2017 v63 No 1 Spring

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Issue: 2017 v63 No 1 Spring

IN THIS ISSUE...

SPRING 2017 VOLUME 63 NUMBER 1

PLANT SCIENCE

BULLETIN

A PUBLICATION OF THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Pam Diggle on Careers

Beyond the Academy...p. 17

Round-Up of Student

Opportunities........p. 23

Star Project Award Winners

in PlantingScience...p. 22

#actuallivingscientist

Spring 2017 Volume 63 Number 1

PLANT SCIENCE BULLETIN

Editorial Committee

Volume 63

From the Editor

Kathryn LeCroy

(2018)

Environmental Sciences

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA 22904

kal8d@virginia.edu

Daniel K. Gladish

(2017)

Department of Biology &

The Conservatory

Miami University

Hamilton, OH 45011

gladisdk@muohio.ed

Melanie Link-Perez

(2019)

Department of Botany

& Plant Pathology

Oregon State University

Corvallis, OR 97331

inkperm@oregonstate.edu

Shannon Fehlberg

(2020)

Research and Conservation

Desert Botanical Garden

Phoenix, AZ 85008

sfehlberg@dbg.org

Greetings!
This is the first issue of Plant Science Bulletin of

2017. This new year is already proving to be a

challenging one for many, including those of us

who work in science and education in the Unit-

ed States. Nearly every day, scientific knowl-

edge is being disputed, groundbreaking envi-

ronmental legislation is being attacked, and the

global network of scientists is being threatened.

As botanists, we have the responsibility to act

in whatever ways we can, individually and as a

group, to mitigate the actions of an administra-

tion that is blatantly anti-science.
Some action is underway. In January, the BSA

co-signed a letter with 151 other scientific en-

tities protesting the Executive Order on Immi-

gration banning travel from seven Muslim-ma-

jority countries. This letter pointed out that

scientific progress requires the flow of ideas and

people across borders. The BSA is once again

supporting the travel of two members to the

2017 Biology and Ecological Sciences Coalition

Congressional Visits Day and, in conjunction

with ASPT, supporting local efforts with the Bo-

tanical Advocacy Leadership Award. Individual

BSA members are planning to participate in the

March for Science in Washington, DC in April.
It is my hope that we, the Botanical Society of

America, will be at the forefront of this fight as

it continues, providing avenues for action and

support for other members and representing

plant science within the broader scientific com-

munity. After all, as the BSA twitter feed is fond

of reminding us, we are #notaquietscience.

David Tank

(2021)

Department of Biological

Sciences

University of Idaho

Moscow, ID 83844

dtank@uidaho.edu

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SOCIETY NEWS

Are you ready for Botany 2017 ................................................................................................................2

Public Policy Awards, 2017 .........................................................................................................................3

ASPT and BSA at Plant Science Research Network ..................................................................3

Public Policy Opportunities at Botany 2017 .....................................................................................4

First Annual Botany Advocacy Leadership Grant Supports Outreach in Oklahoma .4

Convergent Evolution of National Science Education Projects:

How BSA Can Influence Reform (Part 2) ............................................................................................6

The

American Journal of Botany welcomes your collaboration in 2017 .....................14

Why publish your next methods paper in

Applications in Plant Sciences? .................15

SPECIAL FEATURE

Careers Beyond the Academy ...............................................................................................................17

SCIENCE EDUCATION

Over 2000 Students Conduct Plant Science Investigations This Fall Through

PlantingScience.org ......................................................................................................................................21

Visit BRIT during Botany 2017 for a Tour or Workshop ..................................................................................................21

Life Discovery Conference—Data: Discover, Investigate, Inform ..........................................22

STUDENT SECTION

Round-up of Student Opportunities ....................................................................................................23

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Eagle Hill Institute Natural History Science 2017 Field Seminars ....................................31

Pam and Doug Soltis Awarded the 2016 Darwin-Wallace Medal .....................................31

In Memoriam

Thomas Norwood Taylor (1938—2016) ..................................................................................33

Hugh Iltis (1925–2016) .....................................................................................................................36

BOOK REVIEWS

Conservation ....................................................................................................................................................39

Ecology ................................................................................................................................................................41

Economic Botany ...........................................................................................................................................43

Education ............................................................................................................................................................48

History .................................................................................................................................................................49

Systematics ......................................................................................................................................................51

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Dr. Ranessa Cooper started coming to BOTANY conferences

as an undergrad 20 years ago. "This is my meeting,” she

stresses. "There is no better meeting to adopt. I love to come

because of the great people and the breadth of science."

Are you ready for Botany 2017?

Fort Worth, Texas

June 24 -28

Plenary Lecturer - Robin Kimmerer

Emerging Leader Special Lecture - Michael Barker

Annals of Botany Special Lecture - Anna Traveset

Regional Botany Special Lecture - Barney Lipscomb
and Jason Singhurst

What can you expect from BOTANY 2017?

It is one of the friendliest places to present your research, make

connections, and find collaborators.

“The size of the Botany Conferences is perfect, not too big or

too small,” says Dr. David Gorchov. “And, I am exposed to the

cutting edge research outside my discipline of ecology.”

www.botanyconference.org

You are going to love our location!

Sundance Square and Downtown Fort Worth

have so much to offer!

Other than great places to eat and drink, from cheap to fancy,

be sure to devote a few hours to walking around and visiting

the shops, the Sid Richardson Art Museum, Bass Hall,

the Water Gardens, and more.

Molly the Trolley runs through downtown Fort Worth 7 days a

week from 10am -10pm. Best of all—it’s free!

SOCIETY NEWS

By Marian Chau (Lyon Arboretum University of Hawai‘i at Mā-

noa) and Morgan Gostel (Smithsonian Institution), Public Policy

Committee Co-Chairs, along with Ingrid Jordon-Thaden (Uni-

versity of California Berkeley), ASPT EPPC Chair

Public Policy Awards, 2017

Congratulations to Andre Naranjo and Mari-

beth Latvis, Ph.D., recipients of the 2017 BSA

Public Policy Award, and Christopher Tyrell,

recipient of the ASPT Congressional Visits

Day Award! Andre, Maribeth, and Christo-

pher will be traveling to Washington, DC to

participate in the 2017 Biological and Ecolog-

ical Sciences Coalition Congressional Visits

Day (25–26 April 2017). Look for a write-up

of their experiences in the next issue of the

Plant Science Bulletin!

ASPT and BSA at Plant

Science Research Network

The Steering Committee of the Plant Science

Research Network (PSRN) met February

9-10, 2017, in Tucson, AZ to discuss the cur-

rent draft of the National Plant Systems Initia-

tive (NPSI) and review progress on strategic

planning for Plant Science, particularly in the

areas of Training, Cyber-infrastructure, and

Broadening Participation. The NPSI docu-

ment was created by the PSRN, which is an

NSF-supported Research Coordination Net-

work ultimately consisting of 15 professional

societies given the task to collectively imag-

ine the future of plant sciences and its role in

agriculture, biodiversity, and ecosystem and

food security into the future. This effort has

been in progress since 2011 with the publi-

cation of the Decadal Vision (http://bti.cor-

nell.edu/our-research/enabling-technologies/

decadal-vision/) and the establishment of

the Plantae community (http://www.plantae.

org/), and now is culminating in the develop-

ment of the NPSI to help direct policy, edu-

cation, and training decisions for establishing

funding and developing research planning

and collaboration across the plant sciences.
Our representatives who attended this Feb-

ruary meeting from BSA and ASPT—Alli-

son Miller and Chelsea Specht, respective-

ly—along with BSA’s official representative,

Michael Donoghue, will help our societies’

interests be represented in the planning and

keep us informed on upcoming federal ini-

tiatives or opportunities for research, train-

ing, and broadening partici-

pation. Ecological Society of

America (ESA) representative

Evan DeLucia was also in at-

tendance, representing addi-

tional support for the fields

of plant research supported

by BSA and ASPT. Be on the

lookout for more informa-

tion!

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Public Policy Opportunities at Botany 2017

Want to know how to be more involved in public policy communication for science? Sign up

for the AIBS Communicating Science to Decision-makers workshop at Botany 2017, held on

June 25 from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM. This three-hour workshop will be presented by Dr. Robert

Gropp, AIBS Interim Co-Executive Director. Space is limited to 30 participants and will fill up

soon!
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the ASPT Environmental and Public

Policy Committee or the BSA Public Policy Committee. More details are in the call for appli-

cations.

Michael Dunn sent the following thank-you

note to the ASPT Environment and Public Pol-

icy Committee and BSA Public Policy Com-

mittee regarding the Annual Botany Advocacy

Leadership Grant that Dunn and the Oklaho-

ma Native Plant Society received.
Thank you for your support of botanical

public outreach by your generous award of

$1000 as an Annual Botany Advocacy Leader-

ship Grant, through me, to the Southwestern

Chapter of the Oklahoma Native Plant Society.
The goal of this grant is to bring together as

many of the institutions and organizations in

southwestern Oklahoma who are at least in

part like-minded in that they attempt to use

plants to enhance the quality of life of the re-

gion. And to use plants as they relate to nat-

ural history, anthropology and archeology,

horticulture and agriculture, as well as plants

as an excuse to simply get outside.
We are well on our way to achieving many

of our goals with our partners including

The Oklahoma Native Plant Society, Wich-

ita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Friends of

the Wichita’s, Fit Kids of SW Oklahoma, The

Medicine Park Aquarium and Science Center,

Cameron University, Oklahoma State Univer-

sity Extension Service, The Museum of the

Great Plains, and the Greater Southwest Okla-

homa Anthropological Society.
Our first sponsored event was 27 August 2016

at The Museum of the Great Plains, and was

co-sponsored by the Greater Southwest Okla-

homa Anthropological Society. Bob Blasing, a

retired anthropologist with the Bureau of Rec-

lamation spoke on “How Early Great Plains

Tribes used Seasonal Travel to Obtain Re-

sources”. More than 30 people attended (Fig-

ure 1), including some unexpected, but most

welcome guests. The Secretary of Agriculture

for the Comanche Nation attended, and he

and I were able to discuss historical plant use

by the Comanche Tribe. This is particularly

exciting as the tribes here in “The Nations”

(a.k.a. Oklahoma) have been very protective

of their ethnobotanical heritage, and this was

an incredible breakthrough. Our collabora-

tion continues.
On 8 October 2016, we sponsored the Annual

Meeting of The Oklahoma Native Plant Soci-

ety. We met that morning at The Environmen-

tal Education Center of the Wichita Moun-

tains Wildlife Refuge (WMWR) and several

field trips were available including Aquatiic

Plants of the WMWR, and a discussion/walk

First Annual Botany Advocacy Leadership Grant Supports

Outreach in Oklahoma

PSB 63 (1) 2017

To future recipients of

this [Botany Advocacy

Leadership Grant], I

cannot express how

rewarding it is to work

with these grassroots

organizations. But

they are grassroots

volunteer organizations

that require patience

and understanding, but

believe me, that patience

will be rewarded as you

will be working with

some truly dedicated

and enthusiastic amateur

botanists and other types

of plant people.

Figure 1. Bob Blasing speaking to a mixed

crowd at the Museum of the Great Plains. The

Secretary of Agriculture for the Comanche Na-

tion is in the fourth row, far right in a red shirt,

hidden except for his cowboy hat.
about designing and constructing self-guided

plant tours. Lunch was provided by the Friends

of the Wichitas, and Susan Howell, the Visitor

Services Coordinator for WMWR, spoke af-

ter lunch on “Maintaining the Health of the

Mixed Grass Prairie.” The Keynote Speaker

that evening was David Redhage from the

Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, who

spoke on “Pollinators and Native Plants.”
In April or May of 2017, we will join with The

Medicine Park Aquarium and Science Center,

Fit Kids of SW Oklahoma, and Lawton Public

Schools to bring eighth graders to The Medi-

cine Park Aquarium and Science Center for a

native plant and pollinators workshop. These

details are still being worked out.
To date most of the funds provided by the

grant have been used to pay travel expenses

for our speakers, but we hope to have enough

money left to pay for the busses to bring the

eighth graders to our workshop.
Thank you to the American Society of Plant

Taxonomists and The Botanical Society of

America for this Botany Advocacy Leader-

ship Grant. I hope we have used, and are us-

ing your funds as you had hoped. To future r

ecipients of this grant, I cannot express how

rewarding it is to work with these grassroots

organizations. But they are grassroots volun-

teer organizations that require patience and

understanding, but believe me, that patience

will be rewarded as you will be working with

some truly dedicated and enthusiastic ama-

teur botanists and other types of plant people.
-By Michael T. Dunn, PhD, Professor, Depart-

ment of Agriculture and Biological Sciences, Cam-

eron University, Lawton, Oklahoma 73505

USA

PSB 63 (1) 2017

The first part of Dr. Uno’s speech, taken from his

address at the Botany 2016 conference, can be

found at http://botany.org/file.php?file=Si-

teAssets/publications/psb/issues/PSB-2016-62-

3.pdf.

