Author: Ethan Perry
Watercolor drawing by Ellen Hutchins August 1810 Litosiphon pusillus, now known as Litosiphon laminariae. Image courtesy of Museums Sheffield.
On Saturday February 10 we packed a classroom at Hartley Nature Center to explore the world of plants in a different way. Not by visiting them in their summer splendor, as we do on our field trips, but by traveling back in time to the realm of the dead—long dead. Our guide was Sarah Beaster, ANPE’s vice president, who described her citizen science work with a collaboration of 25 universities and museums across the country to build a consortium of bryophyte and lichen collections.
Sarah’s group of volunteers is tasked with deciphering the labels on dead (mostly 19 th century) moss specimens. They aim to determine who collected each one and where—often with limited information. At previous events we have talked about the importance of herbarium specimens for research. Old specimens in particular can help shed light on changes in plant genetics and patterns of diversity over the centuries.
Figuring out the names of the collectors led Sarah to wonder about the lives of long-ago plant explorers. For the presentation she highlighted 4 who exemplified curiosity toward things most people consider ordinary, often overcoming adversity to do so. The first was Olga Lakela, who founded the herbarium at UMD in the 1930s. Among her prodigious collections was the first documentation in the U.S. of the Eurasian grass Poa chaixii on Hunters Hill, just a short distance from our classroom. In 1965 she published Flora of Northeast Minnesota, which for decades served as the definitive botanical reference for the region.
Olga Lakela working as the first Chair of the Biology Department at University of Minnesota – Duluth.
Sarah also introduced us to Charles S. Parker, a Black botanist from Spokane, WA, who went on to start the herbarium at Howard University, where he also served as head of the Dept. of Botany. We also met Ellen Hutchins, born in 1785 on Bantry Bay, Ireland, as one of the 6 of 21 siblings who survived to adulthood. While caring for her ill mother and brother, she explored hills and seacoasts, collecting mosses, lichens, and seaweeds despite her own poor health. She produced detailed watercolor illustrations to document their reproductive anatomy. During her eight years of collecting, before her death at age 29, leading botanists of the British Isles came to rely on her knowledge of the local flora.
Charles S. Park, Head of Botany Department at Howard University.
Sarah’s group of volunteers made a surprising discovery when they reviewed an 1893 herbarium label with the name M. Monet. Could it be any relation to Claude Monet, the famous French impressionistic painter of that period? He did have a son named Michel, part of a blended family of 8 children, who would have been just 15 at the time. Could herbarium specimens have come from a 15 year old? Some
research revealed that in the case of the Monet family the answer is yes. Claude not only used Michel and his stepbrother Jean-Pierre Hoschede as frequent painting subjects, but also apparently taught them to press plants. While Jean-Pierre went on to a botanical career, Michel did not, and only a few of his specimens remain.
If you are interested in doing citizen science work like this, you can help the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas use over a century’s worth of specimens to map the distribution of animals, plants, and fungi with the Mapping Change Project on Zooniverse.
Arrowhead Native Plant Explorers 