: Taxonomy & Systematics

Figure 1 Image of a section of a specimen sheet belonging to the 3rd Earl of Bute’s herbarium c. 1770. The paper sheet is not providing any clues as to whether this sheet has been treated or not. The brown stains are natural breakdown products of the plant.

Figure 2 The same herbarium sheet under UV exposure. The grey discolouration is typical of mercury and the bright splashes are indicative of aqueous mercury applications.

Figure 3 Using the UV scanning device.

Natural history collections are susceptible to deterioration from pests and moulds and so historically, chemicals have been applied to safeguard these collections for the future. The most common chemical application to botanical specimens was Mercuric chloride (Corrosive sublimate). Mercury has helped to preserve specimens up until the present day, but these treatments leave a legacy - salts of mercury are not only toxic to pests, but also to people.

'Mad as a hatter'

In the 19th century, the felt-hat industry commonly used mercuric nitrate to cure the felt. The wearer and the hat maker were then exposed to mercury which is now known to attack the central nervous system and affect the brain. The unusual behaviour attributed to hat makers, due to the mercury poisoning, gave rise to the term ‘Mad as a hatter’ and probably fuelled Lewis Carroll’s imagination for his ‘mad tea party.’

The main problem encountered with these treatments is that they are hazardous to health but largely imperceptible to the human eye (Fig. 1).

Research conducted at the National Museum Wales department of Conservation, uncovered that some of the 600,000 herbarium specimens housed within the collections were contaminated with mercury. This could pose a potential risk to the health of staff members and visitors to the collections, unless addressed. It was important to be able to establish which sheets had been treated, what the chemical was and how much was present. To do this in the usual way would have involved specialist chemists, expensive analytical equipment and years of work; an expensive and timely process.

Continuing research into this issue by Dr Vicky Purewal, the botanical conservator at the National Museum Wales, uncovered that chemical processes are accelerated by mercury in the ageing papers, providing tiny clues to the presence of mercury. By devising a specific novel technique, these tiny clues can be translated into real information. This technique does not require expensive analytical equipment, all it needs is a simple hand held UV-A lamp. The Ultra violet radiation causes certain chemical processes in the paper to fluoresce a definite colour providing a positive response to the presence of mercury (Fig.2).

This research by the museum has been vital in developing a rapid technique in identifying contaminated collections (Fig.3). It has helped provide information on the historic treatments that the specimen has undergone and as a result helped to safeguard the health of staff members and visitors to the herbarium. As a result the collections can be separated into treated and non-treated material. The contaminated collections can then be handled appropriately and re-mounted removing a large amount of the contamination from the herbarium environment. DNA analysis currently carried out by researchers within the NMW herbarium; also find the UV technique extremely efficient at helping to determine whether the collections have been subjected to mercury applications which may interfere with extraction of genetic information.

The impact of this research is two-fold: on professional conservation and curatorial practice; and on the health and safety of the collection users when working within the herbarium. Key institutions such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Natural History Museum, London and the Royal College of Physicians are just a few of the other organisations that have benefitted from this simple and rapid identification tool developed by Vicky Purewal at the National Museum Wales.

Portrait of the Third Earl of Bute (reproduced from Temple of Flora (1807) by Robert Thornton).

The museum’s copy of Bute’s Botanical Tables.

2013 was the birth tercentenary of the Third Earl of Bute, a powerful figure in eighteenth century Britain – renowned both as a politician and as a botanist. One of his greatest contributions to botany was a book called the Botanical Tables, and Amgueddfa Cymru is fortunate to own a complete set of this rare and exquisite publication.

John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713-1792) was a friend and confidante of George III. Early in his career Bute reluctantly became a politician, encouraged by his royal friend. In May 1762, he was appointed Prime Minister. However, Bute proved an unpopular leader and resigned after a year. He must have been relieved to retire from public life to his house at Highcliffe in Hampshire, with his vast botanical library, to continue his botanical interests.

Carl Linnaeus's new taxonomic system

Bute worked on several botanical publications and was strongly influenced by the renowned Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus. Bute's best known publication was entitled Botanical Tables, or to give it its full title; Botanical Tables containing the different familys of British Plants distinguished by a few obvious parts of Fructification rang'd in a Synoptical method. Published in 1785, the aim of the Tables was to explain the principles of Linnaeus's new and controversial taxonomic system.

