Table of Contents

• Fundraising Accelerates
• Director's Message
• The Pacific Rim Medicinal Herb Authentication Centre
• Herbarium People
• Not Just Dead Plants: the UBC Third Age Spring Lectures
• New Books by Curators
• Forthcoming Book by a Curator
• Other Publications by Curators This Past Year

Fundraising Accelerates

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As of June 1999 we had raised $913 in the Herbarium Fund and Parks Canada had paid $5,000 for seaweed specimen data. During this past year fundraising has begun to accelerate, and we have received more than $26,000, including more than $16,000 in donations and $10,000 from Parks Canada for additional seaweed specimen data.

The Herbarium Fund
The most complete list of donors to the Herbarium fund that I have been able to obtain follows: Charles Layton, Robert Brooke, Alana Nordstrand, Milton McClaren, Michaela Waterhouse, Glendon Porter, Duncan Morrison, Alexander Inselberg, Dean Blinn, Robert Heese, Roger Phillips, Lee Donald Cadden, James Markham, Carole Reiner, and an anonymous donor. Donations since June 1999 total an additional $2,416. Faculty of Science Development Officer Hales Jones has assisted in obtaining approximately $7,500 from the estate of Philip James Salisbury, deceased, who was interested in plant and forest pathology. These contributions are most appreciated. The Herbarium Fund now has over $10,000.

The Tropical Rainforest Plant Fund
This fund has been set up specifically to receive donations for research on tropical rainforest plants. It is intended primarily but not exclusively to support research on the Marantaceae by Curator of Vascular Plants Dr. Helen Kennedy. This fund has received two anonymous donations totalling $6,180.

Phycological Herbarium
The phycological herbarium has received $10,000 from Parks Canada for seaweed specimen data from the Gulf Islands, where a marine park is contemplated. Some of the money was spent on new computers for the phycological herbarium database.

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Director's Message

--- from Fred Ganders
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It is gratifying that my efforts to raise awareness of the Herbarium and attract funding are finally starting to pay off. Much more remains to be done. I submitted what I thought was a strong proposal to UBC President Martha Piper for money for metal herbarium cases, which was supported by the Head of Botany and Dean of Science, and by good letters from Dr, Peter Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and President of the XVI International Botanical Congress, and Dr. Nancy Turner, British Columbia's foremost ethnobotanist. Despite President Piper's concern about the fire safety of the Herbarium, she turned down our request, and suggested applying for a Canada Foundation for Innovation Grant. This we are doing through the UBC Centre for Biodiversity Research, although I think chances of success via this route are small. I have more hope for our application for a BC Genome/Genome Canada grant we are applying for with BC Research, Inc., and other partners in the Pacific Rim Medicinal Herb Authentication Centre (see below). And now for something completely different. Although absolutely no one has asked me about it, I'm going to tell you the significance of the Herbarium Paper (UBC)'s name and logo. Well, of course, herbarium paper is what our specimens are mounted on, and (UBC) is the international acronym for our herbarium, and how our herbarium is cited in taxonomic publications. As for the logo, the provincial flower, the Pacific Dogwood, came to mind, but it is often associated with the Provincial Government and Vancouver Island, so I thought I'd leave it to the Royal BC Museum or University of Victoria. Western Redcedar is even more fitting, perhaps, because it is the provincial tree, and it is has more documented uses by aboriginal peoples than any other single North American plant species, and the drawing was made by the late Dr. Gerald B. Straley, my predecessor as Director of the UBC Herbarium. The drawing, used with permission, is from An Illustrated Flora of the University Endowment Lands, by Gerald B. Straley and R. Patrick Harrison, 1987.

