The world's oldest herbarium specimen collection, Dalea candida Willd NCSC00010804

BLOG - Two dried plant fragments about 40 cm long provide insight into the importance of documentation systems for science. The specimens taken from a rocky cliff in the Americas were unidentified for more than 300 years.

There is no information about who first, in 1501, took the specimen with ID: 376f695f-67b0-414e-82e7-8934027c80b3 from nature and there was no official taxonomic description of the plant until the 1800s, Carl Ludwig Willdenow, wrote to Species Plantarum ed. 4. 3: 1337 (1802) with the name Dalea candida.

Willdenow who got the standard abbreviation Willd was born in Germany on August 22, 1765, and began his career as a pharmacist, but was fond of collecting herbariums in his teens. He is considered one of the earliest figures in phytogeography who investigated the geographical distribution of plants.

Willd became a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1794 and was director of the Botanical Garden in Berlin from 1801 until his death in 1812. He studied many South American plants brought by Alexander von Humboldt (1767-1835), related their adaptation to climate and showed that similar climates had species with similar characteristics.

Humboldt (Humb) was also one of the earliest and most famous phytogeographers who influenced Charles Darwin and Ernst Haeckel. He eventually continued and helped expand the garden after Willd's death. The herbarium contains over 20,000 species.

Over time the taxon has been synonymized with several species including Petalostemon candidus Willd. (Michx. in Fl. Bor.-Amer. 2: 49, 1803), Psoralea candida Willd. (Poir. in J.B.A.M.de Lamarck, Encycl. 5: 694, 1804) and Kuhnistera candida Willd. (Kuntze in Revis. Gen. Pl. 1: 192, 1891).

Somehow the specimens passed to Delzie Demaree (1889-1987), an American botanist and plant collector. Demaree collected more than 50,000 specimens and are stored at Southern Methodist University, University of Arkansas, University of North Carolina, National Herbarium of Victoria Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, National Herbarium of New South Wales, and Australian National Herbarium.

The specimens are stored at North Carolina State University Vascular Plant Herbarium with catalog ID: NCSC00010804 until now. D. candida is a flowering plant in the Fabaceae, has two varieties, namely Dalea candida var. candida and Dalea candida var. oligophylla (Torr.) Shinners.

Read more:

Species Plantarum. Editio Quarta. Berolini [Berlin], International Plant Names Index (IPNI) https://www.ipni.org/p/1302-2

Dalea candida Willd. Kew Plants of the World Online https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:30189316-2

North Carolina State University Vascular Plant Herbarium (NCSC:NCSC) https://sernecportal.org/portal/collections/individual/index.php?occid=8721780

By Aryo Bandoro
Founder of Dlium.com. You can follow him on X: @Abandoro.

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) manufacture bubble-nets as tools to increase prey intake

NEWS - Humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) create bubble net tools while foraging, consisting of internal tangential rings, and actively control the number of rings, their size, depth and horizontal spacing between the surrounding bubbles. These structural elements of the net increase prey intake sevenfold. Researchers have known that humpback whales create “bubble nets” for hunting, but the new report shows that the animals also manipulate them in a variety of ways to maximize catches. The behavior places humpbacks among the rare animals that make and use their own tools. “Many animals use tools to help them find food, but very few actually make or modify these tools themselves,” said Lars Bejder, director of the Marine Mammal Research Program (MMRP), University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Humpback whales in southeast Alaska create elaborate bubble nets to catch krill. They skillfully blow bubbles in patterns that form a web with internal rings. They actively control details such ...

Javanese grasshopper (Valanga nigricornis)

Wooden grasshopper or Javanese grasshopper ( Valanga nigricornis ) is an animal species of Acrididae, grasshoppers that have at least 18 subspecies, insects with very wide diversity in color and size, sexual dimorphism in which females are larger in size and paler in color. V. nigricornis in males has a length of 45-55 millimeters and females 15-75 mm. The head is square and green or yellow or brown or black in color. A pair of antennas has a black color. The eyes are large and gray or white or brownish. The hind legs are very large and have a green or yellow or brown or black color, plain or brindle. The limbs have two rows of large and long spines with black tips facing backward. The wings have a length exceeding the belly, a rough surface and are brown or green or yellow or black in color with pulse lines forming spaces filled with black color. The hind wings are rose red which will be visible when flying. Nymphs are pale green or yellow or brown or blackish in color. Javanese gr...

Purwaceng (Pimpinella pruatjan)

Purwaceng or purwoceng or antanan gunung or Viagra of Java ( Pimpinella pruatjan or Pimpinella priatjan ) are small termas growing horizontally in Apiaceae, growing in villages on Dieng Plateau, Central Java Province, Indonesia, at 1,500 to 2,000 meters above sea level, the roots have medicinal properties for aphrodisiacs and are usually processed in powder form for a mixture of coffee or milk. P. pruatjan grows flat on the ground but does not propagate, small leaves are reddish green for 1-3 cm in diameter. This plant is only found in Java and grows in high mountain areas. A low population where industrial demand is very high results in increasingly scarce. Another place that is likely to become a purwaceng habitat is the Iyang Mountains and the Tengger Mountains in East Java Province. Efforts to multiply and cultivate have a big problem where these plants have difficulty producing seeds. In vitro propagation research through tissue cultivation has been carried out to overcome ...

Dlium