Who will identify plants?

Today's news included an article sent to TPP about the closing of the University of Missouri herbarium, a collection some 3 to 4 times larger than the collection here.  The specimens will end up at the Missouri Botanical Garden, but another university's students will now have no opportunity to learn about the practical benefits of learning taxonomy and plant identification. A graduate student in ecology met with us this morning to get feed back on her plan of study and research proposal for a master's degree in conservation biology.  Unfortunately she cannot fulfill the taxon requirement with the course work she needs (plant taxonomy and ID) because the faculty member with that expertise has retired. Oh, she will learn a lot via field work, but it just won't be as comprehensive and as useful in the long run. The numbers don't add up for botany; too few students want to study botany, so the powers that be, and colleagues eager to take advantage of the situation to add to their areas in a zero sum game, will all argue that a new botanical hire won't be a smart move. The lack of interest puzzles TPP because plants are endlessly fascinating, but the somewhat mistaken perception that jobs, careers, and money are all in other areas is a driving force for students these days. They want security; TPP pursued what interested him in spite of all the advice to the contrary that it wouldn't work out. But it did! And all those great jobs TPP was offered in industry, all that great pay, most of those jobs and careers did not last even one full career lifetime. Will the biological sciences in the USA wake up and figure out the need for having botany programs? Sigh. In two more weeks the Botany 2015 meetings take place in Canada this year, and this is sure to be a topic of conversation.  

Really, truly, deeply depressing news

TPP finds this really, truly, deeply depressing news.  Fewer students are taking botany classes and herbaria are shuttering their doors. What this means is that fewer and fewer people have the skill and experience to identify plants. This goes far beyond taxonomy. A new graduate student, JP, has asked TPP to serve on her committee, but her background is in microbiology and she only recently "discovered" plants and the great outdoors where biology actually happens. All of TPP's recent students who had gotten their "novice" plant ID badges have gotten jobs in part because of this knowledge. The herbarium TPP curates costs our institution very little (translation: it doesn't have a budget), but it takes up space always at a premium and it needs a somebody. Right now that person is an emeritus faculty member, but one way or another his days are numbered.  Then what? Colleagues already point to low enrollments to argue against hiring another botanist. Such decisions are always a zero-sum game or viewed as such. Part of the trouble is that human biomedicine is the tail that wags the biological dog in this country, so students often get little if any decent botany in biology courses. Their teachers are not well versed in botany and so do a poor job teaching it, and you can see how this leads to a vicious cycle of dwindling botany. They enter university thinking there are only two career paths: medical professional or high school teacher. Our undergrad program produces plenty of both, but many of them needing but one more course take a botany elective out of sheer desperation or curiosity or a course df = 0. And they are surprised, even delighted, how interesting plants are, but then they say, "Gee, discovered botany too late." Well, it isn't too late, but like most undergrads, what do they really know?  JP is working hard at learning plant ID, and like anything you work at, she will develop the necessary skill and knowledge ("square stem, opposite fragrant leaves" = mint family, and so on).  Botany has always been a ill-treated stepchild in the field of biology in the USA, always in the minority, and never having the financial support of bio-medicine. Yet all the medical afflictions together are small potatoes if you find yourself miserable, naked, and hungry, those basics provided by plants.