Convergence of National

Science Education Projects

There are multiple signs that the scientific

community in academia has accepted science

education as a legitimate activity in which

colleagues can engage. In Part 1 of my talk, I

identified seven signs that indicate to me that

we have reached the tipping point in science

education. The eighth, and last, indicator is

the fact that several national science educa-

tion reform projects have converged on sim-

Convergent Evolution of National

Science Education Projects: How

BSA Can Influence Reform (Part 2)

Remarks from Botany 2016 by President-Elect

Gordon E. Uno

By Gordon E. Uno,

BSA President-Elect

University of Oklahoma

ilar messages to the biology community. The

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)

from the NRC (2013), Vision and Change

from AAAS (2011), the AAC&U’s LEAP Ini-

tiative and High Impact Practices (2011), and

the College Board’s revision of the Advanced

Placement (AP) Biology course in 2012 are

just four of these large-scale projects that have

and will continue to have great impact on sci-

ence education in the United States.
How are these projects converging? I think

there are five major ways these major projects

are similar in their explicit and implicit rec-

ommendations to the science community:
1. Student outcomes or competencies should

be used to organize a course or program—

competencies are those characteristics that

we desire students to possess at the end of in-

struction and are measures of student learn-

ing about subject knowledge and ability to

use important skills. What is different from

previous reports is that competencies help us

determine how students should learn science

practice skills while they are learning con-

tent; neither content nor skills are taught in

isolation. For instance, there should not be a

50-minute lecture on photosynthesis without

students working with data or graphs or de-

signing experiments related to the subject. In

PSB 63 (1) 2017

addition, we need to help students think about

their own learning—what do they understand

and what are they still confused about?
2. These national science education projects

emphasize that the investigative process

of science, including critical thinking and

inquiry skills and student investigations,

should be the cornerstone of all science

courses. Critical thinking and inquiry skills

(Box 1) have often been limited to laborato-

ry settings, but we know that they should be

practiced throughout a course. In terms of

research, students should be able to conduct

authentic research to the extent possible and

be exposed to science as a process as soon and

often as possible. Thus, faculty need to find

ways to allow students to practice the skills

shown in Box 1 every day—while not all of

them can be used on the same day, students

should be engaged in at least one of them ev-

ery day.
3. Faculty should focus on student learn-

ing and understanding instead of worrying

about what to teach, i.e., become more “stu-

dent-centered.” This happens when a facul-

ty member is more concerned about helping

students understand whatever information is

taught instead of just being worried about what

to teach.
4. To do all of the above, faculty are urged

to use “evidence-based” activities (Box 2),

those teaching methods that science edu-

cation literature indicates are effective in

helping students learn science. As one might

expect, these activities are infused with inqui-

ry and critical thinking skills, and faculty are

encouraged to use these activities every day in

both lecture and lab. The important issue here

is that, although we have a good idea of what

works in the classroom and although most

faculty have heard about some evidence-based

activities, few faculty have the knowledge or

Box 1. A List of Critical-Thinking

and Inquiry Skills

1. Make careful observations and ask

good questions.
2. Develop appropriate hypotheses and

explain predictions.
3. Design a controlled experiment.
4. Collect, process, and interpret data

(quantitative skills).
5. Discuss ideas and draw conclusions.
6. Infer and generalize.
7. Distinguish between cause and effect

vs. correlation.
8. Recognize assumptions and biases.
9. State, evaluate, and justify claims us-

ing evidence.
10. Communicate science effectively

(explain concepts in your own words).
11. Apply knowledge to new situations;

make connections between concepts.

experience to implement these activities ef-

fectively. This raises the importance of faculty

professional development to inform facul-

ty of these methods and to let them practice

and think about how these practices would be

used intentionally in their classrooms.
5. National science education projects have

also converged on their position regarding

the teaching of science content; while con-

tent is essential, less is definitely more, and it

is equally important for students to be able to

apply the content they have learned to new

situations and to connect ideas, facts, and

concepts to each other. Additionally, there

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Box 2. What Works: A List of Teach-

ing/Learning Methods Demonstrated to

Be Effective in Helping

Students Learn Science

1. Authentic Student Research
2. Experience Science as a Process Through-

out Course

3. Metacognitive Activities
4. Drawing to Explain
5. Writing for Understanding
6. Explaining Concepts in Their Own

Words

7. Creating Summaries of Content and Re-

8. Peer Instruction
9. Communicate Science and Discuss Con-

cepts/Problems

10. Problem Solving (problem-based learning)
11. Making Connections
12. Concept Mapping
13. Applying Knowledge to New Situations
14. Creating a Scientific Explanation Using

Evidence

15. Focusing on Basics First
16. Using Themes to Organize Content
17. Clicker Questions (some)
18. Critical-Thinking Skill Activities
19. Formative Assessments (concept inven-

tories)

20. Case Studies
21. Dealing with Misconceptions
22. Constructivist Lessons (scaffolding

knowledge and skills)

23. Getting Students to Ask Questions and

Make Careful Observations

24. Focusing on How We Know

25. Using Stories to Learn about Science

is the recommendation to use themes in the

teaching of biology courses, themes such as

evolution or biological interactions, so that

whatever content is taught, students are able

to connect that information to a theme. This

allows students to form a framework for their

understanding of all biology. Finally, several

reports recommend that attention be paid to

the interdisciplinary nature of biology.
While the major science reform projects were

developed mostly in isolation from each oth-

er, they were informed by the same science

education literature; thus it is not too sur-

prising that there was convergence on some

of the central tenets for change. For instance,

the NGSS recommends that science education

should reflect real world interconnections (as

noted in #5 above); concepts should be inte-

grated with multiple core concepts throughout

(the use of themes); science concepts should

build coherently (scaffolding of skills and con-

tent); focus should be on application of con-

tent (applying knowledge to new situations);

and science education should coordinate with

mathematics standards (quantitative reason-

ing). Vision and Change from AAAS recom-

mended that courses “integrate core concepts

(themes) throughout the curriculum,” and

“integrate scientific process skills throughout

the course,” and that “fewer concepts should

be taught, but in greater depth.” Vision and

Change also recommended that the course be

inquiry-driven and introduce research experi-

ences as an integral component in the course.
As with other documents, Vision and Change

identified desirable student competencies,

including the abilities to: (1) apply the pro-

cess of science, (2) use quantitative reason-

ing, (3) use modeling and simulations, and

(4) tap into the interdisciplinary nature of

science. The AACU’s Liberal Education and

America’s Promise (LEAP) project identified

essential learning outcomes for students, such

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Announcements

as their ability to: (1) focus on Big Questions

(problem-solving) in society, (2) focus on in-

tellectual and practical skills, (3) practice pro-

gressively more challenging problem-solving

(scaffolding of skills), and (4) demonstrate

application of knowledge, skills, and respon-

sibilities to new settings and complex prob-

lems. In addition, included in the AACU’s

High-Impact Practices (HIPs) recommenda-

tions is the focus on undergraduate research

throughout the undergraduate program, cul-

minating in a capstone course or project that

requires a student to synthesize all that he/

she has learned and is able to do. Successful

participation in HIPs has been found to: (1)

increase the retention and graduation rates of

students, especially for historically disadvan-

taged students, (2) generate more positive stu-

dent attitudes about college, faculty, learning,

and themselves, and (3) increase self-reported

students gains in learning (Kuh, 2008). As a

HIPs Institute Faculty Mentor for the past four

years, I can attest to many changes institutions

around the country have seen in students after

they implement HIPs into their undergradu-

ate degree programs.
The last major project I would like to discuss is

the revision of the College Board’s Advanced

Placement (AP) science courses. These

courses are taught in high schools around

the country, but are designed to be similar to

a freshman-level undergraduate class. I was

the co-Chair of the AP Biology Development

Committee for the last eight years; this com-

mittee helped revise the AP Biology course,

to create a curriculum framework used by all

the AP Biology teachers (~12,000 teachers),

and to develop the new Biology exams. The

problem with the former AP Biology course

was that it was content-driven, and students

and teachers tried, unsuccessfully, to “cover”

an entire college biology text in complete de-

tail. The new course emphasizes a reduced

breadth of content and an increased depth of

student understanding while increasing the

use of essential reasoning and inquiry skills.

Also, there is now a major focus on “science

as a process” in the course, and content is

melded with science practice skills to create

student learning outcomes. The new AP Bi-

ology curriculum framework focuses on four

“Big Ideas” (themes) that inform the content

of the course: (1) evolution, (2) energy and

homeostasis, (3) information transfer, and

(4) interactions among organisms, systems,

and their parts. The seven Science Practices

(Box 3) have been adopted by all the new sci-

ence courses that AP offers, including biology,

chemistry, and physics, and serve as the foun-

dation for all the skills that students need to

possess.
The new AP Biology course emphasizes inqui-

ry-based and student-directed labs. Where-

as the old course had many teacher-directed

labs, in the new course, students generate

their own questions for investigation, and

design, conduct, and report on their own ex-

periments. Not only has the course changed

dramatically, the exam has too. No longer are

any low cognitive level, declarative knowl-

edge, recall questions asked, such as “What is

the name for this structure in the cell (with a

picture pointing to a chloroplast)?” Now, stu-

dents must engage with evidence—either with

evidence they produce by working with data

or with evidence that is provided to them—to

answer a question that incorporates both bi-

ological content and one of the seven science

practice skills. In addition, students are giv-

en six new “grid-in” questions, which require

students to work with data and then to pro-

vide numerical answers that they grid into a

template, without the benefit of any answers

from which to choose. The final new piece of

the exam are six short essay questions in addi-

tion to two of the familiar long essay questions

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Box 3. Science Practices Adopted by

and Incorporated into Advanced Place-

ment (AP) Biology, Chemistry, and

Physics Courses

1. Use representations and models to com-

municate scientific phenomena and solve

scientific problems.
2. Use mathematics appropriately.
3. Engage in scientific questioning to ex-

tend thinking or to guide investigations.
4. Plan and implement data collection

strategies in relation to a particular scien-

tific question.
5. Perform data analysis and evaluation of

evidence.
6. Work with scientific explanations and

theories.
7. Connect and relate knowledge across

various scales, concepts, representations,

and domains.

that students must answer in the second half

of the exam.
The immediate impact of the new AP Biolo-

gy course was that 12,000 high school teach-

ers changed the way they taught biology at

the same time, and each May, approximately

250,000 students take the new exam. Many

teachers had to replace all their laboratory in-

vestigations or incorporate many more labs

into their course. They all needed to incor-

porate inquiry and mathematical activities

throughout their course, not just in a few

labs. On one of the old AP biology exams,

about 11% of the questions related to evolu-

tion, but because evolution is a theme of the

new course, approximately 35% of the ques-

tions on one new exam involved evolution.

In 2012, before the revision, about 19% of all

students received a “5” on the exam (highest

score), while 34.8% received a 1, and only 14%

received a 3. After the revision, about 5% of

students received a “5,” 7% received a “1,” and

“36% received a “3.” Thus, the old exam had

a bi-modal distribution of scores (with many

1s and 5s), which was an exam that rewarded

those who could memorize a lot of material,

even if they didn’t understand the material or

couldn’t design an experiment. The results

of the new exam show a normal distribution

of students with many fewer 5s and 1s and

many more students receiving an “average”

(3) score. To me, this indicates that we are no

longer just rewarding (or penalizing) students

based on their memory of a lot of biological

facts, but that AP Biology is now measuring

students’ ability to design experiments and to

apply, connect, explain, and use information

and data.

How BSA Can Influence

Educational Reform

Based on the information I have provided at

the beginning of this article and in Part 1, I

think there is growing acceptance of science

education as a research discipline. And, we

know what works in a classroom to help stu-

dents learn science and stay committed to

biology as a major. Finally, we know there is

continued relevance of plants in future basic

and applied research. So, it’s incumbent upon

us to integrate these factors as we work toward

solution to our educational problems. The

question is, “How can BSA help to influence

science education reform?” I have several rec-

ommendations.
First, we botanists need to keep educating stu-

dents, the public, and other scientists about

PSB 63 (1) 2017

the essential nature of plants to humans and

to the future research initiatives in the United

States. Also, if one of our goals is to get more

undergraduates interested in plant biology as

a viable career choice, then introducing more

students at the freshmen level to the wonders

of botany is important. We must encourage

the best botanical instructors to teach large,

basic courses, and support them when they do,

so that young undergraduates can be hooked

on botany before they choose a different path.
There are over 2,000,000 freshmen entering

U.S. colleges and universities each year (U.S.

Bureau of Labor statistics, 2016), and most of

these students are going to take an introducto-

ry biology course. If we can infuse more bot-

any into these courses, then we have a better

chance of having students take future botany

courses. Currently, over half of the students

take their introductory biology course at a

community college. So, if you have finishing

graduate students who are looking to enter the

teaching profession, then don’t neglect the op-

portunities at a 2-year institution. (At the 2016

annual conference, we invited faculty from re-

gional community colleges near Savannah to

attend a workshop on inquiry instruction that

was led by Marsh Sundberg, Catrina Adams,

and myself.) Another point about commu-

nity colleges is that their student populations

are extremely diverse, and if we value a BSA

with membership that reflects the diversity of

America, then we need to cultivate students

who begin their educations at these regional

institutions. (In terms of diversity, the BSA

has a wonderful program, PLANTS, that is

funded by NSF [A. Sakai and A. Monfils, PIs,

with BSA Staff, H. Cacanindin] and that has

been bringing a diverse group of undergradu-

ates to our annual meeting since 2010 [http://

botany.org/awards_grants/detail/PLANTS.

php]).
The higher education system in the United

States is unique in the world in that almost all

post-secondary institutions require students

Although we have a good

idea of what works in the

classroom and although

most faculty have heard

about some evidence-

based activities, few

faculty have the

knowledge or experience

to implement these

activities effectively. This

raises the importance

of faculty professional

development to inform

faculty of these methods

and to let them practice

and think about how

these practices would be

used intentionally in their

classrooms.

to take general education courses, including

at least a year of science, with one lab course.

