Plant Identification II

S K Ganesan Jan 2012

Lecture 1 Title: Introduction & Tools in Plant Identification

The learning outcomes of this module are as follows; To introduce the student to the immense biodiversity of plants this region. To inculcate an understanding of ecology so as to enable the correct matching of plant material to site. To be able to recognize quality plant materials, installation and early maintenance. To be able to be able to leverage on plant professionals, e.g. botanists, urban foresters, arborists, to realize optimal landscape solutions.

The list of the topics is as follows; 1st week: Lecture: Tools in Plant identification: Herbarium 2nd week: Field Identification of Woody Plants 3rd week: Plants, Trees and People (Including Urban Forestry) 4th week: South-East Asian Plant Geography 5th week: Site visit to MacRitchie, 6th week: Planting: Installation, Establishment, Formative Pruning 7th week: Field Practical Planting, Pruning, Tree Risk Assessment, Tree Climbing 8th week: Field Trip: Design and implementation of an Arboretum, Yishun Park Dipterocarp Arboretum 9th week: Plant Identification 2; A Review of Themes

Introduction
What is biodiversity

We are all connected through the tree of life http://tolweb.org

From wikipedia - Annonaceae family, also called custard apple family[2][3] is a family of flowering plants consisting of trees, shrubs or rarely woody lianas.[3] With about 2300 to 2500 species and more than 130 genera,[4] it is the largest family in the Magnoliales. Only four

genera, Annona, Rollinia, Uvaria and Asimina produce edible

fruits, anona.[4] Its type genus is Annona. The family is concentrated in the tropics, with few species found in temperate regions. About 900 species are Neotropical, 450 are Afrotropical, and the other species Indomalayan. Compared to the species from the Neotropic area, very little is known about the species from Indomalaya. Only a few attempts

have been made for the phylogeny-based reclassification of the

family, and those have been hampered by the Neotropic bias in the available information, with the most of the work having been done on informal genus groups.[5]

Some Annonaceae genera from the IndoMalayan region

Biodiversity Hotspots
Myers et al. Nature 403: 853. 2000 Conservation International
http://www.conservation.org/xp/CIWEB/strategies/hotspots/hotspots.xml

 Deforestation show no signs of reducing. Cycle of clearing marginal land for agriculture.

 Basically the plants have to move from the place where they are being cleared and burnt (UNWANTED) to places where they are VALUED. This includes our Parks and Roadsides. Man as a VECTOR for this movement.

Threats to biodiversity - Deforestation

The vision
Why trees? Sequestering carbon, removing pollutants from the atmosphere (McPherson et al 1994).

Singapore recognised to be unique Large trees, planted close together

 To achieve a distinctive city set amidst an equatorial rainforest.

 Collections of scientific standard with pedigree (e.g. known wild origin). In the future, these can provide the seeds to restore forests in our region. The collections of scientific standards can be used for bio-prospecting.

Label information

What is the value in this

The ecosystem benefits e.g. water, air quality are priceless. The potential of bio-prospecting; In EU sales of pharmaceuticals derived from plants US$7 Billion a year (Mahady, 2001).

 Reducing building energy use for cooling and heating (Akbari et al 1992). Mitigating the heat island effect through evapotranspiration (US Dept. Energy, 1992). Reducing domestic violence (Sullivan and Kuo 1996).

Filters for biodiversity

Proposal by Santamour (1990) - 10-20-30 rule in managing diversity in urban plantings. Not more 10% of the total population of any one species, 20% of any one genus, 30% of any one family. Galvin et al (1999) Maximum protection against pest outbreaks.

 Makes sense Angsana first extensively planted In 1802 in the Straits Settlements (Penang, Malacca, Singapore).
Disease broke out in 1885 in Melaka and reached Singapore in 1914. One by one these magnificent trees wilted away.

 Angsana trees again came into the fore with the launching of the Garden City Campaign in 1967 Outbreak of the wilt in the 1980s lead to devastation of Avenues of lovely trees. Large Angsanas continue to succumb. A reason for this devastation was that the trees were planted as a monoculture.

