{"id":298,"date":"2013-11-20T16:30:36","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T21:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nybg.org\/science-talk\/?p=298"},"modified":"2013-11-20T16:31:30","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T21:31:30","slug":"legume-legacy-bringing-a-world-renowned-scientists-work-to-a-new-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2013\/11\/legume-legacy-bringing-a-world-renowned-scientists-work-to-a-new-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"Legume Legacy: Bringing a World-Renowned Scientist’s Work to a New Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacquelyn Kallunki, Ph.D.<\/a>, is Associate Director and Curator of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium. She and Garden colleagues Benjamin Torke, Ph.D., and Melissa Tulig were the principal researchers involved in creating the Barneby Legume Catalogue.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Dr.<\/a>
Dr. Rupert C. Barneby<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A recently completed online catalogue of plant specimens in\u00a0the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium<\/a> highlights the scientific work of a world-renowned expert on the bean and pea family\u00a0whose long and colorful career was spent largely at The New York Botanical Garden<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A self-taught botanist, Dr. Rupert C. Barneby (1911-2000) spent 57 years at the Botanical Garden, publishing almost 8,000 pages of scientific papers and describing 1,250 plants\u00a0new to science. Based on\u00a0his observations and measurements of\u00a0specimens in the\u00a0Steere Herbarium, he differentiated species and annotated the specimens with accurate names.<\/p>\n

English by birth,\u00a0Dr. Barneby made regular field trips to the American West and other destinations to collect plants,\u00a0accompanied by his partner, Dwight Ripley, an American whom he met while attending Harrow, the prestigious English\u00a0school. In the 1940s and 1950s, he and Ripley\u00a0were friends and early patrons of Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionist painters, as well as\u00a0such literary lights as W. H. Auden and Aldous Huxley.
\n<\/p>\n

\"Astragalus<\/a>
Astragalus mollissimus<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Among the plants in the\u00a0legume family\u00a0that fascinated\u00a0Dr. Barneby\u00a0were the \u201clocoweeds,\u201d species of the \u201cmilkvetch\u201d genus Astragalus<\/em> that are toxic to cattle and other grazing animals. They are widespread in the Western United States and cause significant economic losses to ranchers. Depending on the species, these plants can poison in three ways;\u00a0those causing the disease \u201clocoism\u201d do so by action of the alkaloid Swainsonine, which causes abnormal neurologic behavior and heart failure.<\/p>\n

Many species in the plant groups that he\u00a0studied are rare and often threatened. In\u00a0Astragalus<\/em> alone, 20 species are on the federal endangered\u00a0species list. Dr. Barneby\u00a0corresponded with dozens of staff members of national and state parks in the West who were charged with developing conservation plans for rare species in those parks.\u00a0He\u00a0not only identified plant specimens and photographs that were sent to him, but also provided ecological observations and suggestions for other places to search for the plants.<\/p>\n

\"Astragalus<\/a>
Astragalus allochrous<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Taken as a whole, Dr. Barneby’s work\u00a0in descriptive plant systematics was unsurpassed in the 20th century.\u00a0That work is now\u00a0readily available online through the new Barneby Legume Catalogue<\/a>, which includes the 81,000 specimens in the Steere Herbarium on which his research was based.<\/p>\n

The information in\u00a0the specimen labels, specimen images,\u00a0identification keys, and illustrations from Dr. Barneby\u2019s published work will be useful to a new generation of range managers seeking to identify poisonous species of “locoweeds”\u00a0and to conservationists trying to save rare species from extinction.<\/p>\n

To learn more about Dr. Barneby’s life and work, you can find an online biography here<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jacquelyn Kallunki, Ph.D., is Associate Director and Curator of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium. She and Garden colleagues Benjamin Torke, Ph.D., and Melissa Tulig were the principal researchers involved in creating the Barneby Legume Catalogue. A recently completed online catalogue of plant specimens in\u00a0the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium highlights the scientific work of… <\/p>\n

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