CAS CONNECT 2017

35 the Botanical Research Institute of Texas and the New York Botanical Garden. Fishbein says McDonnell borrowed hundreds of dried and pressed samples of milkweed species. The specimens are measured, such as flower petal length and width, and described in detail. With Matelea hirtelliflora , the flowers are smaller and have hairs not found on related species. “I had specimens of this unknown species and speci- mens of what I thought were the closest relatives from mostly the eastern and southeastern U.S., and they were florally pretty different,” McDonnell says. “The flowers are really what differentiates it. Within the first hour of looking at it, I had a pretty strong suspi- cion. Then you just have to take measurements and mount up the evidence.” McDonnell says she most enjoys the fieldwork required in her research. She visited a state park in Texas where the plant was collected in 1903 and 1998. Its location further revealed the plant’s unique- ness because of geographic separation from relatives. Its range is limited to the piney woods of Northeast Texas, a tiny area compared with related milkweed vines that prefer oak-hickory forests across the eastern and southeastern U.S. It’s not known why the range of this species is so limited. “It might be something like the soil, or it might be reproduction that limits it,” McDonnell says. “It could just be doing a bad job dispersing itself.” With the collection of evidence and assistance from Fishbein, also an expert on milkweed vines and direc- tor of the OSU herbarium, McDonnell was ready to write a journal article to announce and provide evidence for her conclusion. She was the lead author with Fishbein on a paper published in Systematic Botany in August 2016. The authors described the characteristics and distribution of the plant and made the case for why it was a new species. But what difference does it make to the world at large if a previously unknown plant or animal is discovered? In the case of hairy-faced spiny pod, McDonnell says describing the plant provides infor- mation about the evolution of milkweed vines and how this new plant relates to its lineage and its envi- ronment. What feeds on it? What other plants and animals (including humans) depend on it or threaten it? Describing a rare plant alerts people to something that may need protection or simply tells people about a newly discovered plant right under their noses. This is not the first plant McDonnell has identified. She also discovered a previously unknown milkweed vine in Mexico. “I think this kind of work is a cornerstone of biodi- versity research,” McDonnell says. “This seems to be a species that’s rather rare, and you can’t really communicate about it or conserve it if it doesn’t have a name.” With the completion of her dissertation this summer, McDonnell is preparing for a post-doctoral research position at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, where she has been named the Burpee Post-Doctoral Fellow in Botany. For now, her work with hairy-faced spiny pod is over, but she hopes other scientists will pick up where she left off. Fishbein says the work of botanists like McDonnell is important because it helps people understand plants around them and realize what could be lost. In modern history, countless plants have disappeared before they were identified. Often, they’re found later as specimens in herbaria but no longer found in the environment. “We’re still discovering what plants grow in the U.S.,” Fishbein says. “It’s surprising to people that we haven’t identified all the plants that grow here.” Story by Jeff Joiner | Photos by Gary Lawson McDonnel l studied mi lkweed in OSU’s herbar ium, run by Dr. Fishbein. She earned her Ph.D. in July 2017 and earned a post-doctoral fel lowship at Bucknel l Universi ty.