HEBERLING LAB

Has your Charlie Brown tree lost its needles yet?
 
Not all needled-leaved trees are evergreen! Yes, there are deciduous species in the Pine family (Pinaceae).  That is, unlike most needle-leaved trees that retain their leaves all year long (evergreen), there are several conifer species that shed their leaves each year for the winter. Perhaps most famous are a group of species called larches.
 
No, this needle-free specimen of twigs and a cone wasn’t collected by Charlie Brown on Christmas Eve. Rather, this humble yet festive specimen of European larch (Larix decidua) was collected by J.F. Lewis on December 24, 1934.  Native to the mountains of central Europe, this species was planted in a cemetery in Northumberland county (central Pennsylvania).  It is highly likely the tree is still there – many decades later – as European larches can live for many hundreds of years (perhaps even a thousand years!). 
 
The herbarium at California University of Pennsylvania is named the person who collected this specimen – John Franklin Lewis.
 
European larch recently made the big time news too, featured in a new study published in the scientific journal Science.  The researchers used leaf out and leaf fall data collected from across Europe since the late 1940s for four tree species (including European larch). Surprisingly they found that trees may drop their leaves much earlier than expected with ongoing climate change.  In other words, as spring temperatures warm, deciduous trees produce leaves earlier in the spring, but this also causes trees to drop their leaves earlier in the fall.  This means that climate change may not result in longer growing seasons, as has been previously predicted.  You can read more about this study here: https://crowtherlab.pageflow.io/phenology-autumn-senescence#276245
 
 
Find this Charlie Brown larch specimen (and more) here: https://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=all&catnum=CM228058&includeothercatnum=1

 Now this is a festive specimen!

This specimen of Polystichum acrostichoides, commonly known as Christmas fern, was collected on December 25, 2008 in the woods in Savage, Maryland by Wayne Longbottom.  I assume the collector was also singing carols while putting this specimen in the plant press.  Christmas fern is a common fern in our woods and fairly easy to recognize. Its name comes from the fact that it is an evergreen perennial, with green fronds even in the winter, including Christmas.  
 
 
Find this specimen and more here:
http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=all&catnum=CM537982&othercatnum=1

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.

​30 years ago today!:
A milestone for Botany at the Carnegie Museum
 
On August 7, 1989, Bonnie Isaac started at the Carnegie Museum. She was initially hired at the museum to work on a project to database the plant collection, making it searchable and therefore more useable to understand the occurrence and distribution of plants across Pennsylvania (and beyond). Since then, a lot has happened. Thirty years later, Bonnie is now Collection Manager in the Section of Botany and Co-chair of Collections.
 
It is no exaggeration to say Bonnie’s influence on the Section of Botany has been monumental.  And continues to be.

As one of the top plant collectors over the Carnegie Museum’s 120+ year history, she has actively contributed to the growth of the herbarium, collecting several tens of thousands of specimens from across Pennsylvania and North America. These specimens now reside in herbaria across the world and have are actively used by research across the world to make exciting discoveries.
 
Bonnie played a pivotal role in the digitization of the Carnegie Museum herbarium, one of the first of its size to have all specimens in the entire collection with label data entered into a database and publicly available online. A huge accomplishment that took over a decade of her career to complete, the collection database has increased the research value and led to an massive increase in specimen use. The digitization of the herbarium continues today through a project facilitated by Bonnie and funded by the National Science Foundation to make high resolution digital images and georeferencing (assign latitude/longitude to plot on a map) to all specimens collected in the region.
 
Although she’s humble about it, Bonnie is an incredible field botanist and leading expert on the plants of Pennsylvania, especially those rare and threatened species of conservation concern. An expert in natural history collections management and methods, Bonnie has a specialized diploma on herbarium techniques from Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, England. She has a master’s degree from Youngstown State University, where she studied the ecology and distribution of a rare species.
 
Bonnie’s science and botanical knowledge impacts conservation decisions. Since 2001, she has served as a member of the Vascular Plant Technical Committee of the Pennsylvania Biological Survey, serving at various times over the past decades as president and recording secretary, which advised the state in determining the status of endangered and threatened plant species. She is currently working on a project funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources through the Wild Resources Conservation Program, revisiting many historic sites of 10 threatened species across the state to assess their current rarity status.
 