Ideas for the future

Deforestation in Singapore has resulted in 30% extinction of the vascular flora.

 What can we do about the flora that we have lost. Surveys that sometimes brings species extinct to Singapore back from the dead. But this is small scale. There are areas in our Parks that have a forest microclimate.

 The first step would be to create a list of species lost. The next step would be to source for these trees. The third step would be to re-introduce them at the above Parks.

 List of Malayan endemic trees found in Singapore. Locating these trees within Nature Areas in Singapore. Propagating them for planting within and outside Nature Areas.

 A lot of information can be obtained by consulting existing revisionary works (also called monographs) At present I am carrying out this work on trees from Borneo. There is a possibility of new species discovery and the revisionary work can give an idea of the suitability of species to cultivation.

Tree Inspection Tools

measuring tape pruning knife mallet

probe

foldable saw secateur

Example Crown Reduction; Upper Serangoon Rd near Lim Ah Pin Rd, Singapore, Khaya senegalensis. 14 July 2004 19 July 2004

 The selection of species for the planting list needs to be carried out with knowledge. The discipline that is the repository of plant knowledge Botany. Even then, we can only conclude after planting and observing the tree for a few years. E.g. Sterculia parviflora

Botany
Key to the study in Plant identification is Herbarium Taxonomy Some of the materials would already been covered in the module Plant Identification I.

The focus here is on the application.

Tools in Plant Identification The use of the Herbarium

For the purpose of plant identification, the herbarium (singular) is a reference collection of pressed and dried plant material. The fundamental unit is the herbarium sheet. We will analyse the herbarium sheet in short while.

Herbaria
There are two herbaria (plural) in Singapore; The Singapore Herbarium, at the Singapore Botanical Gardens referred to by botanist as SING A smaller herbarium at the Biological Sciences Dept., NUS referred to is SINU

SING
SING is a famous botanical institution It has between 600,000 to 700,000 herbarium sheets.

Uniqueness of the Sheet

This is collection of a plant at a unique point of time. Even with duplicates, the sheet is unique because it represent another part of the plant So a sheet is in fact irreplaceable The reason for the large collection in SING is that unlike other large herbaria in the region is emerged from WW2 relatively unscathed. Sandakan (SAN) in Sabah was bombed. Kepong (KEP) at the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, KL was looted.

 The only links to these collections now are their duplicates in SING; The Herbarium sheets are part of the research collections. The research collections are closed to the general. Access is granted to researchers.

Use of SING
How do you make use of the vast resources at SING. SING offers the service of plant identification for a small fee. These are usually done by experienced generalist field assistants, not botanist generally as the later are become too specialised for these.

Plant I.D. in SING

SING is very fortunate to have a cadre of field assistants, some of them following the footsteps of their parents and relatives in the service of plants. All of them are equivalent of a professional botanist in their own right.

My friends- The Raja Pokok

Identification of plants by experts

Difficulty in identifying sterile material You need an expert who will first be recognise the plant to family level. Second, to genus and species level. This is confirmed by referring to specimens at the herbarium (i.e herbarium sheets) or publications e.g. monographs

Classification A revision
Kingdom Division (Phylum) Subdivision * Class (Angiosperms vs Gymnosperms) * Subclass (dicots vs monocots) Order * Family * Genus * Species * Cultivar

 To remember, the following crutch is useful Kings Play Chess On Fat Green Stools

Some practical tips

Learning your plant families is absolutely important No matter how brilliant one is Good plant identification requires experience Singapore for instance has about 2300 species of plants in the forest. Sabah for instance has between 13000 to 15000 species.

Plant Identification Output

From a sample sent to the herbarium you will get its family, species and common names. In order to obtain this there are certain requirements of how to collect plants including notes These are now covered.

.8

Herbarium Taxonomy and Landscaping

Layout by Taxa F. L. Olmsted : famously known for Central Park, NY. Mooted idea of planting according to botanical/taxonomical families. Olmsted designed the now famous Arnold Arboretum (1872), Boston.

Arnold Arboretum, Boston

Arnold Arboretum, Boston Collections of woody species of N. American and East Asian taxa.