Scientists often lament that this requirement

is really insufficient for any college graduate

entering a world that is impacted by science

and technology. However, one can also see

this as a half-full glass and a huge opportunity

to influence young undergraduates by placing

the best botanical instructors in general edu-

cation courses. For many students, including

future politicians, journalists, citizens, voters,

and some teachers, this may be the only bi-

ology course they ever take. In general, BSA

PSB 63 (1) 2017

should help botanists obtain faculty positions

in biology departments. Perhaps we can of-

fer mock job interviews and continue our re-

sumé-building workshops to help our grad-

uates gain faculty positions where they can

have influence on students and curricula.

We must encourage

the best botanical

instructors to teach

large, basic courses,

and support them when

they do, so that young

undergraduates can be

hooked on botany before

they choose a different

path.

Another important way that BSA can influ-

ence reform is if members improve our own

botany/plant biology courses, implementing

what we know works to help students learn

and focusing on competencies identified as

critical for student success. To help facul-

ty improve, BSA can offer additional faculty

professional development opportunities—not

just at BSA conferences, but at other meet-

ings and at individual institutions. Again, we

know that some BSA members are already

leading professional development activities

for faculty and graduate students—perhaps

we can advertise activities you are leading to

promote your work and provide greater ac-

cess to them. In terms of professional devel-

opment, one of the newest Research Coordi-

nation Networks for Undergraduate Biology

Education (RCN-UBE) projects is the Facul-

ty Developers Network (Deborah Allen, PI;

Uno, co-PI), and one part of this project is to

determine what scientific societies are doing

to help their members do a better job in the

classroom. BSA can contribute a lot to this

discussion.
One hidden aspect of getting more botanists

into introductory classes is the fact that AP

Biology conducts a “higher-ed validation”

study to determine what topics/concepts

should be included in the course. A list of po-

tential topics is sent to undergraduate faculty

who teach Introductory Biology courses, and

if insufficient numbers of them identify plant

topics as relevant to their course, these topics

will be eliminated from consideration for the

AP Biology curriculum. This kind of unex-

pected consequence of having botanists in the

right place at the right time can have a signif-

icant impact on what is taught in classrooms

all across the country. Consider working with

national educational testing services such as

the Educational Testing Service (ETS) to help

develop questions for the AP and SAT exams.

Getting more botanical questions on these ex-

ams means that pre-college teachers will de-

vote more time teaching about plants.
I think that BSA also needs to think about

ways to increase our outreach to the general

public. Perhaps we can cultivate secondary

members—for instance, amateur botanists or

other non-botanical professionals who are in-

terested in plants, the environment, and per-

haps even in basic plant research to become

members or attend our conferences? Can

we encourage more BSA members to offer

demonstrations and talks, and to lead field

trips for environmental groups, Native Plant

societies, gardeners, youth groups, and groups

such as the Botanical Society of Washington

(a long-standing forum for all things botani-

cal)? I know that many BSA members are al-

ready engaged in a number of such outreach

activities—perhaps we just need better adver-

tisement of these events so other members

can learn about what you are doing and to use

PSB 63 (1) 2017

your activity as a model.
I think that BSA must continue to collaborate

with other scientific organizations to promote

scientific and botanical literacy of our students

and the general public. BSA and the Ameri-

can Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) have

collaborated on the development of “Core

Concepts and Learning Objectives in Plant

Biology for Undergraduates”

(http://

botany.org/file.php?file=SiteAssets/outreach/

botany-pbiologycoreconcepts.pdf).

In addi-

tion, we are currently working with the ASPB

and other plant societies in the Plant Science

Research Network, a network funded through

an NSF grant from the RCN program. The

purpose of the network is to discuss common

issues that all plant biologists may experience

as professionals, including issues related to

funding, publishing, graduate students, and

education.
We have a very good Education Department

whose work was recently rewarded with an

NSF grant to continue ramping up Planting-

Science activities. We must continue to sup-

port the work of the Education Department;

perhaps you would be interested in signing

up as a PlantingScience mentor? This depart-

ment has several other projects that have been

initiated or are being discussed, but this is an

area where more BSA members can become

engaged and more activities and projects can

be developed. Do you have any ideas or rec-

ommendations for the Education Department

and BSA?
I also think we need to engage more under-

grads in activities in our own departments

and to bring more students to our meetings so

they get hooked on plants and BSA at an early

point in their career. We can encourage and

engage students who are interested in bota-

ny by starting a BSA Student Chapter at our

own institution. Currently, there are only 19

such chapters in the United States. Informa-

tion about how these can be started is found

at: http://botany.org/students_corner/

chapters/.
Most importantly, I encourage each of you

to seek opportunities in which you can in-

crease your impact on students and col-

leagues, whether it is in your own classroom

or through projects at the national level or in

communicating science to the general pub-

lic. I urge you to think about how you can

promote plants and educational reform and

improve the botanical literacy for all, and I

would gladly accept suggestions from you for

how BSA can continue to have an impact on

students, botanical friends, and faculty col-

leagues. Thank you very much.

Literature Cited

American Association of Colleges and Universi-

ties. 2011. The LEAP Vision for Learning:

Outcomes, Practices, Impact and Employers’

Views. Washington, D.C.: AACU. 29 pp.

Brewer, C. A. and D. Smith, eds. 2011. Vision and

Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A

Call to Action. AAAS. 79 pp.

College Board. 2012. Advanced Placement Bi-

ology course: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/

apc/public/courses/teachers_corner/2117.html?-

excmpid=MTG243-PR-21-cd

Kuh, G. 2008. High-Impact Educational Prac-

tices: What Are They, Who Has Access to Them,

and Why They Matter. Washington, D.C.: AACU.

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Sci-

ence Standards: For States, By States. Washing-

ton, D.C.: The National Academies Press.

PSB 63 (1) 2017

The

American Journal of

Botany welcomes your

collaboration in 2017

In an editorial in the January 2017 issue of the

American Journal of Botany, Editor-in-Chief

Pamela Diggle presented a current “state of

the journal” and extended an enthusiastic in-

vitation to BSA members and colleagues (po-

tential future members!) to contribute to the

success of the Society’s flagship journal.
Authors face many challenges in publishing

these days: the growing number of publishing

options, the importance of relating their work

to a broad audience, Open Access policies and

funder mandates, and changing data-sharing

and journal standards are just some of the

issues adding pressure on authors. This is all

beyond doing the actual research and then

undertaking the sometimes arduous process

of writing a manuscript, submitting it to a

journal, responding to reviews and revising

it, and hoping for acceptance. (Not all papers

are accepted at the first journal chosen, so

sometimes the paper is reworked for another

journal with differing requirements, different

reviewers, etc.) And then after the acceptance,

there is the expectation that authors will help

promote their work and communicate their

science, keep doing science, review papers

from other authors, perhaps teach, travel,

present at conferences, answer questions from

the public, speak up (or even march) for sci-

ence—and oh, yes, have a life!
AJB understands these challenges and wants

to work with its authors:
• We are a proud Society-owned journal;
• Our Editor-in-Chief is a well-respected sci-

entist with an impressive career, who is also

a fellow BSA member with experience in all

levels of publishing;

• We have a strong and expanding group of As-

sociate Editors (http://www.amjbot.org/site/

misc/edboard.xhtml) and reviewers from the

United States and around the world;

• We work hard for quick turnarounds (cur-

rently ~30 days) and rapid publication;

• We have a dedicated editorial staff who can

assist authors from pre-submission through

publication and post-publication promotion.

The journal succeeds when we receive strong

submissions with broad appeal to the botan-

ical community. We encourage you to sub-

mit your best work to your Society journal

at http://www.editorialmanager.com/ajb/de-

fault.aspx. We also encourage you to consider

submitting an essay to our “On the Nature of

Things” (OTNOT) series (send ideas direct-

ly to the Editor-in-Chief) and participating

in publications sessions, and conversations,

at the annual meeting. We are open to your

ideas for making your journal the go-to place

for botanical science.

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Look for the following AJB Special

Issues in 2017–2018:

• “The Tree of Life,” aimed at revisiting the

highly successful special issue on this topic

published in 2004 with the latest results yielded

up by phylogenomics and “big data”
• “The Tree of Death” on the critical importance

of the fossil record in understanding the

complete history of plants
• “Wood: Biology of a Living Tissue” based on

a highly successful symposium at Botany 2016
• “Patterns and Processes of American

Amphitropical Plant Disjunctions: New

Insights,” also based on a highly successful

symposium at Botany 2016

Dr. Diggle best summed it up in her editorial,

“As AJB begins its 104th volume, one standard

remains constant: our adherence to the mis-

sion of the Society and to serving our authors

with the highest standards. The American

Journal of Botany reflects what its authors and

reviewers choose to make it, so I encourage all

of you to ‘roll up your sleeves’ along with me

to maintain and increase the strength of our

society’s flagship journal as we enter 2017.”

Let’s do this!

Rapid publication with fast and thorough

peer review: Manuscripts are evaluated by

editors within a few days of submission and

are peer-reviewed by two to three outside re-

viewers. Average time to first decision is ap-

proximately 26 days.
Available in major indexes: APPS is included

in discoverability services including Web of

Science, Journal Citation Reports, PubMed,

WorldCat, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The

impact factor is 0.911.
Open Access: All APPS articles are Open Ac-

cess upon publication. OA fees are kept as low

as possible to help authors with limited fund-

ing. BSA members are charged US$450–800

per article (depending on length of member-

ship); non-members are charged US$1400 per

article.

Why publish your next methods paper in

Applications in Plant Sciences?

Society-published journal: APPS is pub-

lished by the Botanical Society of America,

which maintains rigorous standards of peer

review and is committed to working with au-

thors to strengthen their published research.
Research promoted on news and social me-

dia outlets: Press releases are prepared for

noteworthy articles, and articles are also pro-

moted on Twitter and Facebook, which have

over 24,000 combined followers. Research

published in APPS has attracted attention

from outlets including the National Science

Foundation’s Science360, CNBC, and Sci-

enceDaily.
APPS is a monthly, peer-reviewed, open ac-

cess journal focusing on new tools, technol-

ogies, and protocols in all areas of the plant

sciences. APPS is available as part of BioOne’s

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Open Access collection (www.bioone.org/loi/

apps).
Article types and detailed Instructions for

Authors can be viewed at http://www.botany.

org/APPS/APPS_Author_Instructions.html.

Please contact the editorial office (apps@bota-

ny.org) with questions.
-By Theresa Culley (Editor-in-Chief), Univer-

sity of Cincinnati
Editorial office contact: Beth Parada, Manag-

ing Editor, apps@botany.org

What do authors think about the ex-

perience of publishing in

APPS?

“Thank you for such a quick turn-around

on our submitted manuscript. This is the

most efficient journal editing any of the

authors have experienced!”
“I was impressed by the quality and speed

of your publishing services, and I am

looking forward to seeing the article in

press. “
“It has been a pleasure working with you

on this review article. We truly appreci-

ate your time and attentiveness and are

thrilled with the final result.”
“I just saw the press release for my paper

on ScienceDaily and all over the internet.

Thanks a lot!”

Press releases for recent articles published in APPS

Measuring trees with the speed of sound: http://bit.ly/2hYHZUD
Drones take off in plant ecological research: http://bit.ly/2f0YrS2
HybPiper: A bioinformatic pipeline for processing #pageenrichment data: http://bit.

ly/2ls5VkC
To view all of APPS recent press releases, visit http://botany.org/files/main/folder/

SiteAssets/publications/apps/press-releases.

SPECIAL FEATURE

By Pamela Diggle

Professor, Department of

Ecology and Evolutionary

Biology

University of Connecticut

ast year, I was honored to be invited by the

BSA Graduate Student Representatives,

Rebecca Povilus and Angela McDonnell, to

give the keynote presentation at the “Interac-

tive Career Panel & Luncheon” during Botany

2016 in Savannah, Georgia. They suggested

that I share my thoughts on choosing a career

in botany and on making the most of a degree

in the plant sciences. As I pondered what I

might have to contribute on those topics, I

realized that I didn’t really choose a career

in botany—it chose me. The most important

thing that I’ve learned along the way is to do

what you love, and #iamabotanist.
My passion for plants has dictated most of

my career and choices along the way. It may

sound trite or self-indulgent: do what you

love. But I find that by focusing on what I per-

sonally find most rewarding, I am at my most

creative and I have my best insights. It also

helps me withstand those long hours of things

that are not so fun (insert your most dreaded

task here), like the gazillionth plant part that

Careers Beyond the Academy

you have measured or weighed. But how does

identifying what you find rewarding translate

into a career?
As an academic at a research 1 university,

mentoring graduate students is part of my job.

