Hermsen Lab

  I attended the Midcontinent Paleobotanical Colloquium at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia from May 6th to 7th to present the talk "Seeds of Passiflora  subgenus Decaloba  from the early Pliocene Gray Fossil Site of Tennessee." 

  I gave a virtual presentation for the Atlanta Botanical Garden's Science Café on September 16, 2021. The video can be viewed on their website or on YouTube. Thanks to Atlanta Botanical Garden for the invitation and to everyone who attended! YouTube link:  https://youtu.be/z5pARaEXWpM

I have a sole-authored paper out in the July/August issue of  International Journal of Plant Sciences  describing a new species of fossil passionflower ( Passiflora ) from Gray Fossil Site, Tennessee. This paper is part of the special issue "Celebrating Women in Paleobotany: A tribute to Edith L. Taylor." Citation: Hermsen, E.J. 2021. Review of the fossil record of Passiflora , with a description of new seeds from the Pliocene Gray Fossil Site, Tennessee, U.S.A. International Journal of Plant Sciences 182: 611–621. https://doi.org/10.1086/714282

Title for my Botany 2020 presentation I attended the Botany 2020 virtual conference, where I presented a talk on fossil passionflower seeds from Gray Fossil Site. I also coauthored a poster on the phylogeny of fossil and living mosquito ferns. The talks and links to the abstracts are below: Hermsen, E.J.*  2020. Fossil  Passiflora  seeds from Gray Fossil Site (Pliocene, Tennessee, U.S.A.).  Link to abstract Jud, N.*, F. De Benedetti,  E.J. Hermsen , and M. Gandolfo. 2020. Estimating the phylogeny of  Azolla : a comparison between analysis of morphology and molecular data with and without tip-dating. [Poster]  Link to abstract

I was featured on episode 5 of Paleo Talks, speaking on the subject of Gray Fossil Site plants. The full episode is now available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/UyLfhJHSzWQ

Left: Fossil seed of Corylopsis grisea , Gray Fossil Site. Right: Modern Corylopsis  seed. Credit: E.J. Hermsen. East Tennessee State University has released a story about the two new plant species that I recently co-authored from Gray Fossil Site: Corylopsis grisea Quirk & Hermsen and Cavilignum pratchettii Siegert & Hermsen. First authors on the species are Zack Quirk (currently a graduate student at the University of Michigan) and Caroline Siegert (alumna, Ohio University). Read about the new species here: Fossil plants provide clues to changing environments in Tennessee's past .

Gray Fossil Site, Tennessee, USA Caroline Siegert and I have published a new paper on extinct fossil endocarps from Gray Fossil Site, an early Pliocene sinkhole deposit located in eastern Tennessee, USA.  You may download a free PDF copy of the paper at the following link before March 27, 2020:  https://authors.elsevier.com/ a/1aX9K7uTvVL9- The citation is:  Siegert, C., and E.J. Hermsen. 2020.   Cavilignum pratchettii   gen. et sp. nov., a novel fossil endocarp with open locules from the Neogene Gray Fossil Site, Tennessee, U.S.A.   Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 275 (pages not yet assigned).

Santa Cruz Province, Argentina From January 2-19, I traveled to Patagonia, Argentina with members of the Gandolfo Lab (Plant Biology Section, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University) to do fieldwork in Santa Cruz and Chubut Provinces. Other members of the trip were affiliated with the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio (MEF, Trelew, Chubut, Argentina) and the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (Melbourne, Australia). The trip focused on two fossil floras, one from the Miocene of Santa Cruz Province and the other from the Paleocene of Chubut Province. The specimens we collected will fuel future research in the years to come.

Modern Azolla  sporophytes, cultivated The Botany 2018 meeting was held from July 21-25 in Rochester Minnesota. I was involved in two projects presented at the meeting: " Taxonomic composition of the Neogene Gray Fossil Site carpoflora (Tennessee, USA) " was presented and authored by E.J. Hermsen. " An organismal concept for fossil  Azolla  from the early Paleocene (Danian) Salamanca Formation, Patagonia, Argentina " was presented by Nathan A. Jud (Cornell University) and authored by Jud, F. De Benedetti (Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio), E.J. Hermsen, and M.A. Gandolfo (Cornell). It was part of the colloquium  " Fossil plants at the intersection of evo-devo and phylogeny: Celebrating the contributions of Gar W. Rothwell to biodiversity and evolution ."

Cedar Falls, Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio The 35th Midcontinent Paleobotanical Colloquium took place in Athens, Ohio, from June 1-3, 2018. Scientific presentations took place in Porter Hall on the Athens campus on June 2nd. Dr. Kathleen Pigg of Arizona State University opened the scientific session with a keynote presentation on "Forty years of fun with paleobotany." This presentation was followed by 14 contributed talks. The Hermsen lab was represented by three speakers: Zack Quirk, who gave a presentation entitled "Neogene Corylopsis seeds from eastern Tennessee;" Caroline Siegert, who gave a presentation entitled "Structure and affinities of a novel type of endocarp from the Gray Fossil Site, Tennessee;" and Liz Hermsen, who gave a presentation entitled "The Digital Encyclopedia of Ancient Life (DEAL): An open-access, online paleontology textbook."

Alligator brickwork at Gray Fossil Site, Tennessee. Over spring break, I visited the collections of the Gray Fossil Site and Museum with Hermsen lab member Zack Quirk. The Gray Fossil Site represents an ancient lake that filled a sinkhole . Fossils preserved in the sediments of this ancient lake are about 4.5 to 7 million years old, much younger than the surrounding rock. Because of this, Gray Fossil Site offers us a unique opportunity to study a relatively young fossil assemblage in the Appalachian region. Gray Fossil Site is especially well known for its diverse vertebrates, which include animals like alligators, red pandas, mastodons, and tapirs. There are also plant remains at the site, mostly in the form of seeds and fruits. Some plants that have been described from Gray Fossil Site include grape, tupelo, hickory, bladdernut, and Chinese moonseed. More discoveries coming soon!