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The Pacific Rim Medicinal Herb Authentication Centre

--- from Fred Ganders
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In last year's Herbarium Paper I mentioned our goal to establish a medicinal herb collection, with an emphasis on Chinese medicinal herbs. After the Federal Government announced a new Office of Natural Health Products, I began contacting government officials to see if funding for our type of project was going to be available. Dr. Ann Eastman, Director, Natural Health Products, BC Research Inc., was independently trying to get funding for projects at BC Research. BC Research is an integrated science, technology and innovation company providing laboratory analysis and testing, field work, pilot plants, consulting services, and applied research and development. One day she called me asking if the Herbarium was interested in cooperating with her ambitious plans. Sure, I said. We are now proposing to develop a Canadian authenticated medicinal plant center on the west coast of Canada in an alliance between industry and academia. It would provide information and tools to government regulatory agencies, and other stakeholders such as Canadian manufacturers and researchers, as well as to our international counterparts such as the American Herbal Pharmacopeia and the Royal Botanic Garden in Kew, England. We envision the Pacific Rim Medicinal Herb Authentication Centre (PRIMHAC) as a major west coast node in a national network of organizations involved in research on medicinal natural products. The long-term goals for the proposed centre include:

1. Establishment of a Medicinal Herb Collection in the UBC Herbarium, and an expanded medicinal herb garden at the UBC Botanical Garden. These collections would be used for morphological and anatomical identifications, and as a source of dried or fresh material for DNA extraction, research and testing.
2. Production of authenticated medicinal plant reference material - specifically fresh plants, processed plant tissues and extracts - for use by regulatory agencies, researchers, and manufacturers,
3. Development of a database of DNA markers for use in medicinal plant authentication and for endangered plant species monitoring.

BC Research Inc. sponsored a conference on "Issues in Natural Health Product Analysis" on June 17, 2000 chaired by Dr. Ann Eastman. At her insistence I presented a talk on Herbaria and Medicinal Herbs, to publicize our agenda. We were pleased to hear that most of the speakers thought that one of the most crucial problems in the medicinal herb industry was the correct botanical identification of the herbs. Ann is preparing a proposal to ask for money through the BC Genome Project, for a Genetic Pharmacopoeia.

The Herbarium's goal in all this is a Medicinal Herb Collection which can be used to authenticate medicinal herbs. We want to acquire herbarium specimens of all medicinal herbs, admixture plants, fakes, and adulterants that we can. We will especially need to acquire specimens of Chinese medicinal plants. Chinese herbs make up most of the species used in herbal medicine. More than 500 species that are used in traditional Chinese herbal medicine are available on the market. Many traditional Chinese medicines are mixtures of several herbs, and may include other plants as well. In addition, many other species of plants are used as substitutes, adulterants, and fakes. In addition to herbarium specimens of medicinal plants, the Medicinal Herb Collection will need to acquire crude drug samples (processed medicinal plants), and a library of literature on medicinal plants.

We are also seeking funds to hire a curator as a research associate in the herbarium to assemble the Medicinal Herb Collection. The curator would acquire, identify, and accessioning material, and organize exchanges, trades, and purchases of specimens. In addition it is expected that the curator would participate in plant collecting expeditions, especially to China. The curator's research would develop methods of identification of herbal specimens including fragmentary material using morphology and microscopic anatomy, and might include taxonomic studies of medicinal herbs.

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Herbarium People

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Dr. Mary Berbee

Curator of Fungi, will be promoted to Associate Professor and receive tenure in July.

Stephanie Chan,

one of our volunteers who mounts herbarium specimens, spent several weeks in hospital where it was eventually discovered she had a tear in her aorta. She is home now and we wish her a fast and complete recovery.

Olivia Lee,

our herbarium technician who actually runs the place, was inducted into the UBC Staff 25 Year Club for her quarter century of service in the UBC Herbarium.

Dr. Jack Maze,

emeritus professor of Botany and Curator of Vascular Plants in the Herbarium many years ago, writes that he is using Pacific Northwest species of Achnatherum (needle grasses) in a study seeking the common causes of irreversible change in biology, i. e., ontogeny and phylogeny, using the concept of emergence. An ancillary result of this project was the description of a new species, Achnatherum wallowensis, of central and northeastern Oregon [Maze, Jack, and Kathleen A. Robson. 1996. A new species of Achnatherum (Oryzopsis) from Oregon. Madrono 43: 393-403.].

Carla Rydholm

is helping curator of Lichens Trevor Goward this summer. This fall she will start graduate studies in lichenology at Duke University.

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