Faculty and student research take root with University's collection of plants
Fred Jackson, the greenhouse manager, walks through this lush forest, checking
each plant. "That's Calliandra - an unusual tropical plant in the bean family,"
says Jackson, pointing to a tree with flowers like large red powder puffs.
With its spreading canopy, this tree looks as if it might grow through the
glass roof.
The greenhouse conservatory on Waterman Street contains Brown's plant
collection, representing 100 taxonomic plant families and thousands of species.
Some of these plants date back to the 1950's, when the New York Botanical
Garden, Harvard and other well-known institutions donated specimens to initiate
Brown's collection. Over the years, the collection has grown through donation
of plants by alumni, faculty and students, and acquisition by Jackson. Most
recently, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology graduate student Shane Heschel
offered a tray of mangrove tree seedlings. Says Jackson, excitedly: "I think I
can set up a whole new display - maybe even a whole new water garden with those
trees."
The plant collection provides ample teaching material for many classes. Geology
professor Tom Webb takes students in his class, "The Fossil Record," to visit
primitive plants like cycads, which grew in the time of the dinosaurs,
spore-bearing ferns and a psilopsid, which resembles fossils from more than 400
million years ago. But it's not just the primitive plants that interest Webb.
He wants his students to also see "the many different forms among flowering
plants ... and the different adaptations among plants from cacti that grow in
deserts to leaves with drip tips from the tropical rain forest."
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Professor also uses the
conservatory to illustrate the material she teaches in "Diversity and
Adaptation of Seed Plants." Through frequent examination of conservatory
plants, her students learn the basic characteristics of plant families.
There's more to the greenhouse facility than the conservatory. With the help
of his assistant, Filomena Costa, Jackson maintains four other greenhouses
which contain classroom experiments, independent student projects, faculty
research, and plants that decorate University grounds.
In one of these other greenhouses, Jackson grows sunflowers, beans and corn for
Andrew Holowinsky's "Plant Organism" class. His students perform experiments
such as injecting sunflowers with a gall-producing virus. To Holowinsky, the
greenhouse is essential because the plants used "are not available commercially
and need to be properly maintained after they have been subjected to [our]
experimental treatments."
In another class, "Plant Ecology," students design and implement semester-long
experiments in the greenhouse. Students monitor the experiments, measuring
plant growth and looking for differences. According to Schmitt, who teaches
this class, three of these experiments have led to new findings which were
reported in scientific publications.
For many, the greenhouse is available for extracurricular and independent
projects. Last fall, an engineering student designed and tested a hydroponic
growth system, a method of growing plants in nutrient-filled water rather than
soil. This month, a RISD student plans to display his art project on the
greenhouse exterior.
But more often, it is biology students who use the greenhouse for their
research projects. Schmitt estimates that she has advised more than 22
undergraduate research projects in the greenhouse since 1987 alone. In
December, Sarah McGee '97 completed experiments which will comprise her honors
thesis in biology. "It started last summer, with an experiment I did as part
of an UTRA," Brown's undergraduate research training program. "I looked at the
response of two populations of jewelweed to varying levels of the hormone
giberellin."
Not surprisingly, graduate students and faculty also use the greenhouse for
research. Schmitt's research of the evolution of plant responses to
environmental variation involves growing inbred plant lines under a series of
environmental conditions. Her work is supported by grants from the National
Science Foundation. The greenhouse enables Schmitt and her collaborators to
create controlled and consistent environmental conditions.
Schmitt considers the greenhouse indispensable to her research. "The greenhouse
is an essential resource; I couldn't do my research without it," she says.
Alison DeLong concurs. A researcher with the department of molecular, cellular
biology and biochemistry, she uses the greenhouse growth chambers to grow
Arabidopsis thaliana for her studies of protein function. From the outside,
these chambers resemble large refrigerators, but inside they are sunny and
warm. With temperature controls and lights along their ceilings, the chambers
create perfect conditions for growing plants.
Although it plays a serious role in the work of students and researchers, the
greenhouse has a casual side as well. "Most people don't realize that you can
just go in and look around," says McGee. "I sometimes drag people in to show
off the plants or just to show them a breath of summer in the middle of
winter."
Elizabeth Hammond Pyle is a research assistant in the department of Ecology
and Evolutionary Biology