Hermsen Lab

Eucalyptus,  Natural Bridges State Beach, California The  October 2015 Land for Wildlife South East Queensland newsletter  features a summary of a 2012 paper on Eucalyptus from the early Eocene (ca. 52 million-year-old) Laguna del Hunco flora of Patagonia, Argentina, by Doug Mohr. I co-authored the  original study , which was featured in the August 2012 issue of  American Journal of Botany,  with María A. Gandolfo of Cornell University and María del Carmen Zamaloa of the Universidad de Buenos Aires. 

Marsilea,  Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory Greenhouse, Cornell University My trips to the 33rd Northeast-Midcontinent Paleobotanical Colloquium and  10th Annual Summer Symposium at the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, New York, were covered in Ohio University's College of Arts & Sciences Forum .

Fossil wood from the Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, New York Over the summer, Dr. María A. Gandolfo and myself published a new paper entitled " Fruits of Juglandaceae from the Eocene of South America " in Systematic Botany . The accompanying data files are housed in the Dryad Digital Repository. This is part of a large ongoing research project on the Paleogene fossil floras of Patagonia.  In August, I attended the 10th Annual Summer Symposium at the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, New York. I gave an updated presentation on the fossil record of water clovers, entitled "Fossil water clovers and wannabees."

The famous Gilboa fossils. The 33rd Northeast-Midcontinent Paleobotanical was held at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, from May 14th to 15th, 2016. Talks were presented on the 14th, including " A Tribute to Tom Taylor " given by Gar Rothwell. This was followed by a slate of interesting research presentations . I presented a sole-authored talk, "Water clovers and their pretenders," related to my current research. On May 15th, the meeting continued with a field trip to the Catskill Mountains. Stops were related to Devonian fossil plant sites of New York. We saw some of the famous Gilboa fossils and visited a site where ancient rooting structures were exposed. Thank you to the organizers of the colloquium and the field trip for a fantastic meeting!

Spicebush 2015 was a busy year. Some highlights: Early in the year, the Fossil Calibration Database and Fossil Calibration Series were launched in the online journal Palaeontologia Electronica ; these projects were the outcome of the Fossil Calibrations Working Group. The database was announced in papers published in Palaeontologia Electronica  and Systematic Biology . Over the summer, I visited the University of Alberta Paleobotanical Collections in Edmonton to examine fossils held there. I also attended the Botany 2015 meeting and gave a talk on the Miocene floras of Tierra del Fuego . I co-authored another talk on Cretaceous and Paleogene angiosperms of Patagonia .  In October, I gave a seminar at the University of Michigan Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology titled " Water ferns, ancient wetlands, and a case of mistaken identity ."