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Bryology at the New York Botanical Garden
In 2000, the NYBG bryophyte herbarium was named the William C. Steere Bryophyte
Herbarium, in honor of one of the 20th century’s most influential
bryologists. William C. Steere
served as President of The New York Botanical Garden from 1958-1972.
Bryophytes (mosses, hepatics and hornworts) are small, terrestrial,
photosynthetic, spore-bearing plants in which the gametophyte (haploid)
generation is dominant. Bryophytes are important pioneers on rock or
disturbed sites and they help create soil conditions amenable to the
establishment of larger plants. They also provide habitats in
their colonies for smaller organisms such as algae, cyanobacteria and
small animals. Bryophytes are most profuse in tropical rainforests and
boreal forests, where they may form a significant proportion of the
biomass. The moisture that is held in the large, often festooning
mats of bryophytes contributes significantly to the ambient humidity in
such habitats.
Size and Geographical Emphasis of the W. C. Steere Bryophyte Herbarium
The Steere Bryophyte
Herbarium holds perhaps the most important collection of bryophytes in
the world in terms of the number of specimens, and the geographical and
taxonomic depth and breadth. The herbarium contains approximately
640,000 specimens (520,000 mosses and 120,000 hepatics and hornworts).
Of this total, approximately 24,500 (4%) are type specimens. This
is the largest bryophyte herbarium in the Western Hemisphere and is
among the five largest worldwide. The collection continues to grow
actively today through staff collections and exchange. The emphasis is
on collections from the Western Hemisphere, but virtually all areas of
the world are represented.
The Contents of the William C. Steere Bryophyte Herbarium
The nucleus is the
Columbia University herbarium, which already contained two important
bryophyte components when it came to NYBG in 1895. One was the
herbarium of August Jaeger (1842-1877), which contained about 12,500
specimens of mosses, the basis for a series of articles by Jaeger (and
later F. W. Sauerbeck) that reviewed all known moss species. The
Jaeger Herbarium contains duplicates of type specimens described by a
range of other 19th century bryologists; its holdings of specimens
described by Carl Müller and Ernst Hampe are especially important,
since the primary herbarium of deposit of types of species described by
Müller, the Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum
Berlin-Dahlem Berlin (B), was destroyed during World War II. The
second of the herbaria incorporated at the founding of the institution
was the moss herbarium of Coe F. Austin (1831-1880), one of North
America’s first bryologists, who made extensive collections in New
Jersey and southern New York State.
The Garden’s single largest bryological acquisition was the purchase in
1906 of the herbarium of William
Mitten (1819-1906), which consisted of approximately 50,000
specimens of mosses and hepatics from all continents of the
world. Mitten served unofficially as bryologist for the Royal
Botanic Gardens at Kew and had free access to the bryophyte collections
from the many botanical expeditions sponsored by the British Government
in the 19th century. Mitten’s 72 publications described over one
thousand new species based on the collections made on some of the most
famous 19th century scientific expeditions: J.D. Hooker’s collections made
in southern South America, Australia, New Zealand and other south
temperate areas on the Antarctic voyage of H.M. discovery ships Erebus
and Terror (1839-1843) and his exploration of the Himalayan
region with Thomas Thompson from 1847-1851; Richard Spruce’s
collections from his 15 years of botanical collecting in South America
(1849-1864); collections by I. B.
Balfour, Mungo
Park and Gustav Mann from Africa; and collections
by Allan
Cunningham and Ferdinand
von Mueller from Australia and New Zealand, and David
Douglas and Charles Lyall from North America. A
relatively small number of collections by Charles Darwin on the voyage
of the Beagle are also included.
In 1945 the Garden acquired the herbarium of Princeton University.
Bryologically this was important because of the collections of Per Karl
Hjalmar Dusén (1855-1926) from southern Argentina and Chile and
the collections of J. B. Hatcher, identified by Dusén, from the
Princeton University Expeditions to Patagonia in 1896-1899. In 1968 the
Arctic bryophytes of Stanford University (4580 specimens) were
transferred to NY when Steere, previously Dean of the Graduate School
at Stanford, moved to NY to take over the directorship. Additional
bryophyte herbaria acquired include University of Kansas
(1969), Florida State University (1973) DePauw University (1986) and
Wellesley College (1988). A more comprehensive list of the major
collectors represented in the herbarium is also available.
Bryological Research at The Garden
Because of the firm
foundation Britton laid to the bryophyte herbarium, bryology has had a
traditionally prominent position in the research program at The New
York Botanical Garden since its inception. Elizabeth G. Britton was the
wife of the founder and first Director of the New York Botanical
Garden, Nathaniel L. Britton.
Elizabeth Britton was a respected bryologist and very influential in
the American bryological community. She collected
extensively in the West Indies and North America, and published many
articles on bryophytes. Britton had a wide correspondence and active
exchange program and, thus, obtained much type and authentic material
from colleagues around the country and from Europe. Other
staff members active in bryology in the early years of the institution
were Lucien Underwood,
whose personal herbarium included, in addition to his own types, a very
nearly complete set of Richard Spruce’s
species described in his Hepaticae Amazonicae et Andinae, Marshall A. Howe, who was the
first professionally trained bryologist to collect in California and
whose research findings were recorded in his hepatic flora of
California, and R S. Williams,
who collected extensively in Peru, and became the Garden’s first expert
in non-North American bryophytes.
The tradition of bryological research at NYBG continues to the
present. William
R. Buck has published extensively on the systematics of
pleurocarpous mosses and the moss floras of the Greater Antilles and
central French Guiana. In addition to studies of the hepatic
family Lejeuneaceae, Barbara Thiers
has headed up projects to index type specimens of Mitten and
Spruce and to database the bryophyte herbarium, resulting in the American
Bryophyte Catalog.
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