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

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 .

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."

The Public Market, Seattle, Washington The Geological Society of America annual meeting for 2017 was held in Seattle, Washington. I presented a paper on mosquito ferns coauthored with scientists from Cornell University, Nathan Jud and María A. Gandolfo. You can read the abstract here .

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. 

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!