-Magdalen Lindeberg

Cornell plant biologists traveled to Tucson AZ, July 27 – 31 to attend Botany 2019, sponsored by the Botanical Society of America (BSA), American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT), and several other plant-related professional societies.

SIPS graduate student Adriana Hernandez in the Specht research program received the 2019 Student Research Award in the Genetics Section for her proposal Revealing the Evolutionary History and Ecological Niches of a Highly Polymorphic Lily, Calochortus venustus: An Integrative Approach to Conservation. Other members of the Specht program attending included Eugenio Valderrama, Clarice Guan, Carrie Tribble, Jacob Landis, Jesus Martinez-Gomez, Heather Phillips, and Rosemary Glos. Glos received a Triarch “Botanical Images” Student Travel Award for her first place digital image, Losana nana.

Facundo Di Benedetti, a student of Alejandra Gandolfo studying at Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio in Argentina received the Cookson Award for best paper in the Paleobotanical section, Late Cretaceous heterosporous water ferns from Patagonia: assessing monomegaspory. In addition to co-authoring Di Benedetti’s presentations, Gandolfo gave talks in both paleobotany and outreach related sessions.

Fay-Wei Li was also in attendance with several of his lab members including SIPS graduate student Alaina Pelewski, recipient of a Pteridological Section & American Fern Society Student Travel Award for her presentation Using sequencing technologies to investigate evolutionary questions in Lycopodiaceae. Bill Crepet presented a talk on evolution of complexity in early vascular plants, co-authored with Karl Niklas.

Many thanks to those providing images via Twitter including @calobot, @TanzRenner, and @plantevomorph.