And it is a terrific part of my job that has giv-

en me an opportunity to interact with amaz-

ing people who share my love of plants. Over

the years, however, I have come to understand

that not all students—creative, accomplished,

and driven as they may be—aspire to careers

in academia. I also realized, however, that

I was ill equipped to help graduate students

navigate the world outside of academia, given

that other than a brief interlude after college, I

have only ever been an academic. How can I

advise and mentor students who aspire to jobs

beyond the academy?
As I continued to contemplate this topic of ca-

reers in botany, and particularly jobs outside

of academia, I was struck by the juxtaposi-

tion of two articles published just over a week

apart in the New York

Times:

“So Many Re-

search Scientists, So Few Openings as Profes-

sors,” and “The Incalculable Value of Finding

a Job You Love.”
The first article, by Gina Kolata, highlights

Emmanuelle Charpentier, who is widely

known for her role in deciphering the mech-

anisms of the CRISPR-Cas9 system (https://

www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/upshot/so-

many-research-scientists-so-few-openings-

PSB 63 (1) 2017

as-professors.html). She recently became the

leader of the Max Planck Institute for Infec-

tion Biology, but had spent the previous 25

years moving through non-tenure track po-

sitions, in nine institutions, in five countries.

The article paints a fairly gloomy picture of

the outlook for new PhDs. It focuses more on

biomedical science, which has been particu-

larly hard hit by job shortages, but resonates

across the life sciences. The article’s author

summarizes a commonly held view (emphasis

added):

“The lure of a tenured job in academia is

great—it means a secure, prestigious posi-

tion directing a lab that does cutting-edge

experiments, often carried out by under-

lings. Yet although many yearn for such

jobs, fewer than half of those who earn

science or engineering doctorates end up

in the sort of academic positions that di-

rectly use what they were trained for.

Others, ending up in industry, business

or other professions, do interesting work

and earn lucrative salaries and can con-

tribute enormously to society. But by the

time many give up on academia—four to

six years or more for a Ph.D., a decade or

ARCHIVES

60 years ago: “The vote on the question posed in the Oct. 1956 number of PSB, namely, should PSB be contin-

ued beyond its two-year trial period, now stands at 293 in favor of continued publication, 2 opposed to contin-

ued publication. While this vote does not represent a majority of Bot. Soc’s. members, it doubtless represents

a fair sample of the opinions of our members. Thus, publication of PSB will doubtless continue, although the

Council has not yet had the opportunity to render an official decision.”

-Future of the Plant Science Bulletin PSB 3(1): 6

50 years ago: “Flora North America, as the project will be called, was officially launched on January 30, 1967

when the newly formed Editorial Committee held its first meeting at the Smithsonian Institution in Washing-

ton, D.C. This three-day meeting, convened by William L. Stern (Smithsonian), Chairman pro terra. of the

Steering Committee, was attended by all members of the Editorial Committee.”

-Shetler, Stanwyn G. Flora North America Launched PSB 13(1): 5.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Eagle Hill Institute Natural

History Science 2017 Field

Seminars

Eagle Hill Institute, located on the eastern

coast of Maine, will host seminars and work-

shops focusing on natural history during

Summer 2017. These workshops are in sup-

port of field biologists, researchers, field natu-

ralists, faculty members, students, and artists

with interests in the natural history sciences.

Courses include “Sedges and Rushes: Identi-

fication and Ecology”; “Identification, Biol-

ogy, and Natural History of Ferns and Lyco-

phytes”; “Field Botany and Plant Ecology of

the Eastern Maine Coast”; “Bogs and Fens:

Maine Peatlands”; “Mosses: Structure, Ecol-

ogy, and Identification”; “Survey of Grasses:

Their Structure, Identification, and Ecology”;

and “Field Botany and Plant Ecology of the

Eastern Maine Coast”, among many others. A

full list of 2017 seminars and workshops, as

well as registration information, can be found

https://www.eaglehill.us/programs/nhs/

nhs-calendar.shtml.

Pam and Doug Soltis

Awarded the

2016 Darwin-Wallace Medal

Doug and Pam Soltis have been awarded the

2016 Darwin-Wallace Medal. This award,

presented by the Linnean Society of Lon-

don, recognizes their groundbreaking work

in the study of evolution and diversification

in angiosperms, including in phylogeny re-

construction, genome evolution, phylogeog-

raphy, and many other topics. The official an-

nouncement of this award can be found in The

Linnean 32(2): 35-36.

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Plant Evolution

An Introduction to the History of Life

Karl J. Niklas

“In a true tour de force, Niklas assays the mechanisms and

patterns of evolution, from molecules to ecosystems, using

plants as examples. Must-reading for plant scientists,

Plant Evolution will both delight and challenge everyone

who peers into the heart of biology.”—Andrew Knoll,

Harvard University

Paper $45.00

BOTANY

from

CHICAGO

DITION

The Chicago Guide to

Communicating Science

Second Edition

Scott L. Montgomery

“Montgomery acknowledges that the training of sci-

entists, unlike higher education in the humanities, has

long excluded the formal development of writing, oral

presentation, and editing. But he sets out to dispel

the notion that scientists are inherently less skilled

at the art of communication. . . . Armed with a little

more knowledge of the basic tenets of writing, he says,

any scientist can write with eloquence.”—Science

Paper $25.00

DITION

Phylogeny and Evolution

of the Angiosperms

Revised and Updated Edition

Douglas Soltis, Pamela Soltis, Peter Endress,

Mark Chase, Steven Manchester, Walter Judd,

Lucas Majure, and Evgeny Mavrodiev

“Excellent. . . . Highly recommendable for anyone involved in

plant systematics.”—Plant Science Bulletin, on the first edition

Cloth $80.00

Forthcoming in August

The University of Chicago Press

www.press.uchicago.edu

PSB 63 (1) 2017

In Memoriam

Thomas Norwood Taylor

(1938—2016)

It is with profound sadness that we acknowl-

edge the passing of Dr. Thomas N. Taylor,

Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the Uni-

versity of Kansas, Curator of Paleobotany in

the Biodiversity Institute and Natural History

Museum at University of Kansas, and senior

paleobotanist in the National Science Foun-

dation U.S. Antarctic Program. Tom died at

home in Lawrence, Kansas on April 28, 2016

after several years of battling cancer, and in so

doing has left his discipline, his students, and

his colleagues far poorer for his loss. In char-

acteristic fashion for his indomitable person-

ality, Tom was to be seen working at his desk

less than a month before his death.

Tom Taylor was an Ohio boy, who earned his

B.A. in Botany at Miami University (of Ohio)

in 1960, and his Ph.D. in paleobotany in Wil-

son Stewart’s lab at the University of Illinois

in 1964. He then moved to Theodore Delevo-

ryas’ lab at Yale University for postdoctoral

work in 1964 and 1965. At that time, coal

ball studies were among the most active areas

of paleobotanical investigation, and Tom fo-

cused his studies on the morphological and

anatomical characterization of ovules assign-

able to medullosans and other seed ferns, on

ferns, and on equisetophytes. In 1965, Tom

accepted an Assistant Professorship at the

University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, where

he continued his studies of anatomically pre-

served Pennsylvanian and Mississippian age

plants. During that period Tom worked close-

ly with Donald A. Eggert, who he recruited

from the University of Iowa and with whom

he built massive collections and an extremely

active program to study permineralized fos-

sil plants at U.I.C.C. During those early years

Tom began focusing on the ultrastructure of

pollen and spores, for which he pioneered use

of the scanning electron microscope in botan-

ical studies, and developed many of the trans-

mission and scanning electron microscopy

techniques that are in common use today.
Although he had been promoted to Professor

of Biological Sciences by 1971, Tom moved

his laboratory and students to Ohio Univer-

sity in 1972, and then moved onto the Ohio

State University in 1974, where he chaired the

Department of Botany until 1978. In 1982 he

joined the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio

State, and began characterizing the Permian,

Triassic, and Jurassic vegetation of Antarctica,

a loving endeavor that he continued to pursue

for the rest of his life.

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Originally stimulated by the early Antarctic

work of James Morton Schopf, Tom’s studies

of the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic plant bio-

tas of Antarctica have dramatically expanded

our knowledge and understanding of plant

evolution and vegetational turnover on the

continent of Gondwana. Also beginning in

the 1980s, Tom hosted Argentine senior sci-

entist Sergio Archangelsky, as well as post-

doctoral researchers Georgina del Fueyo, Ana

Archangelsky, Ruben Cuneo, and Ignacio Es-

capa. Those studies dramatically broadened

the scope of studies on the South American

biotas of Gondwana and produced life-long

collaborations with Argentine colleagues.
In 1981, Tom hosted a sabbatical leave for

his close friend and chytridalean mycologist,

Charles E. Miller of Ohio University. That

collaboration spurred his interest in fos-

sil fungi, and laid the groundwork for Tom’s

pioneering development of the discipline of

paleomycology. Initially focusing on fungi

in Pennsylvanian age coal balls, Tom’s inter-

ests quickly extended to the Lower Devoni-

an Rhynie Chert, which he first studied with

Winfried Remy. For more than 30 years Tom

collaborated extensively with Hans Kerp, Ha-

gan Hass, Michael Krings, and others to fun-

damentally reinterpret the scope of biological

interactions that can be inferred from the fos-

sil record. Those efforts have recently been

compiled in the first comprehensive paleomy-

cology textbook, “Fossil Fungi” (2015), which

Tom co-authored with Michael Krings and

Edith Taylor.
In 1995 Tom retired from The Ohio State

University, but in characteristic “Taylorian”

fashion, he did not retire from scholarship.

Rather, Tom moved to the University of Kan-

sas, where he accepted the positions of Dis-

tinguished Professor in Botany, Curator of

Paleobotany in the Biodiversity Institute and

Natural History Museum, and Courtesy Pro-

fessor in Geology. Following establishment of

the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary

Biology at KU, Tom served as chair of the new

department for three years before focusing

his seemingly boundless energy on research,

student mentoring, fieldwork, and classroom

teaching.
Along the way, Tom found the time to deliver

several hundred papers at scientific meetings,

publish 468 peer-reviewed journal articles

and book chapters, edit four books of scien-

tific contributions, and author four textbooks,

including three paleobotany textbooks and

the first comprehensive compendium on fos-

sil fungi. Tom’s mentorship is legendary for

the numbers of students graduated (M.S. = 11,

Ph.D. = 14), postdoctoral researchers super-

vised (19), long-term researching guests to his

laboratory (26), and for the creativity of his

advice, the high level of his expectations, and

the continuing support he generously provid-

ed to all. For his students, colleagues, and col-

laborations, he became both an inspirational

colleague and a steadfast friend.

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Tom was extremely proud of the nearly 60

externally funded research grants, including

more than 50 years of continuous support

from the National Science Foundation. More

importantly, however, he was most gratified

that such funding allowed him to offer unpar-

alleled support for the mentoring of students

and for the development of collaborations

with colleagues from around the globe. While

Tom took in stride his own unparalleled suc-

cess in plant paleontology and paleobiology,

his colleagues did not, and he was the recipi-

ent of numerous awards and honors. Among

those that are most illustrative of the stature in

which he is held are the Distinguished Teach-

ing Award from The Ohio State University

(1989) that recognized his commitment to

students, the Alexander von Humboldt Senior

Research Award (1994–1996) that initiated

Tom’s work on the Rhynie Chert, and the Pa-

leobotanical Section of the Botanical Society

of America Award for a lifetime of contribu-

tions to Paleobotany (2012). His colleagues’

appreciation for his service is also reflected in

his election as President of the International

Organisation of Palaeobotany (1994–1997),

and the National Science Board recognition

he received for outstanding service to science

(2006–2012). On the flight back from Mc-

Murdo Base in Antarctica in 1994, Tom re-

plied to my prediction that he would soon be

elected to the National Academy of Sciences

by saying that he was far too independent to

ever be accepted into that group. Only three

months later we received the announcement

that he had, indeed, been so elected.
Tom Taylor is clearly one of the most influ-

ential plant scientists of our time. Through

his indomitable pursuit of excellence, his

tireless development of new approaches and

techniques, his thoughtful establishment of

awards and programs to benefit students, his

continuous contributions to the development

of scientific societies and institutions, and his

steadfast support of colleagues, Tom Taylor

has dramatically elevated the quality and stat-

ure of paleobiological inquiry.
On a personal note, I shall always be grateful

that in 1967 Tom accepted into his laboratory

a masters student of rather equivocal poten-

tial, and also for the subsequent 50 years of

guidance, support, criticism, encouragement,

and inspiration that he continued to offer. I

am delighted to recall that his passion for life

was equaled by his fierce loyalty to those he

loved. Tom was a devoted husband to his wife

Edith Taylor, and a loving father to his seven

children, and his grandchildren. Biological

or scholastic, we were all family to Tom. It

is hard to realize that I can no longer call his

office to hear the familiar “Taylor” that would

signal the beginning of a warm and enlighten-

ing conversation with my trusted mentor and

fast friend. He is badly missed.
By Gar Rothwell

Ohio University, and

Oregon State University

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Hugh Iltis

(1925–2016)

Hugh H. Iltis, Ph.D., 91, passionate and out-

spoken advocate for preservation of the natu-

ral world, died December 19, 2016, after a long

and full life. A larger-than-life figure to all who

knew him, Iltis was born in Brno, Czechoslo-

vakia on April 7, 1925. His father, Hugo, was a

botanist, educator, and biographer of Mendel,

the founder of genetics. Because Iltis’s father

was Jewish and a left-wing political activist, he

was targeted by the Nazis and, with the help

of Albert Einstein, the family left Brno for the

United States in 1938, settling in Virginia.

