Duckweeds (genus Lemna) are common inhabitants of slow-moving surface waters of lakes and ponds around the globe. At first glance, they might be mistaken for mats of algae or fragments of grass or sedge leaves left behind by a sloppily-feeding muskrat. Individual duckweed plants consist of a single, flat thallus (technically a modified leaf-like stem) 1/8 […]
Xerpha Gaines (1891-1970) was a prominent Washington State University alum and botanist, with particular expertise in weeds. Born in Wisconsin and moving to Washington with her family in the early 1900s, she was an exceptional student with an intimate familiarity of the local flora. She married WSU agronomist Edward Gaines, who encouraged her to pursue […]
Alpine habitats are found above timberline on only the highest mountains and are characterized by high winds, cold winters, and short growing seasons. Plants that are hardy enough to grow in the alpine tend to be low-growing (to avoid being shredded by the ever-present wind) and perennial. Many alpine species in the Rocky Mountains, Cascade-Sierras, […]
Back in college as a budding biologist, I remember learning of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, the late 18th and early 19th century French scientist widely derided for his hypothesis of evolution based on acquired morphological traits (such as a longer neck in giraffes, or beefier biceps in blacksmiths) being passed on to subsequent generations. Lamarck’s ideas were […]
With their high temperatures and low precipitation, deserts are a tough environment for most plants to survive. Those species that do persist employ one of three strategies. Annuals evade drought by germinating, flowering, and setting seeds in a narrow window of suitable soil moisture in early spring, surviving unfavorable periods as drought-hardy seeds in the […]
The Ownbey Herbarium’s namesake, Marion Ownbey, is most famous for his research on natural hybridization and speciation in the genus Tragopogon (see SOS # 38). But Ownbey had an interest in the genetics and evolution of several other plant genera, including Castilleja (paintbrushes), Calochortus (mariposa lilies), and Allium (onions). Ownbey named at least 15 new […]
Model organisms play a central role in guiding scientific inquiry. Because we lack the resources to exhaustively study every aspect of all species, we designate a small selection as “models,” on the assumption that discoveries in our models can be applied to non-models. This assumption holds because all life has a common ancestor, and therefore […]
In September 2023, my wife Laura and I were botanizing along the Snake River in southern Asotin County, Washington with Arnold Clifford, a Diné botanist and geologist visiting Pullman from Beclabito, New Mexico. As we were walking along the sandy beach, Arnold and I noticed a loosely ball-shaped herb with narrow, toothed leaves and tiny, […]
Delzie Demaree (1889-1987) was an American botanist whose name is synonymous with the flora of Arkansas and the southeastern United States. Demaree began his career as a plant physiologist, focusing on water relations in trees, but in later years became an avid specimen collector. Over his seven decade career, Demaree collected over 70,000 vascular plant […]
Humans have been brightening their otherwise dark and dreary December domiciles with evergreen boughs of holly since at least the age of the Druids. The practice has continued into the modern era, with the festive shiny green leaves and bright red berry-like fruits (botanically-speaking a drupe with four hardened stones) becoming synonymous with the Christmas […]
If two plant species native to Europe are introduced to North America and then hybridize to produce fertile offspring, do these descendants constitute a new species? That is the question Marion Ownbey posed in a 1950 paper in the American Journal of Botany. Ownbey, curator of the Washington State University herbarium from 1939-1974, discovered that […]
The paintbrushes (genus Castilleja) are a genus of about 200 mostly herbaceous plants, distributed across the Americas and northern Asia. They are, in many respects, annoying. Other plants feel this way because paintbrushes are hemiparasites, which derive part of their nutrition from the roots of their host (hemi- means half), and the remainder by photosynthesis. […]
Oaks (genus Quercus), part of the beech family (Fagaceae), are one of the most evolutionarily successful groups in the Northern Hemisphere, boasting some 500 species and holding keystone roles in dozens of ecotypes. But from the vantage point of Washington State University, it can be easy to miss that, as there are no oaks native […]
Charles Vancouver Piper (1867-1926) wrote the first flora of the state of Washington (1906) and was the first botanist on the faculty of the State College of Washington (now WSU), as well as the founder of the WSU Herbarium. In the course of his professional duties, Piper described many new species native to Washington, including […]
John Leiberg and John Sandberg were Swedish-born botanists hired by the US Department of Agriculture in 1893 to document the flora of the “Plains of the Columbia” in north-central Washington. Although they were not the earliest botanists to explore Washington, Leiberg and Sandberg were the first to record detailed information on climate, soils, and vegetation […]
One of the things non-taxonomists find most frustrating about taxonomists is their propensity for changing species names. A case in point is Wyoming kittentails, a relatively common perennial herb in the Plantain family (Plantaginaceae – though until recently included in the figwort family, Scrophulariaceae, but that is another story!) with an elongate spike of bluish-purple […]
American beech (Fagus grandifolia) is the only member of the beech genus native to North America. It is abundant across much of the Eastern Deciduous Forest ecoregion of the eastern United States and southern Canada, ranging as far west as Wisconsin and Texas. Beech is in the same family (Fagaceae) as chestnuts (Castanea) and oaks […]
New plant species are still being discovered and named every year. Sometimes, a species avoids detection by taxonomists for many years because of its diminutive size or strong resemblance to another species. In other cases, species are overlooked because they are restricted to small geographic areas or highly specialized (and limited) habitats – species that […]
The genus Dryas in the rose family is comprised of 15 circumboreal species characterized by saucer-shaped flowers with 8-12 white or yellow petals, evergreen leaves with round-toothed margins and dense pubescence on the underside, and clusters of dry fruits capped by persistent feathery styles. The fruiting heads bear a strong resemblance to the Truffula trees […]
Ruth’s chicken sage is a perennial herb in the sunflower family that is endemic to the Navajo Sandstone canyons in and near Zion National Park in southwestern Utah. It was first collected in 1935 but not recognized as a distinct taxon until the 1970s. This species usually grows in cracks and ledges high up on […]
The bromeliad family (Bromeliaceae) has more than 2600 species and is largely restricted to the New World Tropics (with one native species in tropical West Africa). Only 19 species venture into the southern and southeastern United States, and none are native to Washington State. Nonetheless, the WSU Herbarium contains three full cabinets of bromeliads (with […]
Wilhelm Friedrich Benedikt Hofmeister (1824-1877) may be the most important botanist you have never heard of. In the mid-19th Century, Hofmeister published a series of papers and books that laid the foundation of modern plant anatomy, cell biology, and reproductive biology. Remarkably, Hofmeister was entirely self-trained as a botanist; his early career was in the […]
Penstemons or beardtongues (genus Penstemon) are among the showiest native plants in North America, with large, colorful flowers varying from white, yellow, and red to every shade of blue or purple. Not surprisingly, penstemons have a devoted fan base (followers call themselves penstemaniacs) who even have their own organization, the American Penstemon Society. Penstemon is the […]