From aceska@cue.bc.ca Wed May 19 14:47:57 1993 Date: 7 Apr 93 20:34 -0700 From: Adolf Ceska To: ben@cue.bc.ca Subject: BEN # 53 BBBBB EEEEEE NN N ISSN 1188-603X BB B EE NNN N BBBBB EEEEE NN N N BOTANICAL BB B EE NN NN ELECTRONIC BBBBB EEEEEE NN N NEWS No. 53 April 7, 1993 Address: aceska@cue.bc.ca Victoria, B.C. ---------------------------------------------------- BOTANY B.C. ANNUAL MEETING will be held June 17, 18, and 19 at Fairmont Hot Springs (near Invermere). Topics include: 10 000 years in the Trench Aboriginal use of plants Environmental Ethics Biocontrol Columbia Marsh Tour Registration cost + forms are NOT YET available. For more information, contact Tom Braumandl at (604) 354-6703 or Don Gayton at (604) 354-6244. Watch BEN for further information. AUSTRALIAN HERBARIUM TAPE ON TRIAL IN RBCM [BEN # 27, 29, 38] Herbarium mounting tape recommended by Mike Crisp (BEN 27) was tested in the Royal British Columbia Museum and rejected by the conservationists. Bruce Bennett, who mounted the specimens, found out that 1) the tape had a tendency to pull up unless a long leader was applied; 2) the tape was difficult to work with when mounting dirty specimens: tape would not stick to root balls, etc.; 3) the tape needed in average twice or three times longer to mount a specimen than strapping with glue; 4) the tape was getting loose when specimens were frozen. Mary-Lou Florian (conservationist) claims that the acrylic glue used on the tape needs to be "cured" at high temperatures and thus does not stick properly on the herbarium mounting paper. Furthermore, all similar tapes (mylar base and acrylic glue) have been rejected by the Canada Conservation Institute as not suitable for archival use. She recommended to use archival quality linen tape instead, especially for mounting bulky specimens. Meanwhile we are testing another glue for routine strapping of herbarium specimens. MACOUN'S MEADOWFOAM (LIMNANTHES MACOUNII) - WIN ONE, LOSE ONE From: Adolf & Oluna Ceska c/o Macoun's meadowfoam (Limnanthes macounii) is an enigmatic species, endemic to southern Vancouver Island. It is impossible to explain the origin of this species - so distinct from all the other Limnanthes species - in the area that was glaciated only about 15 thousand years ago. We know the plant from about thirty localities and only eight or nine of them host populations with more than 200 plants. This spring Oluna found a new locality of this plant in Victoria on Saxe Point in Esquimalt. We have looked for meadowfoam there before, but we have overlooked it. This is a large population with about a thousand plants. On the other hand, when we checked a population of Macoun's meadowfoam in the Ruckle Provincial Park on Saltspring Island, we found out that the Provincial Parks have expanded the camp ground and built a road on grassy bluffs. On one spot they had to put in a culvert and they dug up a trench that takes all the water going through the culvert into the seepage with meadowfoam. The water regime of the seepage has changed and the population of meadowfoam has dwindled from the original fifty or so plants to mere six survivors. POLLINATION BIOLOGY DATABASE From: David W. Inouye This is a bibliographic database containing all of the 1,240 references cited in Techniques for Pollination Biologists (Kearns and Inouye, 1993, University Press of Colorado, available in May - see BEN 46), as well as several hundred more entries related to pollination biology. Many of the entries in the database include abstracts of the papers. The database is distributed with a copy of PAPYRUS Retriever, a subset of the PAPYRUS bibliographic database program. With this program you can search the database for keywords associated with each entry in the database, for specific authors, years, journals, or words in the title of an entry (or combinations of these variables). The results of a search can be displayed, stored in a file, or printed as a bibliography in the appropriate format for several relevant journals and most popular word processing programs. The database is available from its author, David W. Inouye, Dept. of Zoology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (301-405-6946), e-mail di5@umail.umd.edu NEW FLORA OF THE BRITISH ISLES "In writing this book I have attempted to produce exactly the kind of Flora that for twenty to thirty years I have wanted for my own use." - Clive Stace Stace, C. 1991. New flora of the British Isles. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1226 p. ISBN 0-521-42793-2 [vinyl cover] Cost: about US$ 75.00 The Flora has been designated throughout to be user-friendly. The plants included cover all natives, all naturalized plants, all crop plants and all recurrent casuals. A feature of the Flora is the provision of 150 pages of illustrations.