After a year at the University of Tennessee, Iltis

entered the U.S. Army during WWII, spend-

ing 1944-46 in Europe as a medic, interroga-

tor of captured German officers, and later as

an intelligence officer, preparing documents

for the Nuremburg trials. He received his B.A.

degree from the University of Tennessee and

his Ph.D. at Washington University and the

Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.
Following three years of teaching at the Uni-

versity of Arkansas, Iltis spent nearly 40 years

(1955–1993) as Botany professor and Direc-

o cr

it t

o B

ren

t N

icas

tro

tor of the Herbarium at the UW-Madison,

growing the herbarium to house over 1 mil-

lion dried plant specimens. His taxonomic re-

search focused on Capparidaceae and on Zea,

working primarily in Mexico and the tropics.

Iltis led numerous expeditions to many parts

of the world to search for new plant species,

travelling on mule or horseback when neces-

sary.
Teaching his courses with enthusiasm and

dramatic flair, he educated students on the

importance of integrating taxonomy, bioge-

ography, ecology, and evolution. He advised

36 graduate students, many of whom have

gone on to impressive research and academ-

ic careers in botany. The lobby of Birge Hall

for a few years was filled (to the dismay of

some administrators) with donated scientif-

ic books and journals, ultimately filling two

semi-trailer trucks, bound for the University

of Guadalajara. In later years, he turned his

book donating primarily to the UW-Madison

libraries.
Iltis authored dozens of scientific papers and

book chapters, environmental writings, and

the Atlas of the Wisconsin Prairie and Savanna

Flora, co-authored by Ted Cochrane.
In defense of the flowers, butterflies, birds and

children, Iltis spoke out forcefully against the

mindless consumption of material posses-

sions, the heedless destruction of biological

diversity, and the unsustainable increase in

human population, the root cause of our en-

vironmental crisis. He was a strong support-

er of abortion rights. His role in all aspects of

his career was to stir up people, to confront

people with the hard reality of what must be

done to preserve the quality of the natural en-

vironment for human survival and for scien-

tific study.
Of the world’s nine known species of toma-

toes, Iltis discovered two of them when he

travelled to Peru on a $20,000 NSF grant

from November 1962 to February 1963 ac-

companied by then wife Carolyn Merchant

and Ph. D student Don Ugent and his wife.

One of those two wild tomato species discov-

PSB 63 (1) 2017

ered, proved 17 years later to be worth many

millions of dollars a year to the industry—an

over ten-thousand-fold sensational return on

a small research investment, which may ulti-

mately be dwarfed by the yet-unknown value

of the over 20,000 specimens collected on that

trip including many new endemic species.

It is thus all the more inexcusable that while

much of the world’s biodiversity is disappear-

ing overnight before we even know what has

been lost, funding for basic scientific research

continues to face sharp cuts.
His preservation efforts were successful in

Wisconsin, Hawaii, and Mexico. Iltis was

co-founder in 1960 of the Wisconsin Chap-

ter of the Nature Conservancy. In 1967 he

instigated formulation of Hawaii’s Natural

Areas Law, which was enacted in 1970, and

on the 20

anniversary (1990) he was recog-

nized “for outstanding service to the Hawai-

ian environment.” In 1968 he was part of a

small group, including Hugh’s colleague Orie

Loucks, whose activism led to the outlawing

of DDT in Wisconsin, which led, ultimately, to

a national ban. Following his sensational dis-

covery with Mexican botanist Rafael Guzman,

of Zea diploperennis (perennial teosinte, and

close relative of cultivated corn, Z. mays) in

Mexico in 1977, he played a pivotal role in es-

tablishing the 345,000-acre Sierra de Manant-

lan Biosphere Reserve in the State of Jalisco,

the first time an international biosphere re-

serve was founded around the site of a rare,

endemic species whose germplasm holds the

only known source of genetic resistance to

various corn viruses and corn rust disease and

thus is of potentially enormous economic val-

ue. The Sierra de Manantlan is two thirds the

size of the Great Smoky Mountains Nation-

al Park, another place that Iltis loved and to

which he led field trips. For this effort, in 1987

he received the Republic of Mexico’s Presiden-

tial Award from then President De La Madrid.

More importantly, it has launched the further

education of a number of accomplished Mexi-

can botanists and environmentalists.
Other awards that Iltis received during his

career were the Sol Feinstone Environmental

Award (1990), National Wildlife Federation

of Merit Award (1992), Society for Conser-

vation Biology Service Award (1994), the Asa

Gray Award by the American Society of Plant

Taxonomists (considered the top award in the

field of taxonomy) (1994), the Merit Award

from the Botanical Society of America (1996),

the University of Guadalajara’s Luce Maria

Villareal de Puga Medal (1994), and an hon-

orary degree from the University of Guadala-

jara.
He always shared liberally, be it authorship of

papers, credit for discoveries, or even a place

to live—as a number of Mexican students who

gained Masters or Ph.D. degrees at the UW

lived in his home for sometimes months at a

time. He worked with dozens of institutions in

Latin America, making a strong contribution

to the development of science, and developing

strong collaborative ties with researchers in

those countries.
As early as 1964, Iltis argued that the most

profound reason why we should preserve the

natural world was human’s innate need for

natural beauty and diversity. The cover page of

his copy of E. O. Wilson’s Biophilia bears Wil-

son’s inscription, “To HHI, the pioneer in the

field.” Iltis loved prairies, studied them, and

wrote and spoke passionately in their defense.

Two prairie and savannah areas in Wisconsin

now bear his name.
Hugh is survived by his four sons, Frank and

Michael of Madison, David of Salt Lake City,

and John of Minneapolis, and friends and

colleagues. He was preceded in death by his

father, Hugo; mother, Anni; brother, Wilfred;

and wife, Sharyn Wisniewski.
It is suggested that contributions in Hugh Il-

tis’s name be directed to the Wisconsin Chap-

ter of the Nature Conservancy or to The Prai-

rie Enthusiasts.

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/

northamerica/unitedstates/wisconsin/index.

htm
http://www.theprairieenthusiasts.org/
-By Michael Iltis

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Taylor A. Steeves, University of

Saskatchewan, and Vipen K. Sawhney,

University of Saskatchewan

• The first comprehensive account of developmental

plant anatomy on the market in years

The main aim of this book is to provide a

developmental perspective to plant anatomy.

Authors Steeves and Sawhney provide fundamental

information on plant structure and development to

students at the introductory level, and as a resource

material to researchers working in nearly all areas of

plant biology including plant physiology, systematics,

ecology, developmental genetics, and molecular

biology. The book is focused on angiosperm species

with some examples from different groups of plants.

Claim your

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The specifications in this leaflet, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, were as accurate as possible at the time it went to press.

JANUARY 2017 | 184 PAGES

978-0-19-065705-5 | HARDBACK

£45.99

£32.19

$69.95

$48.97

Essentials of Developmental Plant Anatomy

The late Professor Taylor A. Steeves served as the department

head for many years of the Biology Department at the

University of Saskatchewan.

Vipen K. Sawhney is Professor Emeritus and former Head of

the Biology Department at the University of Saskatchewan.

Both Professors Steeves and Sawhney are internationally

known developmental botanists and have received several

awards including the Lawson medal from the Canadian

Botanical Association, and Master Teacher Award from the

University of Saskatchewan.

BOOK REVIEWS

Conservation

Complexity: The Evolution of Earth's Biodiversity and the Future of Humanity ..........39

Ecology

Plant Functional Diversity: Organism Traits, Community Structure, and Ecosystem

Properties ............................................................................................................................................................41

On the Forests of Tropical Asia: Lest the Memory Fade .......................................................43

Economic Botany

Handbook of Cucurbits: Growth, Cultural Practices, and Physiology ...............................45

The Book of Spice: From Anise to Zedoary ...................................................................................46

Education

A Botanist’s Vocabulary: 1300 Terms Explained and Illustrated .........................................48

History

Plant: Exploring the Botanical World ....................................................................................................49

Systematics

Name Those Grasses: Identifying Grasses, Sedges and Rushes .....................................51

Agaves, Yuccas, and Their Kin: Seven Genera of the Southwest .....................................53

Guide to the Vascular Flora of Howell Woods, Johnston County,

North Carolina, U.S.A. ....................................................................................................................................54

Native Plants for Southeast Virginia, including Hampton Roads Region ........................54

CONSERVATION

Complexity: The Evolu-

tion of Earth's Biodiver-

sity and the Future of

Humanity

William C. Burger

2016.

ISBN-13: 978-1-63388-193-8

Hardcover, US$26.00. 380 pp.

Prometheus Books, Amherst,

New York, USA

Complexity describes the background of bio-

diversity on our planet, and, as the book’s

subtitle states, the future of humanity. In fact,

when I came across it, this subtitle made me

curious and prompted me to read and review

this book. Who is the author? William C.

Burger is a biologist, botanist, ecologist, writ-

er, and has been Chair and Emeritus Curator

of Botany at the Field Museum of Natural

History in Chicago. He is highly qualified to

write a book on this topic, and he claims to be

a pessimist.
From the beginning, Complexity is different

from standard ecological textbooks because

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Book Reviews

the author tries to involve interested readers

with a general educational background as well

as scientific peers. To do so, and to capture

his audience´s attention, the author starts at

comparably low level of biology, and proceeds

stepwise to higher levels of complexity. The

problem with complexity and biodiversity is

that related research is rooted in many differ-

ent disciplines. Systematics, phylogeny, bioge-

ography, and ecology have to be covered, as

well as conservation biology, biochemistry,

and, when humans are involved, paleontolo-

gy, anthropology, and cultural sciences. The

author collects examples and insights from all

these disciplines, keeping the reader fascinat-

ed, not at least because he is a dedicated teach-

er, as well as a brilliant researcher with ample

experience abroad from many expeditions to

unravel biodiversity.
Subdivided in 12 chapters, the book builds up

stepwise like a series of lectures, covering ba-

sic knowledge in Chapters 1 to 6 and moving

to more branched and outreaching aspects in

Chapters 7 to 10. The first 200 pages cover the

evolution of life on earth and the catastrophes

that have shaped diversity in chapters that

could well stand alone as essays.
In the end, the gentle reader has been guided

through all kinds of different biomes or hab-

itats, through the whole field of biodiversity,

from billions of beetles to trillions of transis-

tors. While the latter is not really biodiverse,

but rather a technological means to under-

stand its complexity, it is indispensable to un-

derstand human superiority on this planet.

Did you know that gymnosperms are not very

clever, and why that is the case? You´ll learn

about that in this book. You will also learn why

life on earth permanently opposes the second

law of thermodynamics, or why you can mow

your lawn but not your petunias. Or how bi-

pedalism and swinging arms made our brains

larger. Filled with impressive examples, some-

times purposefully redundant, with anecdotes

and quotations from key publications on the

topic, the book is more than fun to read—it is

truly impressive. On one page, the author re-

ports on being bitten in tender regions of his

body by protective ants, a literary highlight

in itself. Elsewhere, he describes how he has

witnessed unexplainable but severe damage to

old preserved forest reserves around the Great

Lakes, and the loss of biodiversity due to the

loss of pollinators in the Great Prairies. Even

more important, William Burger´s book pro-

vides a plethora of facts about why our evo-

lutionary history can never support a six-day

creation 10,000 years ago.
Written in a colorful style and using bril-

liant examples, the first 10 chapters provide

the foundation for Burger´s main argument.

Hence, after having presented the reader

with an outline of the evolution of diversity

on earth, in Chapter 11 Burger summariz-

es the contents of the first 10 chapters in the

book before focusing in Chapter 12 on hu-

man development and human prospects in

an ever-challenging world. This last chapter

is of utmost importance. We are adding more

complexity to this world, and we are expand-

ing the information content of the planet by

exploiting all available resources, and perma-

nently inventing or improving novel technol-

ogies. Burger describes optimistic viewpoints

of fellow scientists, but nevertheless pres-

ents a pessimistic view of human future and

development. Here he turns away from the

biodiversity- or ecology-driven focus of the

book—human complexity develops as our

technologies emerge. In a modern society,

the most important driver is information and

the complexity within this information. He

is afraid, as every insightful biologist should

be, that our sheer numbers, the ever-increas-

ing birthrates and the thoughtlessness of our

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Book Reviews

technologies are eroding the planet´s diversity

so that we are, without any doubt, undermin-

ing the base of our own survival on the blue

planet in the long term.
The monstrous volumes of coal and oil, the in-

credible amounts of minerals and ores that we

consume daily, and the enormous energy that

we use combine to dash hopes of reducing

carbon footprints or stopping climate change.