Most of the illustrations in the Botanical Tables were by the artist John Miller (1715-1790). It was a huge task, involving over 600 illustrations detailing the sexual organs and their number to comply with the Linnaean system. Each set of Tables consists of 9 volumes covering the whole range of British plant life - including mosses, grasses, flowers and trees, as well as lichens, fungi and seaweeds - and contains detailed illustrations of every plant listed.

Twelve sets of the Tables were printed by Lord Bute at his own expense, at a total cost of £1,000. Most sets were bound in speckled fawn calf leather with the Bute coat of arms placed centrally. Two sets were specially prepared for the royal family and bound in red goatskin with pages edged in gold but without the Bute arms.

Botany as a fashionable amusement

Bute was particularly keen to explain the taxonomic system to women, since he felt that this "delightful part of nature" was peculiarly suited to the attention of the "fair sex"; botany, under their protection, would soon become a fashionable amusement. True to this aim Bute presented seven sets of the Tables to women:

Amgueddfa Cymru has in its collections loose illustrations and tables that are thought either to have been draft copies or material being prepared for a subsequent edition. However, in 1994 the Museum acquired a complete copy of the Botanical Tables at a Christie's sale of highly important books from Beriah Botfield's Library.

Whilst trying to ascertain which of the original 12 sets the Museum holds, researchers here have managed to trace 10 sets, 7 of which can be identified with their original recipients.

Perhaps, one day, the remaining two will be discovered on a dusty shelf of an old library and then all twelve original copies can be accounted for.

Recipients

The recipients of the twelve copies of the Botanic Tables:

The Herefordshire Ghost Orchid, 2009

Distribution map of Ghost Orchids in Britain (all records: data courtesy of Botanical Society of the British Isles 2013).

Eleanor Vachell, c. 1930.

A 1953 Ghost Orchid collected by Rex Graham

The 1982 Herefordshire Ghost Orchid preserved in formalin

The Welsh National Herbarium at Amguedfa Cymru has a small - but very precious - collection of Ghost Orchids (Epipogium aphyllum Sw.); is this something to be proud of, or should they have been left in the wild? The answer lies in the donations to the Museum, and slugs...

Ghost Orchids are among the rarest plants in Britain. They have been found in about 11 sites in the Chilterns and West Midlands in England, but such is their rarity and the secrecy surrounding them that it is difficult to be sure exactly how many sites there are.

Regarded as extinct

Ghost Orchids were first discovered in Britain in 1854 but were only seen 11 times before the 1950s. They were seen regularly in a few Chilterns sites between 1953 and 1987 but then disappeared and were regarded as extinct until one plant was discovered in 2009. In most sites they have only been seen once, and rarely for more than ten years in any one site.

Ghost orchids - a fleeting occurrence in dark, shaded woods

Ghost Orchids get their name from their creamy-white to pinkish-brown colour and their fleeting occurrences in dark, shaded woods. The colour results from the absence of chlorophyll, as they are parasites of fungi associated with tree roots, and they do not need to photosynthesise their own food. They spend most of their lives as rhizomes (underground shoots) in the soil or leaf litter of woodlands, and flowering shoots only occasionally appear above ground. Even then, their small size (usually less than 15cm, rarely up to 23cm) and unpredictable appearance between June and October means that Ghost Orchids are rarely seen.

Until recently the only British specimen held by Amgueddfa Cymru was a scrap of rhizome collected for Eleanor Vachell in 1926 - her herbarium is one of the most comprehensive ever put together by a British botanist - who donated her collection to the Museum when she died in 1949. The story of how the fragment of Ghost Orchid was discovered is given in her botanical diary:

"28 May 1926. The telephone bell summoned Mr [Francis] Druce to receive a message from Mr Wilmott of the British Museum. Epipogium aphyllum had been found in Oxfordshire by a young girl and had been shown to Dr [George Claridge] Druce and Mrs Wedgwood. Now Mr Wilmott had found out the name of the wood and was ready to give all information!!! Excitement knew no bounds. Mr Druce rang up Elsie Knowling inviting her to join the search and a taxi was hurriedly summoned to take E.V. [=Eleanor Vachell] and Mr Druce to the British Museum to collect the particulars from Mr Wilmott. The little party walked to the wood where the single specimen had been found and searched diligently that part of the wood marked in the map lent by Mr Wilmott but without success, though they spread out widely in both directions... Completely baffled, the trio, at E.V.'s suggestion, returned to the town to search for the finder. After many enquiries had been made they were directed to a nice house, the home of Mrs I. ?, who was fortunately in when they called. E.V. acted spokesman. Mrs I. was most kind and after giving them a small sketch of the flower told them the name of the street where the girl who had found it lived. Off they started once more. The girl too was at home and there in a vase was another flower of Epipogium! In vain did Mr Druce plead with her to part with it but she was adamant! Before long however she had promised to show the place to which she had lead Dr Druce and Mrs Wedgwood and from which the two specimens had been gathered. Off again. This time straight to the right place, but there was nothing to be seen of Epipogium! 2 June 1926. A day to spare! Why not have one more hunt for Epipogium? Arriving at the wood, E.V. crept stealthily to the exact spot from which the specimen had been taken and kneeling down carefully, with their fingers they removed a little soil, exposing the stem of the orchid, to which were attached tiny tuberous rootlets! Undoubtedly the stem of Dr Druce's specimen! Making careful measurements for Mr Druce, they replaced the earth, covered the tiny hole with twigs and leaf-mould and fled home triumphant, possessed of a secret that they were forbidden to share with anyone except Mr Druce and Mr Wilmott. A few days later E.V. received from Mr Druce an excited letter of thanks and a box of earth containing a tiny rootlet that he had found in the exact spot they had indicated." [Source: Forty, M. & Rich, T. C. G., eds. (2006). The botanist. The botanical diary of Eleanor Vachell (1879-1948). National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.]

Eleanor shared the rootlet with her great friend Elsie Knowling, who also had a herbarium. Coincidentally, the two fragments have been reunited at the Museum after being apart for 84 years.

In 1953, Elsie's son Rex Graham stumbled across 22 Ghost Orchids in a Buckinghamshire wood, the largest colony of ever seen in Britain (Graham 1953). This was the first time that Ghost Orchids had been seen for 20 years and it made the national press. At the time Rex collected only three specimens, but over the next few years he collected more when they were found eaten off by slugs. Eventually Rex had four specimens for his own herbarium, to add to the scrap in his mother's herbarium. The Ghost Orchids were amongst the treasures in Graham & Harley herbarium, which was donated to Amgueddfa Cymru in 2010.

The third collection is the Museum's only specimen preserved in spirit (rather than being pressed and dried) so that the three dimensional structure of the flower can be seen. Dr Valerie Richards (formerly Coombs) was looking for wild orchids in Herefordshire in 1982 when she discovered a single ghost orchid in a new site. When she took a local botanist to the site a few days later, a slug had eaten through the stem. She picked it up and took it home and preserved it in formalin like the zoological specimens she had been used to working with during her university days. The specimen was kindly donated to the Museum in 2013.

The fourth and final collection resulted from the hard work and intuition of Mark Jannink combined with another hungry slug. Mark wondered if Ghost Orchids flowered more frequently after cold winters. He researched all previous Ghost Orchid discoveries - their preferred habitat, time of flowering and weather patterns - then staked out ten possible sites in the West Midlands, visiting them every two weeks throughout the summer of 2009, following the first cold winter for many years. Finally in September, he discovered one small specimen - causing great excitement amongst botanists, as the Ghost Orchid had been declared officially extinct in 2005! Mark returned several times over the next few days as the plant gradually faded and 'browned', until the stem was once again eaten through by slugs. The remains were collected and pressed, and donated to our herbarium shortly after.

So five of the seven British Ghost Orchids in Amgueddfa Cymru have been collected as a consequence of slugs, which are more of a threat than botanists. The Ghost Orchids are fully protected by law under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 but nobody seems to have told that to the slugs!