Beyond the walls of the museum, Bonnie has a huge impact on botanical research in Pennsylvania and fosters a public appreciation for the role of plants in our lives and ecosystem health.  She is a founding member of the “Pennsylvania Botany Symposium,” a group of committed volunteers who provide education and networking opportunities for professionals, amateurs, and students of botany, including a biennial symposium that gathers Pennsylvania botanists of all levels. Bonnie is also very active in the Botanical Society of Western Pennsylvania, one of the oldest botanical organizations in the country.  She  has served as President of the organization since 2005.
 
And if that is enough – she is friendly, too!
 
Happy work-iversary, Bonnie!

A plant popular during the Revolutionary War
 
Happy Independence Day! What better way to celebrate than with herbarium specimens of New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus), named for the fact that is was used as a substitute for tea by colonists and American soldiers during the American Revolutionary War. There was presumably a shortage of black tea, which were imported. Although the leaves contain no caffeine, it fit the bill. The plant also has a much longer history before European settlement.  Tribes of the Missouri River used the leaves for tea as well, and tribes of the Great Lakes used the plant to treat digestive ailments.  
 
New Jersey tea, also called Indian tea, can be found not only in New Jersey, but across the eastern United States.  It is in the buckthorn family (Rhamnaceae), which is unsurprisingly also family to introduced shrub/tree, common buckthorn  (Rhamnus cathartica).
 
These specimens  below were both collected in Pennsylvania on the 4th of July. 

One in Luzerne county by Alfred Twining 1907, who wrote a flora of Northeastern PA ten years later (https://archive.org/details/floraofnortheast00twin/page/n7).  Many of his specimens are at the Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science, and Art in Scranton, PA (http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/ih/herbarium-details/?irn=165032).

The other Independence Day New Jersey Tea specimen was collected by Robert Leberman in Crawford county in 1986.  Leberman established the bird banding program at the Carnegie Musuem of Natural History’s Powdermill Nature Reserve in 1961.  It continues today as the longest running, year-round banding research operation in the country.  
 

New Jersey Tea is a beautiful shrub, important for many pollinators, and food source for other wildlife. The plant is also sold commercially by many native plant nurseries to plant in your yard or garden.
 
All plants have a cultural history and a scientific one. As you remember the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution, think too about New Jersey Tea’s impact on our country. Did John Hancock drank it before signing? (Totally made that up).  
 
Find high resolution images of these specimens (and 290 more!) online: http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=328&taxa=Ceanothus+americanus&usethes=1&taxontype=2

This four-leaf clover was collected by our very own mollusk curator Tim Pearce on July 5, 2014 in Pittsburgh. Tim must be a lucky person, having found several other four-leaf clover specimens and now in the Carnegie Museum Herbarium. This particular specimen is white clover (Trifolium repens), a species native to Europe but common in lawns worldwide. Many clovers have three leaflets (hence the genus name “tri” – “folium”), but according to folklore, those uncommon plants with four leaves bring luck.
 
This lucky specimen was imaged recently (along with many others in the clover family, Fabaceae) and is publicly available online: http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/individual/index.php?occid=21236224&clid=0
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What’s a shamrock? There is no overwhelming scientific consensus on which species is the well-known Irish national emblem.  There was survey of Irish botanists in the early 1890s asking which species was the “true” shamrock.  A similar survey was repeated in 1988.  The results suggest the shamrock is either Trifolium dubium (aka “lesser trefoil”) or Trifolium repens (aka “white clover”).  The plants commonly sold around St. Patrick’s Day as “shamrocks” or “4-leaf clovers” are in the plant genus Oxalis (“wood sorrel”), which belong to different plant family than true clovers.
 
Top left: Trifolium repens (collected 1974 in Louisiana), aka “white clover”
Top right: Trifolium  dubium (collected 1961 in Pennsylvania), aka “lesser trefoil”
Bottom left: Oxalis tetraphylla (collected 1981 in India), aka “lucky clover,” although not a true clover
Bottom right: Oxalis debilis (collected 1989 in cultivation), aka “pink woodsorrel”
 
These specimens were recently imaged (along with many others in the legume family, Fabaceae) and are publicly available online: http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=328&hasimages=1&includecult=1&taxa=trifolium&usethes=1&taxontype=2
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Do you think Punxsutawney Phil was ever overcome by the beauty of this very violet 71 years ago? 

Or perhaps he nibbled off a leaf or two? 

After all, legend has it that Phil is over 100 years old! This specimen of Labrador violet (Viola labradorica) was collected near Phil’s home in Punxsutawney , Pennsylvania on June 2, 1948 by Carnegie Museum botany curator Leroy Henry.
 