Burger is severely concerned about human life

and future, and throughout the book, specif-

ically in Chapters 10 to 12, he provides proof

for his pessimistic view.
One shortcoming can be found, and that is

the lack of explanatory figures throughout the

book. Nowadays, the general public and our

students are used to obtaining much infor-

mation from pictures or other visuals. Com-

plexity

comes up with its first figure on page

170, and this is a poor representation of what

the author describes. The second figure, about

skull size and brain development in primates,

is not much better.
For me as a non-native speaker, the book, be-

sides providing a plethora of scientific infor-

mation and an exhaustive section of notes, has

been a treasure of interesting phrases, from

colloquial language and idioms up to biolog-

ical terms. I enjoyed following its leitmotif,

the development of its admittedly pessimistic

plot, and the extraordinarily careful plotting

of Burger´s argumentation. In a nutshell, the

book is absolutely worth reading, is a valu-

able source of interesting facts on biodiversity

and complexity of our home planet, and gives

many examples for why mankind should act

more responsibly to save the planet.
But what a pessimistic perspective we are

given in the end: together with roaches and

rats, our species will probably muddle on and

survive even the next man-induced environ-

ECOLOGY

Plant Functional Diver-

sity: Organism Traits,

Community Structure,

and Ecosystem Prop-

erties

Eric Garnier, Marie-Laure

Navas, and Karl Grigulis

2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-19-

875737-5

Paperback, US$59.95. xxii +

231 pp.

Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom

Plant functional diversity has increasingly

become the focus of attempts to understand

organization of plant communities and eco-

system functioning. The promise of this “trait-

based” plant ecology is one of generalized

prediction across organizational and spatial

scales, independent of taxonomy. While tax-

onomic and phylogenetic aspects of biodi-

versity remain pertinent to answering many

ecological questions, the functional approach

provides many promising and often more

cause-effect revealing alternatives. The use of

functional traits, i.e., measurable attributes of

organisms linked to their fitness, has a rela-

tively long tradition in plant ecology, dating

back to Warming, Schimper, and Raunki-

mental catastrophes. Burger recognizes clear-

ly that our inherent difficulties are the direct

consequence of our best intentions. Hence,

his book can only shed a dim light on the fu-

ture of humanity, and personally, I would be

even more pessimistic than the author, who

leaves us with the message that these coming

times might be “interesting.”

–Peter Schröder, Helmholtz Center Munich,

German Research Center for Environmental

Health, Neuherberg, Germany

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Book Reviews

aer. However, the ever-increasing number of

journal publications in this field over the past

20 years has become almost overwhelming.

Interestingly, the modern trait-based plant

ecology has been developing at about the

same speed in many countries simultaneous-

ly (e.g., Argentina, Canada, Czech Republic,

Estonia, France, New Zealand, Spain, United

Kingdom, United States). The level of inter-

national cooperation in this field is really im-

pressive. The recent article on the global plant

trait spectrum (Diaz et al., 2016) is one of the

best examples. Under these circumstances,

it is surprising that recently published books

have covered this research field only partial-

ly or idiosyncratically (Craine, 2009; Shipley,

2010; Grime and Pierce, 2012; Pla et al., 2012;

Šmilauer and Lepš, 2014; Pawar et al., 2015).

The book under review is the first attempt

to summarize current achievements in trait-

based plant ecology, from organisms to eco-

systems. It is based on Diversité Fonctionelle

des Plantes, published by the first two authors

in 2013, but is substantially enriched and up-

dated.
The book starts with a glossary and table of

abbreviations that clarify the terminology

and symbols used throughout the book. The

text is divided into 10 major chapters, each

summarized in four to six key points and

supplemented by an extensive list of relevant

references. Here are the major questions ad-

dressed by individual chapters: Chapters 1

and 2—What is a trait, and in what ecological

context are traits used? Chapter 3—What are

the appropriate traits to use in a given ecolog-

ical context? Chapters 3 and 8—How do traits

vary along environmental gradients? Chap-

ters 5 and 8—What are the determinants of

trait variability in a community? Chapter 5—

What are the rules of community assembly

in terms of traits? Chapters 6, 7, and 8—How

do the values and variability of traits affect

the functioning of ecosystems and the deliv-

ery of ecosystem services to human societies?

Chapter 9—How are data on traits stored and

accessed? Chapter 10—What are the most de-

sirable future research directions?
Meaning, methods of actual quantification,

and relationships among several important

traits and ecosystem properties (e.g., specific

leaf area, relative growth rate, residence time

of nutrients, net primary productivity) are

presented in sufficient detail. Verbal compar-

ison of 13 indices used to describe the func-

tional structure of communities (Table 5.1) is

useful. However, if we want to know how to

combine species data, trait data, and environ-

mental data tables in meaningful multivariate

analyses, how to choose among multi-trait

indices, how to deal with missing trait data,

how to compare the among- and within-spe-

cies extent of trait dissimilarity, or how exactly

we should test for biotic effects on community

composition, we have to use more technical

literature (e.g., de Bello et al., 2012, 2016; Pla

et al., 2012; Šmilauer and Lepš, 2014). Two

non-exclusive hypotheses have been proposed

to explain the effects of plant functional di-

versity on ecosystem properties: (1) the dom-

inance hypothesis, which states that traits of

dominant species will be most influential, and

(2) the functional complementarity hypothesis,

according to which it is primarily the presence

of different species (with different trait values)

that use environmental resources in a comple-

mentary manner that will influence ecosystem

properties. Many instructive examples of ex-

perimental tests of these two hypotheses are

provided (pp. 119–147). The authors conclude

that there is currently stronger support for the

dominance hypothesis than for the comple-

mentarity hypothesis. However, the relative

importance of complementarity effects re-

mains to be established, and this importance

may vary between systems an ecosystem prop-

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Book Reviews

On the Forests of

Tropical Asia: Lest the

Memory Fade

Peter Ashton

2014. ISBN-13: 978-1-84246-

475-5

Hardcover, US$180.00. 670

pp.

Kew Publishing, Royal Bo-

tanic Gardens, Kew, United

Kingdom

With its large format, abundant color plates,

and poetically tinged title, this work might at

first glance be taken for a coffee table picture

book intended for casual browsing. Closer in-

spection will quickly disabuse the reader of

such a notion. This is a heavyweight treatise

that details the major currents of research on

Asian tropical forests, focusing on the trees

and their community formations. The text is

as dense as the forests described. It is packed

with data, analyses, summaries, and italicized

key questions for future research, with the

look of a major scientific treatment that will

be an essential reference for those who study

tropical forests.
The book begins with a chapter on the physi-

cal environment of Asian forests, with discus-

sions of the region’s paleogeographic history,

climate, geology, soils, and so forth. This chap-

ter is particularly rough going for the outsider.

There is no political-geographic map provid-

ed, which is problematic for those who don’t

already know the locations of, say, Sulawesi,

Halmahera, Palawan, the Makassar Straits, the

Western Ghats, etc. You can look them up in

the place names index in the back of the book;

there you’re given a boldface number that will

identify the locality on the rainfall map on the

inside front cover, if you can find the corre-

sponding number. But it will be much easier

to get hold of a National Geographic (or simi-

lar) map of Asia and keep it on hand.

erties. A unique feature of this book is a sepa-

rate chapter dealing with functional diversity

in agriculture (grasslands and crop weeds).
Trait-based plant ecology is a quickly devel-

oping field. Inevitably, this book only provides

a snapshot of the field in 2015. Still, it will be

an extremely useful source of information for

both students and many advanced researchers

for several years to come.

–Marcel Rejmánek, Department of Evolution

and Ecology, University of California, Davis,

California, USA

LITERATURE CITED

Craine, J. M. 2009. Resource Strategies of Wild Plants.

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

de Bello, F., J. N. Price, T. Münkemüller, et al. 2012.

Functional species pool framework to test for biotic ef-

fects on community assembly. Ecology 93: 2263-2273.

de Bello, F., C. P. Carmona, J. Lepš, et al. 2016. Func-

tional diversity through the mean trait dissimilarity:

Resolving shortcomings with existing paradigms and

algorithms. Oecologia 180: 933-940.

Diaz, S., J. Kattge, J. H. Cornelissen, et al. 2016. The

global spectrum of plant form and function. Nature

529: 167-171.

Grime, J. P., and S. Pierce. 2012. The Evolutionary

Strategies that Shape Ecosystems. Wiley-Blackwell,

Chichester, United Kingdom.

Pawar, S., G. Woodward, and A. I. Dell. 2015. Trait-

Based Ecology: From Structure to Function. Advances

in Ecological Research, Vol. 52. Academic Press, San

Diego, California, USA.

Pla, L., F. Casanoves, and J. Di Rienzo. 2012. Quan-

tifying Functional Biodiversity. Springer, Dordrecht,

Germany.

Shipley, B. 2010. From Plant Traits to Vegetation

Structure. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,

United Kingdom.

Šmilauer, P., and J. Lepš. 2014. Multivariate Analysis

of Ecological Data Using Canoco 5. 2nd ed. Cam-

bridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Book Reviews

A distinctive feature of the Asian tropics, we

learn here, is that its characteristic vegetation

extends well outside the geographical trop-

ics to the southern Himalayan foothills and

coastally as far north as the southern islands

of Japan. This is attributed in large part to a

vast low-pressure system atop the Himalayan

Plateau, which draws the moist tropical air

masses—in particular, the southwestern and

northeastern monsoons. The next chapters

describe the lowland tropical vegetation and

the complex interplay of light, moisture, nu-

trients, and disturbance patterns that sustain

either a perpetually moist or a seasonal for-

est type. A following chapter details the lower

and upper montane vegetation of the cloud

forests, their development in relation to the

cloud belt, and the transition to the subalpine

zone. The diverse and fascinating interactions

with pollinators and seed dispersers are then

given attention in the chapter “Trees and their

Mobile Links.” That discussion is followed

by one entitled “The Palimpsest of History,”

which analyzes distributions of species and

higher taxa in the context of long-term climat-

ic, geological, and tectonic history. A note-

worthy theme here is that most angiosperm

families comprising the tropical Asian forest

flora actually originated in Gondwana in the

late Cretaceous, reaching the region chiefly

via the rafting of the Indian subcontinent onto

Laurasia in the early Tertiary. A discussion of

the dynamic factors that maintain and modify

diversity in contemporary forests follows. The

book then concludes with two chapters that

expand the scientific focus on Asian forests

to give attention to the long-standing human

interactions. The first of these details the in-

terface of the region’s human history and cul-

ture with the forests and their resources. The

second outlines the strategies proposed for

maintaining what is left of Asian tropical for-

ests, and evaluates their record and potential

for success.

The extensive scholarship summarized in this

book is thoroughly documented in an ex-

tensive reference list. However, accessing the

references involves a two-step process that is

not very user friendly. References are cited

numerically; you then must find that citation

number in a long list of continuous text in

small print at the end of each chapter. But this

effort gives you only the authors and year of

publication; you must then search in the liter-

ature list at the end of the book to get the full

reference.
I found few errors worth noting. Biology edu-

cators in the trenches who teach the seed plant

life cycle may wince when reading (p. 311) that

a higher plant’s gametes are the pollen grain

and the ovule. More immediately in need of

correction: endomycorrhizae are formed by

Glomeromycota (which are true fungi), not by

oomycetes (which are stramenopiles; pp.46).

There also appears to be confusion about the

meaning of the term “(core) eudicots,” which

the author repeatedly uses as a synonym for

basal angiosperms or magnoliids (pp. 382,

392, and Table 6.1).
These minor complaints are overtopped and

out-shaded by what is obviously a massive

achievement, certain to find its place in the

emergent canopy of tropical forest science.

–William B. Sanders, Florida Gulf Coast Uni-

versity, Fort Meyers, Florida, USA

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Book Reviews

ECONOMIC BOTANY

Handbook of Cucurbits:

Growth, Cultural Prac-

tices, and Physiology

Mohammad Pessarakli

(editor)

2016. ISBN-13: 978-1-4822-

3458-9

Hardcover, US$279.95. 574

pp.

CRC Press, Boca Raton, Flori-

da, USA

I was very impressed with the Handbook of

Cucurbits. This handbook is a compilation

of research articles covering many aspects

related to cucurbits. The manual was edited

by Dr. Mohammad Pessarakli, from the

School of Plant Sciences at the University

of Arizona, with the collaboration of more

than 50 renowned scientists from around the

world. The book is organized topically into 11

sections with 31 chapters. This organization

facilitates the ability of the reader to select the

articles that are most interesting to his or her

needs.
I was very interested in learning more about

this widely distributed group of plants. I

was familiar with most of the New World

pumpkins, squashes, and melons, but learned

a great deal about many other types of

cucurbits that are grown primarily in Asia.

There is no doubt that with global warming

and the drastic change of climate in many

parts of the world, the adaptability of species
in the Cucurbitaceae

will bring a desirable

food source to markets where traditional

plants will no longer be able to survive. I

would highly recommend the following

chapters: “Cucurbits: History, Nomenclature,

Taxonomy, and Reproductive Growth,” by S.

