Welcome, new Herbarium students!

Five undergraduate students — some new, some returning — will be working in the Herbarium during the 2021-2022 academic year.  In addition, throughout the year we will welcome undergraduate classes (Local Flora, Physician’s Garden, Plant Biology, and Writing in the Natural Sciences) to the Herbarium.

Maya Stroud is a sophomore majoring in chemistry and minoring in health and society. Maya will be involved in all aspects of the Herbarium including making digital images of specimens for our online catalog and preparing specimens for loans to other herbaria. During her first week, Maya mounted specimens collected in calcareous pine savannas of eastern North Carolina by graduate student Eric Ungberg. Maya is originally from New Haven, Connecticut but moved to North Carolina at age eleven. “In the future, I want to get my doctorate from a four-year pharmacy program and become an oncology pharmacist,” says Maya. “This year, I am a member of Carolina Covid Student Services Corps (Carolina CSSC). In my free time, I like to read, exercise and enjoy nature.”

 

 

 

Nate Ross is a member of Carolina Class of 2023, majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry. In addition to making digital images of specimens for our online catalog, he will be learning to file newly accessioned specimens in our collection. During his first week in the Herbarium, Nate set out from Coker Hall with a hand truck and scoured campus for past issues of the Daily Tar Heel (DTH). Newspaper is an essential item for plant collectors, as each specimen is placed in a fold of newspaper in the plant press. Fortuitously, the DTH is the exact size of a plant press! Nate is from Roxboro, North Carolina, and in his free time enjoys “skating, staring at clouds, and soccer.  Fun fact about me:  I visited the Humble Administrator’s Garden ( 拙政园 ) in Suzhou, China. That Garden dates from 1513.”2

 

 

 

 

 Madison “Madi” Radford is a native of High Point, Guilford County, North Carolina. She is a member of Carolina Class of 2022 majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry. Madi was an enthusiastic student in Local Flora (Bio 272) in the autumn of 2020 and joined the Herbarium as a Mohr Intern during the summer of 2021. She worked with Dr. Alan Weakley on transcribing the copious and detailed notes of Dr. Max Medley on the flora of Georgia. In addition, Madi assisted Herbarium Curator Carol Ann McCormick to mount newly acquired specimens collected in Cherokee County, North Carolina by botanist Charles McCartney, Jr. (1947-2020).  The focus of her intern project during the fall of 2021 is yet to be determined. “I plan to pursue a career in conservation biology after graduating from Carolina,” she says. “When I’m not looking at plants, I like to cook, and I like to make my own pesto.”

 

 

 

 

Ashley Moore, Carolina Class of 2024, is double majoring in biology and environmental studies, and minoring in geological sciences.  During the summer of 2021 she worked as a volunteer in the paleobotanical lab of Dr. Patricia Gensel. Based on her outstanding work, we are happy to have her joining the Herbarium as a Mohr Intern during the fall semester. Ashley will continue to assist Herbarium staff member Shanna Oberreiter to create database records, labels, and digital images of Dr. Gensel’s plant fossil collection.  Ashley plans to continue doing botanical research and attend graduate school after graduating from Carolina. She is a native of the town of Mansfield, Richland County, Ohio.

 

 

 

 

 

 John Kees, Carolina Class of 2024, is double majoring in biology and music, and minoring in mathematics. He has been a Felton Intern in the Herbarium for several semesters, and will continue to work on documenting the flora of his home state, Mississippi, this coming academic year. John took advantage of Carolina classes going virtual during the academic year 2020-21 by returning to Mississippi and making hundreds of plant collections. He will spend the first part of his internship this fall making labels, mounting, and accessioning those collections so they can be deposited in the Herbarium.  John began submitting specimens to the Herbarium when he was in high school. Kees collection #1 is Log fern, Dryopteris celsa, from Lincoln County, Mississippi — a state record — which he collected in May, 2018.

 

In addition to nearly one million specimens — algae, mosses, lichens, fungi, vascular plants, and plant fossils — the Herbarium also curates academic regalia. Several Carolina alumni have donated their Carolina blue graduation robes to the Herbarium; any student who has toiled in the Herbarium can borrow a robe for Commencement. The Herbarium also curates the doctoral robe and mortarboard of Dr. Henry Roland Totten (1892-1974). Faculty members are welcome to borrow this for University Day, Commencement, or other festivities where academic regalia is on display. Dr. Totten’s doctoral hood made of silk and velvet is in very bad condition — unwearable, in fact — so anyone willing to donate their biology doctoral hood  (or to sew one from scratch!) should contact the Herbarium.

 

 

  1. For more information about Carolina CSSC, see:  https://ipep.unc.edu/students/carolina-covid-19-student-services-corps-carolina-cssc/
  2. “In 1513, Wang Xiancheng, an Imperial Envoy and poet of the Ming Dynasty, created a garden on the site of the dilapidated Dahong Temple which had been burnt during the Ming conquest. In 1510, he retired to his native home of Suzhou on the occasion of his father’s death. He had experienced a tumultuous official life punctuated by various demotions and promotions, and gave up his last official post as magistrate of Yongjia county in Zhejiang province, and began to work on the garden… The garden was named…after a verse by the famous scholar official of the Jin Dynasty, Pan Yue, in his prose, An Idle Life, “I enjoy a carefree life by planting trees and building my own house…I irrigate my garden and grow vegetables for me to eat…such a life suits a retired official like me well.” This verse symbolized Wang’s desire to retire from politics and adopt a hermit’s life in the manner of Tao Yuanming.”  Wikipedia contributors. (2021, January 29). Humble Administrator’s Garden. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:49, August 25, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Humble_Administrator%27s_Garden&oldid=1003632108