Hermsen Lab

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 and fossil fruits of golden raintree ( Koelreuteria ). Credits: Modern fruits (E.J. Hermsen); fossil fruit (National Park Service) I have posted a new page on Digital Encyclopedia of Ancient Life (DEAL): Fruit & seed dispersal. You can find it here:  https://www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/embryophytes/angiosperms/dispersal/

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.

Opening paragraph of the post on virtual collections. I have co-authored a new blog post on virtual collections for the iDigBio Research Spotlight series. You can read it here:  https://www.idigbio.org/content/research-spotlight-november-2019

Florissantia calyx & Langeria leaf, Eocene, U.S.A. (Photos by Kevmin, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA; images modified.) I have posted a new angiosperm page on Digital Encyclopedia of Ancient Life: Overview of Angiosperm Phylogeny. Learn about the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification system (APG IV), the eight major groups of angiosperms, and the differences between monocots and eudicots. The page includes many figures, including fossils from the major angiosperm groups! https://www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/embryophytes/angiosperms/angiosperm-phylogeny/

The Parthenon (Credit: Tim Bekaert, via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain. Imaged cropped.) A new page on Greek & Latin in botanical terminology has been added to the Digital Encyclopedia of Ancient Life. The page has two sections. The first describes how to make plurals of scientific terms that have Greek and Latin endings. The second deals with botanical terminology. Specifically, it describes how learning some prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms commonly used in botanical terms can be helpful in remembering and figuring out the terms and their definitions. Many of these combining forms originate from Greek, less frequently from Latin. This page is based on handouts that I originally created when teaching undergraduate structural botany in order to help students master the extensive vocabulary. Read the page here:  https://www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/embryophytes/botanical-terminology/