work on the Flórula de las Reservas Biológicas de Iquitos, Perú. Since 1993 he has been working on a project to prepare a florula of the Río Cenepa drainage basin and adjacent areas, including the Cordillera del Huarango in San Ignacio (Cajamarca). In addition, he is making progress on a florula of the Aguaruna community of Yamayakat on the Río Marañón, near the Peru/Ecuador border, and in 1996 began collecting intensively in the Río Heath area near the border with Bolivia. His specialty is the flora of Amazonian Peru, with emphasis on Caraipa, Vismia (Clusiaceae), and the Elaeocarpaceae. vasquez@fullnet.com.pe
Henk van der Werff, Associate Curator and Assistant Director of Research, studies the mostly tropical Lauraceae. His current project consists of the preparation of a new treatment of Lauraceae for the Flore de Madagascar et des Comores. He is also preparing a phylogenetic classification of the genera of Lauraceae. He finished Lauraceae contributions to the Florula of Saül and the Flora del Bajío. Part of his time is devoted to identifying Lauraceae collections made by MO botanists or received as gifts for determination. henk.vanderwerff@mobot.org
Justyna Wiland-Szymanska, from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, is working on the family Hypoxidaceae for the Flora of Tropical Africa. Her main interest is the genus Hypoxis, and she is working on the revision of this genus for tropical Africa and other parts of the world. She is associated with the Africa and Madagascar Department and takes an active part in organizing the pickled lab collection. justyna.wiland@mobot.org or wiland@amu.edu.pl (Updated 5/00).
Constance P. Wolf, Library Manager, works with other Library staff and volunteers to ensure that collections, programs, and services are maintained and strengthened (see Library). Her current projects revolve around strengthening worldwide electronic access to library collections, as well as other information resources and services. connie.wolf@mobot.org (Updated 5/00).
George Yatskievych, a botanist with the Missouri Department of Conservation, is Curator of Missouri Plants at MO and directs the Flora of Missouri project. He has broad interests in North American floristics and systematics and is also involved in research on New World pteridophytes, particularly cheilanthoid genera and ferns of the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico. He is collaborating on generic treatments for various floristic projects, including Flora Mesoamericana, Flora of North America, and Vascular Plants of Arizona.george.yatskievych@mobot.org (Updated 5/00).
Kay Yatskievych, has been a coeditor of the Flora of the Venezuelan Guyana since 1990. She edits and writes treatments and coordinates communications between herself, her two co-editors (Paul E. Berry, University of Wisconsin, and Bruce K. Holst, Selby Botanical Garden), and approximately 200 other contributors to the series. Kay designed the page layout for the 9-volume series, and has produced the camera-ready copy for the first five published volumes. The final four volumes are expected to be completed at the rate of one per year.
On her own time, Kay works on the flora of Indiana. Her Field Guide to Indiana Wildflowers, published by Indiana University Press, will be in print October 2000. It treats 1,564 species in 114 families--all of the herbaceous species (except grasses, sedges, and rushes) known from Indiana. It will contain 640 color photos, mostly taken by Kay and her husband George, and 376 detailed illustrations, all drawn by Kay. Her next Indiana publication will be A Catalogue of the Vascular Flora of Indiana, which will go to press in about one year.kay.yatskievych@mobot.org (Updated 5/00).
Elsa M. Zardini, Associate Curator, resides in Paraguay, where she is working in collaboration with local institutions towards producing a floristic inventory and database of Paraguayan plants as part of the Flora del Paraguay project directed by Prof. Rodolphe Spichiger (G) and jointly published by MO and G (see Projects: Paraguay).
With the support of the National Geographic Society, Zardini and her colleagues have conducted an intensive collecting program that has stimulated conservation efforts. The Ybytyruzú National Park has been created in one of the mountain ranges surveyed, and plans are beingworked out to enlarge several other parks: Ypoá (95,000 hectares) to protect the entire lacustrine basin of Estero Ypoá (500,000 hectares); Cerro Corá to protect many of the table mountains of Amambay; and Defensores del Chaco, which will be joined to the Ka'a-lya National Park in Bolivia to establish a unique binational park protecting 5,000,000 hectares of the chaco. In addition to spurring conservation efforts, the information on Paraguayan plants gathered by Zardini and her colleagues is helping local landowners in their efforts to protect their lands.
Based on analysis of the collections made, on her former experience with the floras of Argentina and southern Brazil, and on recent publications, Zardini is developing the idea that the Plata Basin, which occupies 25% of South America, constitutes a floristic unit, probably the most diverse in substrates and plant communities in South America. This concept points towards a new interpretation of South American phytogeography. Commentaries related to this idea are appreciated (see e-mail below).
As part of Peter H. Raven's long-term program on Onagraceae, Zardini continues her monographic work on Ludwigia, and with Raven has submitted the treatment for Flora dos Estados de Goiás e Tocantins. The treatment for Flora del Paraguay is in preparation. Zardini will give a course at the School of Biology (in collaboration with the Head of the Botany Department, Bonifacia de Bertoni) and has lectured at the School of Graduate Studies (in collaboration with the Head of the Department of Environmental Studies, Blanca Masulli), School of Agronomy, Fundacion Moises Bertoni and Women's International Club.elsa.zardini@mobot.org
James L. Zarucchi, Associate Curator, is Managing Editor and Department Head for the Flora of North America (see Projects: Flora of North America). In addition, he is contributing accounts of various genera of Apocynaceae and Fabaceae for other Garden floristic projects (Flora Mesoamericana, Flora de Nicaragua, Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana, Catalogue of the Vascular Plants of Ecuador). Zarucchi continues to serve on the Directorate of the International Legume Database and Information Service (ILDIS). He is the primary botanical author of the two-volume Chapman and Hall Chemical Database and ILDIS Phytochemical Dictionary of the Leguminosae, which contains chemical occurrence data in nearly 2,700 species of legumes worldwide, and which was published in late 1994. Data on New World species cited in this publication, as well as those available in the ILDIS "World Species Diversity Database" are available electronically as LegumeLine via Bath Information and Data Services; these data were provided in large part from the Garden's TROPICOS database. Zarucchi is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. james.zarucchi@mobot.org
Guanghua Zhu, Assistant Curator, is a member of the Flora of China project (see Projects: Flora of China). He deals with all Chinese-language related aspects of the project, including the preparation of Chinese, Pinyin, and scientific indices for the Flora. Zhu is the co-author of the Araceae (excluding Arisema and Amorphophallus) and of Thalictrum (Ranunculaceae) for the Flora. His revision of Dracontium, a National Science Foundation-sponsored project under the direction of Thomas B. Croat, has been completed and will be submitted for publication soon. Zhu created and continues to manage the International Aroid Society Web Site. gzhu@lehmann.mobot.org
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