HEBERLING LAB

Bright fall foliage of deciduous trees gets a lot of attention in autumn...and rightfully so!  But fall is also a time when those minority of plants that don't drop their leaves also become more prominent. 

This evergreen specimen of great rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum) was collected by John A. Shafer in "Schenley Homestead" in Pittsburgh  in October 1883.  The fruits on the specimen are a reminder  of the big blooms from the summer.

This specimen was collected in Schenley Park before it was a park! Pittsburgh's second largest and much beloved city  park came to be after the donation of the large tract of woods by Mary Schenley on October 30, 1889 -- six years after this specimen was collected.

Just adjacent to the new Schenley Park, Carnegie Museum of Natural History opened its doors several years later in 1895, where this specimen would eventually end up.  Before that, the specimen was a part of the herbarium of the Botanical Society of Western PA, which would later become the Carnegie Museum herbarium.
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Cranberries are a holiday staple. Fresh or canned, the choice is yours. But where do they come from? 
 
The cranberry on your table is most likely the American cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon), a short trailing evergreen shrub native. The species is native to northeastern/northcentral North America. They are grown commercially in human-made ponds (often called cranberry bogs) that are well irrigated.  They are harvested in two ways.   If the fruit is used for juices, sauces, or  dried, the ponds are flooded in the fall for harvesting (the fruit floats).  For use  as fresh cranberries,  the fruit is harvest dry.
 
Check out this cool specimen of cranberry, collected by Millie Turner in 1928 between Saxonburg and Freeport, Pennsylvania near Cypher farm.  Cypher farm still exists today,  operated by the same family  for over 100 years.
 
What is especially neat about this specimen is a note attached that reads “...80 ten quart  pails of these berries were picked at one time from  this bog.”
 

Now that’s a lot of cranberry sauce!  
 
Find this specimen and more cranberries here: 
​ http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=328&taxa=Vaccinium+macrocarpon&usethes=1&taxontype=2

Look carefully in the fall diorama of a bog in northwestern Pennsylvania in the Hall of Botany to see cranberries as they’d appear in the wild.

Teaberry - a Pennsylvania staple?
 
This specimen of eastern teaberry (Gaultheria procumbens), also called American wintergreen, was collected on July 12, 1963 by Leroy Henry (Carnegie Museum Curator of Botany at the time) and Dean Ross in a cranberry bog in Somerset county, Pennsylvania.
 
Perhaps best known by many as a unique wintergreen flavor of chewing gum and ice cream, especially in Pennsylvania.  Atlas Obscura calls Teaberry ice cream: “sometimes looks like Pepto-Bismol and smells like Bengay.”  Penn State Berkey  Creamery  as  the  “best treat of a bygone era.”
 
Teaberry is in the heath (blueberry) family, Ericaceae.  It is a small shrub growing along the ground, found across the Eastern US and distinctive evergreen leaves.
 
Find high resolution image of this teaberry specimen (and more) online here:
http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=328&catnum=CM075420&othercatnum=1  

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Not all plants in our area photosynthesize!  Collected on September 29, 2007, this specimen was collected by Loree Speedy in dry woods in Burrell Township, Indiana County, PA (near Blairsville).  Often mistaken for a fungus, Monotropa uniflora, commonly known as the “ghost plant” or “Indian pipe,” is indeed a flowering plant in the blueberry family (Ericaceae).  When alive, the plant is white (hence the name “ghost plant”), but turns black when dried. It lacks the green chlorophyll pigments of most plants, and therefore does not make its own sugars through photosynthesis.  Instead, Indian pipe is a heterotroph.  Like humans, heterotrophs ingest or absorb carbon necessary for life from organic sources, rather than fixing carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide through photosynthesis).  More specifically, this plant is a myco-heterotroph.  The way this plant gets its food is incredible.  It parasitizes mycorrhizal fungi in the soil.  And where does the mycorrhizal fungi get its food? These fungi form a close relationship (symbiosis) with many forest trees, shrubs and herbs, where the fungi aid the host plant in water and nutrient uptake and the fungi receive sugars from the plant in return.  This complex relationship was shown using radioactive carbon dioxide, tracking “tagged” carbon molecules from a host tree to Indian pipe. So…ultimately, the food for this non-photosynthetic plant comes from other plants in the forest!

Collected on June 9, 1959, this specimen was in the woods along a road to Pocahontas, near Salisbury in Somerset County, PA by Leroy Henry.  Henry was the Curator of Botany at the museum.
 
Mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) is the state flower of Pennsylvania!  It is a broadleaved evergreen shrub native across the eastern US, especially in forests of mountainous areas.  This specimen was collected not too far from the highest point in Pennsylvania and the Maryland border.  Often mistaken for Rhododendron, both the Rhododenrons and mountain laurel are found in similar habitats and belong to the heath family (Ericaceae).
 
Despite its beauty, mountain laurel has a dark side: all parts contain toxins that are poisonous to humans, pets, horses, and cattle.  Ingesting this plant can cause vomiting, diarrhea, impaired vision, convulsion, cardiovascular distress and death.  Honey made by bees from mountain laurel can also cause medical problems to humans.  Benjamin Smith Barton (American botanist in late 1700s) wrote that “in the autumn and winter of the year 1790, many people died in Pennsylvania from the effects of wild honey, collected from Kalmia plants.”