Professor Donald Pfister is among the collaborators on a project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) titled North American Lichens and Bryophytes: Sensitive Indicators of Environmental Quality and Change. The award was made in July 2011, as part of the NSF's Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections program. >>More info.-
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New USPS American Scientist Stamp Features Botanist Asa Gray
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- On June 16, 2011, the U.S. Postal Service issued a first-class stamp honoring botanist Asa Gray. A Harvard natural history professor, Gray also established academic instruction during the summer at Harvard, beginning in 1871, with the Summer School of Botany.
- Part of the USPS American Scientist series, the Asa Gray stamp image collage depicts Gray in a circa-1860 photograph; illustrations of plants studied by Gray (Shortia galacifolia and Aesculus discolor); Gray's signature, from an 1855 letter to naturalist Spencer F. Baird; the words "Shortia galacifolia" in Gray's handwriting; and his printed abbreviation of the title of his work Synoptical Flora of North America.
- The story of Gray's epic quest for Shortia galacifolia was told in a 1946 article from Arnoldia, the quarterly magazine of the Arnold Arboretum. Download that article.
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- >>HarvardScience Botany
- The Harvard University Herbaria, with more than
5 million specimens,
are one of the 10 largest Herbaria in the world in number of specimens, and
along with the library, form the world's largest university owned herbarium.
