Herbarium Happenings

• APSU Herbarium acquired a Herbarium Specimen Imaging Station and starting in January will begin imaging all 50,000 specimens in the collection. These images along with the databased label information (approximately 7,000 specimens have been databased to date) will be made available on the new Tennessee Plant Atlas (coming soon). The imaging process should be complete by mid-May.

• Harvard University Herbarium set to donate 84 cabinets (valued at over $100,000) to Austin Peay State University. This donation will double our current storage capacity of 45,000-50,000 specimens and will allow us to grow well into the future. The cabinets will be received in early-mid January (http://www.huh.harvard.edu/) 

•  APSU art student, Stephanie Parkans, works with Dr. Estes to combine art with botany to produce botanical illustrations of several new plant species from the Southeast.

• Clea Klagstad (Class of 2012) offered a job as lead botanist for the University of Montana's Montana Natural Heritage Program. She will be moving to Helena in June. She will be responsible for studying high-elevation wetland and riparian communities in the Bitterroot and Bear Tooth Mountains.

• Courtney Gorman (Class of 2012) accepted into University of Tennessee Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology’s Genes to Ecosystems Lab and set to begin fieldwork in Hawaii in June 2012. She's sporting a good case of poison sumac below!

• Former APSU Grad Student Kim Norton employed with the Botanical Research Institute of Texas in Fort Worth. Kim is a 2010 graduate of APSU where she conducted her thesis research on globally imperiled wetlands associated with limestone cedar glades. Kim just submitted her thesis research for publication to the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas in February.
• Drs. Dwayne Estes (APSU) and James Beck (Duke University, now at Wichita State) described a new plant species in Systematic Botany, one of the top 100 journals in science. John Beck’s Leafcup (Polymnia johnbeckii) is known only from two sites in Tennessee and nowhere else in the world (see Tennessee Conservationist Article).

• Dr. Estes describes the Smoky Mountain Sedge (Carex fumosimontana) in Brittonia, the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden. This new species is completely restricted to the highest peaks within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and is one of the most common species atop the state’s highest peak, Clingman’s Dome. This species is the first plant to be described from the Park since the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) project began.

• Dr. Estes, Chris Fleming (BDY Environmental, Inc.), and APSU biology students Angel Fowler and Nathan Parker work to document a major infestation of the exotic plant Hydrilla verticillata in the Obed Wild and Scenic River, Cumberland and Morgan counties, Tennessee.

• Dr. Estes and APSU graduate students collaborate with Dr. Joey Shaw and graduate students from UT Chattanooga to document the flora and vegetation of Ocoee River Gorge, Polk County, Tennessee. This botanical team is working with URS Corporation, the Tennessee Dept. of Transportation (TDOT), and the U.S. Forest Service’s Cherokee National Forest.

• Dr. Estes and APSU Students establish the APSU Native Plant Research and Teaching Garden.