Ramesh Kumar, and “Cucurbits: Importance,

Botany, Uses, Cultivation, Nutrition, Genetic

Resources, Diseases, and Pests,” by David

O. Ojo. Both chapters contain detailed

information on the history, uses, and

taxonomy of this family, and include familiar

names along with many that I heard for the

first time. One of the curiosities described in

the book is the origin of the common name

“cantaloupe.” Ojo mentions in his section

about Cucumis melo L. (muskmelon) that the

name "cantaloupe" derives from the 15th-

century introduction of melon from Turkish

Armenia to the papal residence at Cantalupi,

near Rome. Another interesting chapter is

“Carbohydrate Metabolism of Cucurbits” by

Minmin Miao and Zhiping Zhang. Most plants

follow a sucrose-translocating metabolism

of photosynthates, but cucurbits translocate

sugars mainly in the form of raffinose family

oligosaccharides (RFOs). This is a different

pathway that needs to be understood in order

to take advantage of the rapid distribution

of sugars to most parts of the plant. In many

species, not only the fruits are edible, but

young stems, leaves, and even roots are also

consumed because of their starch and sugar

content.
The Handbook of Cucurbits has many chapters

related to the cultural practices related to

cucurbits, as well as practices for weed and

pest control. The sections on Genetics,

Genomics, and Breeding of Cucurbits and on

Cucurbit Grafting have up-to-date chapters

that include the newest information related

to plant breeding and practices to improve

pest resistance using tolerant and/or resistant

genes. Most interesting and relevant to the

climatic changes our planet is experiencing

are the following chapters: “Physiological

and Biochemical Responses of Cucurbits to

Drought Stress,” by Amir H. Saeidnejad; “Soil

Salinity: Causes, Effects, and Management in

Cucurbits,” by A. Sharma, C. Rana, S. Singh,

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Book Reviews

and V. Katoch; and “Growth Responses of

Watermelon to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses,”by

Satya S. Narina. There is only one chapter

in the section Therapeutic and Medicinal

Values of Cucurbits, but this chapter is full

of nutritional information on 14 species of

cultivated cucurbits, from the white gourd

(Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn.) to the

snake gourd (Trichosanthes anguina L.). This

chapter also provides a detailed description of

the domestication of cucurbits, their centers

of diversity, and areas of cultivation.
The last section focuses on individual

crops. There are two chapters devoted to

different taxonomic, agricultural, nutritional,

and medicinal properties of snake gourd

(Trichosanthes L. sp.). The following crops:

bitter melon (Momordica charantia L.),

snapmelon (Cucumis melo var. momordica

(Roxb.) Cogn.), kachri (Cucumis callosus

(Rottler) Cogn. & Harms), and squashes

and gourds, have a chapter devoted to the

characteristics, uses, and cultivation of these

useful cucurbits. The chapter on squashes and

gourds lists and describes characteristics of

five species within the genus Cucurbita L.: C.

argyrosperma K. Koch, C. ficifolia Bouché, C.

maxima Duchesne, C. moschata Duchesne, C.

pepo L., as well as Lagenaria siceraria (Molina)

Standl., and five species within the genus Luffa

Mill.: L. acutangula (L.) Roxb., L. aegyptiaca

Mill., L. echinata Roxb., L. graveolens Roxb.,

and L. hermaphrodita Singh & Bandhari.
All of the chapters have ample, up-to-date

reference citations that are beneficial for all

scientists interested in these subjects. Several

chapters have pictures to illustrate some of

the plant or fruit characteristics, and the

pictures are reproduced in color plates as an

insert in the center of the book. If there is one

disappointment I had about this handbook,

it is the lack of pictures identifying many of

the species that are grown as common crops

in Asia and Africa, but that are not common

to growers in other parts of the world. Overall,

this is a very informative book that is well

presented and easy to follow, even for those

who are not crop or agricultural scientists,

and it offers complete references for those

looking for research information on species

in the cucurbits family.
–Cecilia Bianchi-Hall, Ph.D., Lenoir Commu-

nity College, Kinston North Carolina, USA

The Book of Spice:

From Anise to Zedoary

John O’Connell

2016.

ISBN-13: 978-1-68177-

152-6

Cloth, US$26.95. 271 pp.

Pegasus Books, New York,

New York, USA

The WorldCat record reveals that 1,936 book

titles were published under the search keyword

“spices” (qualified by “not juv, not fiction”)

during the past seven years (2010–2016); 300

of those books are not in English. Collectively,

the topics include regional cookbooks, history,

geography, nutrition, even phytochemistry.

Why then, I wondered, is a new title about

spices being published now?
Promotional literature states that author John

O’Connell is a former Books Editor at Time Out

magazine. He writes book reviews regularly

for The Guardian and The Times. He is the

co-author of I Told You I Was Ill: Adventures

in Hypochondria and The Midlife Manual.

O’Connell’s experience with the literary scene

enabled him to select a topic about which

many readers have some general interest, and

using various electronically available sources

and a variety of other culinary works and a

few classics, he’s assembled a dictionary of

spices from A to Z.

PSB 63 (1) 2017

If you are seeking a romantic getaway to

faraway places without a visa or having to

remove your shoes for airport security, but

instead within the comfort of your favorite

armchair, The Book of Spices will take you there

effortlessly and bring you delight. Each spice,

arranged alphabetically, receives variable

attention, from a mere paragraph to several

pages. Anecdotal tales are woven describing

historical or contemporary use, comparisons

are made between cultures, and recipes old and

new tempt the reader. The book may be read

from cover to cover, as recreational reading,

or simply as a handbook to the ingredients in

one’s cupboard. It seems to be accessible to a

general audience interested in flavors used in

cooking throughout history. I find the 18-page

Directory of Spice Mixes at the dictionary’s

end a worthwhile contribution, introducing

readers alphabetically to little-known blends

from advieh, a Persian spice mix, to zhug, a

coarse chili paste from Yemen.
This dictionary, unfortunately, is not

illustrated, and offers only a three-page “select

bibliography,” rather than a comprehensive

list of sources, although 369 notes on 15 pages

document the information presented. I am

disappointed to find that many are secondary

sources and compilations. O’Connell

leans heavily on Gernot Katzer’s website

for information; in the acknowledgments

he wrote: “Anyone seeking more detailed

botanical knowledge should google Katzer’s

spice pages—truly a feast of riches.” I would

caution botanists against overreliance, having

studied that source myself for more than a

decade.
Citing Katzer among his references for the

entry about sesame, O’Connell relies on

Katzer’s very dated information: “Sesame is

an ancient cultigen. Today, it is mostly grown

in India and the Far East (China, Korea), but

its origin is probably tropic Africa (although

some other sources seem to favour an Indian

origin).” This is one among several of Katzer’s

facts that remain unchanged since I read them

initially; he’s overlooked evidence published

over the course of more than three decades

about the domestication of sesame (Bedigian,

1984–2015).
Additionally, FAO statistics (2014 latest

available) show remarkable changes in

production figures, even since those data were

presented in the monograph about sesame

(Bedigian, 2010). Current as of 2014, Africa

contributed 54.8% of the world’s sesame

production while Asia provided 41.6%, with

the remaining 3.6% by the Americas. Those

top 10 producers in descending order were

India, Sudan, mainland China, Myanmar,

Tanzania, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia,

South Sudan, and Uganda.
–Dorothea Bedigian, Research Associate, Mis-

souri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri,

USA

LITERATURE CITED

Bedigian, D. 1984. Sesamum indicum L. Crop or-

igin, diversity, chemistry and ethnobotany. Ph.D.

dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Cham-

paign, Illinois, USA. [University Microfilms

DA8502071, Dissertation Abstracts International

45, 1985: 3410-B.]

Bedigian, D. 2010. Current market trends: Criti-

cal issues and economic importance of sesame. In

D. Bedigian [ed.], Sesame: The genus Sesamum,

423–490. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group,

Boca Raton, Florida, USA.

Bedigian, D. 2014. A new combination for the In-

dian progenitor of sesame, Sesamum indicum L.

(Pedaliaceae). Novon 23(1): 5–13.

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Book Reviews

Bedigian, D. 2015. Systematics and evolution in

Sesamum L. (Pedaliaceae), part 1: Evidence re-

garding the origin of sesame and its closest rela-

tives. Webbia 70(1): 1–42.

Bedigian, D., D. S. Seigler, and J. R. Harlan. 1985.

Sesamin, sesamolin and the origin of sesame. Bio-

chemical Systematics and Ecology 13: 133–139.

FAOSTAT. 2014. Website http://www.fao.org/

faostat/en/#data/QC/visualize [accessed 3 Febru-

ary 2017].

Gormley, I. C., D. Bedigian, and R. G. Olmstead.

2015. Phylogeny of Pedaliaceae and Martyniace-

ae and the placement of Trapella in Plantaginace-

ae. Systematic Botany 40: 259–268.

A Botanist’s Vocabulary:

1300 Terms Explained

and Illustrated

Susan K. Pell and Bobbi

Angell

2016. ISBN-13: 978-160469-

563-2

Hardcover, US$24.95. 228

pages

Timber Press, Portland, Ore-

gon, USA

This book is written for a general audience

interested in botany and botanical terms. The

authors focus on educating naturalists and

gardeners by providing concise definitions

important for plant biologists and detailed line

drawings, which are beautiful as well. Susan

Pell is on the staff of the United States Botanic

Garden, and Bobbi Angell is a scientific

illustrator for the New York Botanic Garden

as well as for the New York Times garden

column. Together, they make a great team and

have produced this simple yet elegant book.
Pell and Angell do a great job in covering

standard items in plant morphology and

structure so that readers can identify plants

and plant parts. For instance, leaf and flower

structures are prominently featured and

illustrated (e.g., simple and compound leaves,

leaflets, palmate, pinnate). However, a broad

range of topics in botany and plant biology are

featured, but not every term has an illustration.

As a physiologist, I noted apical dominance,

chlorophyll, gravitropism, phototropism,

photoperiodism, and photosynthesis (but not,

for example, auxin and phytochrome).
Most, but not all, of the key plant groups

are covered: angiosperms, gymnosperms,

and mosses, but not ferns. However, ferns,

particularly the sensitive fern Onoclea

sensibilis, are used in many diagrams to

illustrate concepts such as the fertile frond and

sporangium. Terms important in plant ecology

also are considered, including allelopathy,

allopatric, clinal variation, and sympatric,

among others. Additional botanical fields

covered in the book include biogeography,

genetics, horticulture, soil science, taxonomy,

and tissue culture.
Professional botanists will enjoy having this

volume on their bookshelf especially given

the modest price. The book would also make

a great gift to one of their friends who enjoys

gardening and plants.
–John Z. Kiss, University of North Caroli-

na-Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina,

USA; jzkiss@uncg.edu

EDUCATION

PSB 63 (1) 2017

HISTORY

Plant: Exploring the

Botanical World

Phaidon Editors

2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-7148-

7148-6

Cloth, US$59.95. 352 pp.

Phaidon Press, London, Unit-

ed Kingdom

“Botany–the science of the

vegetable kingdom, is one of the

most attractive, most useful, and

most extensive departments of

human knowledge. It is, above every

other, the science of beauty.”—Sir

Joseph Paxton (using pseudonym

Peter Parley, 1838)

Plant: Exploring the Botanical World displays

the riches of the botanical world with assorted

natural history drawings, etchings, paintings,

watercolors, and photographs that circulated

as objects among various participants in

global networks of knowledge creation,

historically as gifts with symbolic value

exchanged in patronage relationships, and as

embodiments of the plants they represent.

It tells the story of intellectual and scientific

collaboration, debate and competition,

among naturalists for status and nations for

profit. The Phaidon editors have prepared an

assemblage set at the crossroads of botanical

art work, colonial history, and the history

of botany, united as a compelling chronicle

that provides insight into the relationship

between botany and art, while also probing

an archive of some previously little-studied

images. This anthology is as much about art

and photography as it is about plants; diverse

approaches to illustrating plant form are

revealed in art and photographs.

Juxtaposition underlies the arrangement of

this book of contrasting or complementary

images, paired on facing pages as couplets

with variable features, e.g., pp. 98–99 relate

two species of Eucalyptus geometrically for

their diagonal lines and varied angles of leaf

pairs; pp. 100–101 seem to share the color red,

contrasting rose and poppy (ca. 1760), with

sweet cherry (ca. 1561–1562); pp. 142–143

compare tree trunks in cross-section, using

a chromolithograph (ca. 1850), alongside a

light micrograph of pine stem (2011); pp.

164–165 differentiate Luffa aegyptica with

a Japanese woodblock (ca. 1900) showing a

solitary yellow flower attracting a single bee,

along with two fruits, one mature, the other

juvenile, against a copper engraving from

Venice (1640). Readers meet the storyteller’s

secret weapon—an element of surprise—

contemplating two unexpectedly related

works side by side. It may be that botanical

illustration and art photography have been

under-researched by historians of art.
Plant offers some new material and some that

is usefully repackaged.

A concise paragraph

on each page tells readers about the artist and

composition featured. Despite their number,

all of the figures are referenced in the text; they

are so skillfully interwoven that documenting

the sources of each illustration does not strike

the reader as a burden. Along with citing the

essentials, the editors are subjective, adding

analysis of the artworks.

The book is beautifully

designed, printed in Hong Kong, and rich

with delicate yet vivid color illustrations,

e.g., pp. 120–121, spotlighting the flush of a

colored Japanese woodblock print of an iris

garden (1857) against a dusky hand-tinted

copperplate engraving of a majestic black iris

from Nuremberg (1768). The volume offers a

brief 10-page chronology and a limited 7-page

index.

