Hermsen Lab

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

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 .

A chapter that I co-authored on the open-access Digital Encyclopedia of Ancient Life (DEAL) is now available online. An announcement about the chapter on the DEAL website describes it: "A new chapter on Systematics–the science of biodiversity–is now online! Written by Ohio University assistant professor Elizabeth Hermsen and Paleontological Research Institution Director of Publications Jonathan Hendricks, this chapter focuses on the nuts-and-bolts of taxonomic practice and the methodologies that systematists utilize to construct hypotheses of evolutionary relationships (or, phylogenetic trees) for living and extinct species of plants and animals.  The chapter may be accessed at:  http://www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/systematics/ "

Laguna del Hunco A new paper describing fossil Ceratopetalum (coachwood, New South Wales Christmas bush) fruits has been published in Annals of Botany . The paper documents new winged fruits from the early Eocene (ca. 52 million years old) Laguna del Hunco flora of Chubut Province, Patagonia, Argentina. I co-authored the paper with Dr. María A. Gandolfo of Cornell University. Update (March 2017): A short synopsis of the paper can be found in the Content Snapshots  section of the March 2017 issue of  Annals of Botany. 

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."