Finallyyyy watching "Rocky" tonight.

I came into work today to get a few things done (aka have computer time - facebook, last.fm, my blog, etc.) and thought I'd post my abstract for the research I'm doing here in Philly. It's due at the end of the summer along with a scary presentation... eek! Anyway, here it is. Grab some popcorn and enjoy.

The herbarium at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (PH) is an extensive collection of approximately 1.5 million specimens acquired all over the world, the most valuable of which are included in the Academy’s type collection of thousands of specimens. Each taxon is represented widespread in many cases by dozens of species, notable specimens including those being hundreds of years old, many authored by Carol Linnaeus himself, or collected by other distinguished botanists from the 18^th –19^th centuries… Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to name a few. Also worthy of study are the extensive type specimens of the Polygalaceae (Milkwort) family, especially those from its largest genus, Polygala (500+ spp.) from which the family derives its namesake. The goal of our project for the 2008 summer was essentially to verify the type statuses of 50 of these Polygala specimens (out of approximately 150 in the collection) based on information about each author, species, collector, etc. The steps of our project were as follows: 1) compile a list of the names, authors, and publications of the Polygala specimens chosen to consider, 2) conduct research in the Academy’s library to find and obtain copies of the original publications, some of which are obscure, difficult to locate and are in Latin or other languages, 3) obtain a plethora of information on the species from online databases and various herbaria websites, 4) verify the type statuses of our chosen specimens based on all this information and 5) database and image the verified types. The ultimate results of our research were the proper designation of types or non-types, with the possibility of publishing upon finding new types and by process of typification.

The following are our diagnoses of each Polygala species and their respective specimens uncovered in the Academy’s type collection. Labels were made for each according to our findings and applied to the specimens, respectively.

P. acanthoclada A. Gray, Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 11:73. 1876.

Paratypes (2). Lectotype previously chosen by Wheelock in Mém. Torr. Bot. Club 2: 144, 1891. This specimen was deposited in the Gray Herbarium at Harvard University. In Wheelock’s publication of P. acanthoclada, he describes the type as “Colorado or Utah. – San Juan River, 1875, T.S. Brandegee, (type).” This differs from our two specimens of P. acanthoclada which both have No. 1172 written on their labels, with the description, “On the San Juan, near the Utah line,” written by Asa Gray himself. In further support, the original description of A. Gray lacks mention of the distinguishing No. 1172. Both specimens in the type collection were collected in August 1875 on Hayden’s U.S. Geological Survey, by T.S. Brandegee. One of the specimens’ labels was written by A. Gray, confirmed by comparing the label to handwriting samples of his. The other label, however, was left undetermined – it differs greatly from the handwriting of A. Gray, as well as from the handwriting of Brandegee. It was assumed that the handwriting belongs to J.K. Redfield, whose herbarium donated the specimen.

That's just the beginning, we have a bit more specimens to look through and an article to write and get publish for the lectotypes we diagnosed but I wanted to show the bulk of what I'm doing this summer. The research can be boring sometimes, till God reminds me of the awesome opportunity this is, then I get my act together and start appreciating it more. Most of all, I'm liking biology again, which is completely God answering long prayers for the past six months. All I can say is God is gracious and I don't deserve this summer!

Tonight a few of us are going the Art Museum - aka the Rocky steps - and watching the movie! I guess they do this often and it's totally a tourist thing to do, but hey, we're tourists. And I've never seen Rocky! Basically I expect to be blown away, the way Philly is obsessed over this movie.

I miss my friends, mucho, and wish they were all here, it's hard being in a place I've never been before and with people I didn't know a month ago - but the transition is smooth. My roommate Susan and I have a cute, new basil plant for our window sill, but I haven't had a chance to use it yet. I cook a TON up here. Mostly I just like buying a lot of fresh produce and throwing it in a pot/pan, but I really don't know what I'm doing. Lately my favorite is scrambled tofu, rice, a pepper medley, chopped garlic (I put it in everything) and Masala sauce. It's easy to make and covers a few food groups. I have yet to try out any recipes from my favorite (and only) vegetarian cookbook but there's six weeks left so I haven't lost hope!

Right now I'm thinking about just heading out because I'm not really motivated to work on my abstract anymore, plus I've eaten all my Swedish Fish. Insert sad-face here.

- Alicia