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Plant resists comprehensiveness,

acknowledging the necessarily fragmented

nature of this history; as an art book it falls

into a strange genre in contemporary botany,

hovering between several different disciplines.

Examining the work of specific artists is

rewarding and informative, an opportunity to

consider a diverse range of materials produced

over the past 500 years within a discipline

that insists on the importance of the graphic

process.
Historically, traveling naturalists worked in

concert with trained artists who drew and

painted representative specimens. These

images, in turn, were also described verbally

and often accompanied by dried plants.

Working with text, image, and dried specimen

allowed naturalists around the world to

participate in collective empiricism and

communicate with one another.
Photography promised a new means of

preserving and recording, and of quickly,

efficiently, and authoritatively rendering

views through an unimpeachable mechanical

process, seen as free from the potential of

human error. Already familiar with their

original materials, botanist-scholars could

look through a photograph to reanimate

their recollection of previously studied

materials, particularly when incorporating

contemporary renderings such as three-

dimensional visualizations of plant structures

and other modern techniques meant to serve

the needs of a scientific community.
Other books with which Plant might be

compared include Blunt’s (1955) Art of

Botanical Illustration: An Illustrated History,

which represents a benchmark in terms

of documenting botanical illustration and

provides a “comprehensive, critical and

well-illustrated survey” of how plants and

flowers have been illustrated over time

by different artists in different places for

different purposes. Rix’s (2012) Golden Age

of Botanical Art spans from 4500 B.P. through

contemporary botanical art. It explores the

origins of botanical art and the range of

botanical art produced—from florilegiums to

art produced as the result of travels to many

different places. Rix also highlights the range

of ways in which art and illustration have been

produced and a number of the people who are

key to its history.
Phaidon is recognized worldwide for

publishing fine books about art, architecture,

photography, design, performing arts,

decorative arts, fashion, film, travel, and

contemporary culture, as well as cookbooks

and children’s books, so this volume with

its focus on botanical art through history

is somewhat of a departure. Overall, Plant

successfully raises many interesting issues

in connecting the fields it represents. The

disengagement of artworks makes them

subject to meanings imposed on them by

those who use them; indeed, reframed within

this public domain, they achieve something

new, something unforeseen by their creators.

Looking at things botanically is looking for

absence as much as for presence, setting up

another tension found throughout the volume.
Plant is a singular book that should be read in

print copy, taking one’s time to meditate upon

the beauty of the photographs, and the lessons

they tell.
–Dorothea Bedigian, Research Associate, Mis-

souri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri,

USA

LITERATURE CITED

Blunt, W. 1955. The Art of Botanical Illustration:

An Illustrated History. Collins, London, United

Kingdom.

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Parley, P. 1838. Peter Parley’s Cyclopedia of

Botany: Including familiar descriptions of trees,

shrubs and plants. Otis, Broaders and Co., Bos-

ton, Massachusetts, USA.

Rix, M. 2012. The Golden Age of Botanical Art.

Andre Deutsch, London, United Kingdom.

SYSTEMATICS

Name Those Grasses:

Identifying Grasses,

Sedges and Rushes

Ian Clarke

2015. ISBN-13: 978-0-

9804076-4-8

Paperback, AU$48.00. 544

pp.

Royal Botanic Gardens Victo-

ria, Victoria, Australia

Name Those Grasses, by Ian Clarke, is a

beautiful and practical guide to learning to

identify grasses and grass-like plants. It is not

really a key or a flora, but instead emphasizes

that the same process of identification can

be used anywhere in the world and provides

a practical primer for identification of

these difficult families: Poaceae (grasses),

Cyperaceae (sedges), Juncaceae (rushes), and

Restionaceae (restios). The guide is intended

to be used in conjunction with standard

identification manuals for these plants in

particular parts of the world. The author is

based out of Australia, and his geographic bias

comes through in some ways, but he focuses

the book on species with wide geographic

temperate distribution (often weedy) to

broaden its usefulness.
A major emphasis of the book is the explanation

of botanical language, both general and

specific to these particular families. The

author assumes no prior knowledge and does

an excellent job in starting with the basics but

also moving efficiently into the idiosyncrasies

of the structures (and the language used to

describe them) of the families of interest. He

starts in Chapter 1 with an explanation of

botanical nomenclature and classification. He

then explains how to use the book and how it

is structured. He suggests multiple approaches

to learning how to identify the plants using

this book, depending on one’s background and

interest. He also gives a detailed explanation

of the illustrations to be very clear about how

and why they are oriented and labeled as they

are. He describes the techniques and tools

he used for the botanical illustrations, which

could be a very useful reference for other

botanical illustrators.
Chapter 2 presents an introduction to

plant structure in general, including basic

morphological terminology and illustration

of structures. It then gives an elucidation and

comparison of these basic structures in six

monocot families (Liliaceae, Orchidaceae,

Iridaceae, Poaceae, Cyperaceae, and

Juncaceae), as the author explains the reduced

and simplified floral structure of the families

that are the subject of this book. He also goes

into detail about inflorescence and vegetative

structure of the plants, again starting with

a general botanical introduction before

emphasizing the unique structures of grasses

and grass-like plants.
Chapter 3 goes into much more detail than the

first chapter about the rules of nomenclature

and classification in plants, including recent

understanding of broad-scale classification.
Chapters 4 through 7 are the heart of the book,

each emphasizing one of four major families,

giving an introduction to the family and

the structures and characteristics particular

to the family (and their variations within

PSB 63 (1) 2017

the family). Clear illustrations for each are

included, showing various views of flower and

inflorescence structure, often including both

intact and expanded views. These general

guides will prove very useful for learning and

understanding the structures of these tiny

flowers. A review of recent understanding

of the phylogenetic relationships within

the family follows. Then for each of the

major groups within the family, a narrative

description, sometimes (such as with the

tribes of grasses) with a table listing key

characteristics and where they are illustrated.

For each of these major groups, common

widespread and representative members

are described, with a detailed narrative

description as well as multiple careful

drawings including the whole plant, several

views of the flowers and/or inflorescences,

and (depending on what is most useful for

identification) other structures such as the leaf

blade/sheath junction, the fruit, or the culm

anatomy. Thirty-four color plates are also

included, many with multiple photographs, to

illustrate the overall plant habit as well as the

microscopic detail of flower structure of the

key groups of plants described within.
On pp. 404-407, the author provides a

condensed, one-page guide to each of the four

major families, summarizing and illustrating

their key characteristics. These pages will be

extremely helpful for those beginning their

understanding and ability to recognize and

distinguish between these four groups.
Chapter 9 is a guide to the procedures of

identifying plants in these groups. The author

describes useful equipment, gives a list of key

features for different groups, and discusses

how to use keys of various sorts (including

online keys). Then he provides keys to: (1)

the families of grasses and grass-like plants,

(2) the genera of Poaceae, (3) the genera

and sometimes species of Cyperaceae, and

(4) some species of Juncaceae. Although this

book is not meant to be a flora or field guide

per se, these keys could be useful for the most

basic level of identification of plants in these

groups; the user could then follow up with a

more thorough guide to these plants in the

user’s specific geographic area.
The author includes an extensive list of

references at the end of the book, and to the left

of each reference, gives an indicator of subject

area. This is an interesting feature and could

prove very useful for finding relevant sources

of additional information on particular topics.

A thorough glossary is also included at the

end of the book.
Generously illustrated and carefully organized,

this guide may be a welcome addition to the

library of any botanist, professional or amateur.

Despite inevitable limitations inherent in

any book that tries to usefully summarize

global diversity of grasses, sedges, and similar

plants, the author has designed a primer that

can serve as a practical introduction to these

plants that are notoriously difficult to identify.

I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants

to become adept at identification of grasses

and grass-like plants.
–Amy Boyd, Department of Biology, Warren

Wilson College, Asheville, North Carolina,

USA; aboyd@warren-wilson.edu

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Agaves, Yuccas, and

Their Kin: Seven Gen-

era of the Southwest

Jon L. Hawker

2016. ISBN-13: 978-089672-

939-1

Paperback, US$49.95. 456 pp.

Texas Tech University Press,

Lubbock, Texas, USA

This field guide aims to provide a thorough

treatment of seven similar genera of desert-

dwelling monocots in the American

Southwest: Agave, Dasylirion, Hechtia,

Hesperaloe, Hesperoyucca, Nolina, and Yucca.

These genera all look alike to some degree, and

indeed, six are members of the Asparagaceae.

The genus Hechtia is not related to the others

(it is a member of the Bromeliaceae) but is

included due to its superficial resemblance.
This guide was not written by a professional

taxonomist (Hawker says as much in the text)

but by an enthusiast of these groups of plants.

This brings both positives and negatives

to the work. The reader can really tell that

Hawker loves these plants and finds them

fascinating—a welcome change from other,

oftentimes dry, botanical works. The many

photos that include Hawker’s dog for scale are

cute and add another personal touch to the

book. However, the lack of keys within genera

and the use of standard measurements instead

of metric are unfortunate. There is also no

glossary, which Hawker argues is not needed

because this is not a technical guide. However,

I counter that every professional started as

an amateur and needed to learn all the terms

used to describe plants, so if an amateur yucca

enthusiast picks up this guide, how will he or

she learn those terms?
After an introduction covering what the

book aims to provide, how the maps were

made, and the region covered, the bulk of

the book is broken into seven sections. Each

section covers one of the aforementioned

genera and all species within it that occur in

California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona,

New Mexico, and Texas. The beginning of

each section has a lengthy introduction to

each genus covering taxonomy, biogeography,

pollination, ecology, human uses, etc. These

sections are well-written and fascinating.

Again, Hawker’s love for these genera

really shines here. Each species is then

treated alphabetically with information on

geographic range, natural history, and how

it can be differentiated from similar species.

Again, technical keys would have been nice

within these sections as this format means

that the user is just “picture-matching” or

“map-matching” (because many species have

restricted ranges).
The photos are, for the most part, of high

quality, with only a few being grainy (and these

only being ones taken via a microscope). There

are photos of all aspects of the plants: habitat

shots, flowers/fruits, pollinators, leaves, and

other characters useful for identification.

Many photos are unique as well: I have never

before seen photos of the copious cuticle

being peeled off an agave leaf or of an entire

agave plant cut longitudinally.
The book is easily portable and should be in

any hiker’s backpack when making a visit to

the Southwest. Hawker does a wonderful job

of cultivating an interest in these iconic plants.
–John G. Zaborsky, Botany Department,

University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison,

Wisconsin, USA; jzaborsky@wisc.edu

PSB 63 (1) 2017

Guide to the Vascular

Flora of Howell Woods,

Johnston County, North

Carolina, U.S.A.

Kelly M. Hines, Alexander

Krings, and Jon M. Stucky

2015.

ISBN-13: 978-1-889878-47-8

Paperback, US$24.00. viii +

268 pp.

Botanical Research Institute

of Texas, Fort Worth, Texas, USA

This is a large flora production for a small area

comprising only 1155 ha (2854 acres), a full-

fledged treatment of the vascular plants of just a

part of a North Carolina county. Howell Woods

is a tract of land presented to Johnston County

Community College in 1993 by Rudolph A.

Howell. As the authors note, this is the largest

property gift to any North Carolina community

college. On site is an educational center and a

garden. Howell Woods is a remarkable resource

for a community college, and the production of

this work shows the depth of commitment to

using it for education and research.
The book is well laid out and carefully edited.

After introductory material dealing with

collection methods, key construction, format,

and illustrations, there is a helpful review of

land use (“outdoor recreation, game-hunting,

sand mining, and law enforcement firearm

training”[!]). This is followed by a detailed

description of soils and a discussion of the plant

communities found within Howell Woods.
The main corpus of the book is keys. They seem

workable and carefully prepared. For example,

there is a helpful vegetative key to the species of

Utricularia

(bladderworts). There are no species

descriptions, but names and synonymy are given

as well as references to current literature. Also

included is careful documentation of collections,

either by the first author (mainly), from

herbarium specimens, or from published floras.

The authors present comparative floristic data for

local floras in the region. Except for a few color

pictures, illustrations are black and white and

taken from earlier publications, mostly Britton

and Brown (1913). An exception is the very

helpful original close-up images of perigynia and

achenes of sedges (genus Carex). Within each

group (pteridophytes, gymnosperms, monocots,

eudicots), families, genera, and species are listed

alphabetically. A species checklist and references

cited section complete the book.
I am the manager of an ecological preserve and

would love to have a flora like this to put in the

hands of my students. I imagine standing in a

plant community defined in the book on named

soils keying down sedges—what a great learning

experience. While the Guide to the Vascular

Flora of Howell Woods covers only a small part

of a single county, it will find utility in other

North Carolina counties. For a book that almost

certainly has a very limited press run, the cost is

reasonable.
–Lytton John Musselman, Department of Biolog-

ical Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk,

Virginia, USA

Native Plants for Southeast Virginia, in-

cluding Hampton Roads Region

Virginia Witmer, editor

2016. No ISBN

PDF (available online) and paperback (both free; see

below for details). 69 pp.

Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Environ-

mental Quality, Virginia Coastal Zone Management

Program, Richmond, Virginia, USA

I was pleasantly surprised to learn of this

very colorful, helpful publication from a local

newspaper column. After the article appeared,