In case you wondered, on Groundhog Day 1948, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter.
 
This specimen was imaged recently (along with many others in the violet family) and is publicly available online: http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/individual/index.php?occid=11964316&clid=0

 
Around 25-30 million cut trees are sold each year in the United States for the holidays. The popularity of certain species for this use has changed through time.  Many different evergreen conifer species are cultivated in the US for decorative use during the holidays.  Needle length, softness, retention, color, and even scent vary by species or variety. Similarly, branching characteristics and branch strength differs by species. Plus, some species grow faster and easier than others, which means some species are cheaper.
 
This specimen of Fraser fir (Abies fraseri) was collected in Philadelphia at the Thomas Meehan & Sons Nursery.  The person who collected this specimen and the date of collection are unknown.  Thomas Meehan immigrated to the United States from England in 1848 and started a landscaping business.  With his three sons, he started the Thomas Meehan & Sons Nursuries in 1896.  The nursery was unique in that it specialized in native trees and shrubs, unlike most nurseries that focused on European and Asian varieties (still very common today).  The nursery closed in 1916.
 
Fraser fir is currently one of the most popular Christmas trees.  It is known for its dark green color, soft needles, stiff branches (great for hanging heavy ornaments), and has good needle retention.  Unfortunately, native to the Southern Appalachians, Fraser fir isn’t the easiest to grow in Pennsylvania.
 
Before farms began cultivating trees for that purpose in the early 20th century, people just went to the woods to cut down their tree for the holidays.   Some of the earliest Christmas tree farms in the US started in Indiana County, PA as early as 1918.  Many farms in the region turned their fields into Christmas tree farms as it became profitable. By 1960, more than 1 million trees were harvested per year in Indiana County alone.  The harvest in Pennsylvania has declined for several reasons, including increased popularity of artificial trees and consumer interest in Frasier fir trees (grows slower in PA than farms in North Carolina).  However, Pennsylvania is still among the top five states in terms of both number of working Christmas tree farms and trees harvested. According to the National Christmas Tree Association, 31,577 acres in Pennsylvania are used as Christmas tree plantations. Many of the Christmas tree lots in southwestern PA get their trees from farms in Indiana county.
 
This specimen image is now online and publicly available here:
http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/individual/index.php?occid=11736894&clid=0
 

This poinsettia specimen was collected on December 20, 1990 by Sue Thompson from a potted plant in Pittsburgh.  Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) are native to Mexico, but now widely cultivated. 
 
Look closely at the colorful “flowers” of poinsettia.  Upon close inspection, you’ll notice that those bright red or white (or otherwise colorful) structures are not flower petals, but specialized leaves called “bracts.”  The actual flowers are yellow and quite tiny.  The brightly colored bracts function to attract pollinators to the flowers.
 
Poinsettias are an excellent example of a “short-day” plant. (Or, more accurately, a “long-night” plant).  That means that as the length of darkness at night increases, a complex process begins that signals flowering and the production of pigments in the bracts. 
 
Poinsettias are woody perennials –  meaning you don’t need to throw them away after the holidays!  However, to flower again for next season, it takes some effort. They must experience days with less than 12 hours of daylight for 8-10 weeks straight.  That means you must provide the plant with 13-16 hours of complete darkness (uninterrupted!) in order for it to flower for December.  This may take some commitment to remember to put it in a dark closet each day, but well worth the effort.  Or just enjoy the green foliage year after as it grows larger.

 
This specimen image is now publicly available online: http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/individual/index.php?occid=12144209&clid=0
 

Are you decking your halls with boughs of holly? Probably not holly from 178 years ago!

​This holly specimen (Ilex aquifolium) was collected in 1840 in England.  I think the label says it was collected by “Prof. Sager,” but it is hard to read!
 
How did it end up at the Carnegie Museum herbarium?  This specimen was part of the private herbarium of Jacob Wolle, who was the grandfather of William J. Holland, one of the first directors of the Carnegie Museum (from 1901-1922). The CM herbarium has 2,514 specimens from Wolle’s collection, dating as far back as 1819! 
 
 
Find this specimen online: http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/individual/index.php?occid=12131603&clid=0
 
 
Also, find nearly 400 other holly specimens collected in Pennsylvania, just digitized and now online! http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=328&hasimages=1&taxa=Ilex&usethes=1&taxontype=2