We also have eight specimens from Europe, where Ghost Orchids are more widespread, though still rare. One of our best specimens was collected by W. A. Sledge in Switzerland.

You are welcome to visit the Welsh National Herbarium to see the Ghost Orchids, but don't expected us to reveal where they were found! And please leave your slugs at home.

Adapted for the website from the following article:

The scrap of Ghost Orchid rootlet in Eleanor Vachell's herbarium. Also attached to the specimen are Dr George Claridge Druce's (1924) account of it from Gardeners Chronicle series 3 volume 76, page 114 and two small sketches by Miss Baumgartner.

Swiss Ghost Orchids collected by W. A. Sledge in 1955.

The 2009 Ghost Orchid from Herefordshire.

1. Map showing the sample sites around East Falkland with enlarged inset map of locations around Stanley

3. Two cirratulids found under a rock during a dive

4. Scaleworm (Polynoidae) found under a rock while diving

8. Paddleworm (Phyllodocidae) with distinctive black stripes

9. Two different species of lugworm (Arenicolidae) from a shore

10. A new species of ragworm (Nereididae)

Polychaetes (or bristleworms) are found in nearly every marine habitat on Earth. They are very adaptable and diverse in appearance, and there are currently around 10,000 species described. With increasing environmental pressures on our marine environment it is more important than ever to know what species live where.

Polychaetes from offshore habitats around the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic have often been sampled as part of Antarctic research cruises. Those from intertidal regions (between high and low tide marks) are conversely not so well known. Some intertidal work was done at the beginning of the twentieth century by a Falkands naturalist, Rupert Vallentin, who sent specimens to taxonomists for identification and research. Since then little has been done.

Teresa Darbyshire, a marine biologist from Amgueddfa Cymru, has been collaborating with the local Shallow Marine Surveys Group to study the polychaetes of the Falkland Islands. Four weeks of fieldwork in late 2011, funded by the Shackleton Scholarship Fund, allowed nineteen different shores to be sampled (Images 1, 2, 6) on East Falkland, the main island of the group. Diving together with the Shallow Marine Surveys Group also allowed offshore sites to be sampled (Image 3, 4, 7).

Fieldwork in the Falkland Islands offered some unusual biological hazards including sea lions investigating Teresa while working underwater, elephant seals creeping up behind her on the shore, and caracaras (birds of prey) trying to fly off with the sample pots! (Image 5)

Features important for their identification such as colour and patterns (Image 8) often disappear or change once polychaetes are preserved ("fixed"). Specimens were, therefore, mostly looked at and photographed live under a microscope. Specimens were also "relaxed" before fixing so that they were less likely to contort and possibly break-up, so making them much easier to identify later on.

Polychaete identification is neither quick nor easy! Different species occur across the world and change according to both habitat and location. Located in the South Atlantic, the Falkland polychaetes are likely to be different from those in the North Atlantic and so their identification is requiring much searching of available literature. To start with, the specimens were first sorted into families (groups of related species). Although not all families exist in all environments, the families recognised from the Falklands also occur in British waters. Each family was then studied in turn, to identify the different species present across all of the sites. It's always easier to identify something if you have many specimens to look at as you may get a range of different sizes, from juveniles to adults, and also specimens in different condition.

Over thirty different families have now been identified from the samples. Two new species have already been found of lugworm (Arenicolidae , Image 9) and ragworm (Nereididae, Image 10). This is surprising as these two groups contain large animals and are generally well known as they are often used by fishermen for bait. It is expected that several more new species will be found as the samples are analysed.

A second visit occurred in 2013 to sample additional locations both on East Falkland and across West Falkland too. Eventually, it is intended that all of these samples together will facilitate the production of a list of the intertidal and inshore polychaetes of the Falkland Islands. This will be of great benefit to all those working to protect the environment of the Falkland Islands as well as polychaete researchers from around the world.

A British species of Shovelhead worm (Magelona johnstoni). Image: Andy Mackie.

A Portuguese species of Shovelhead worm (Magelona lusitanica)

Head end of Magelona montera from the Red Sea, stained with methyl green. Image: James Turner

Magelona obockensis

from the Gulf of Aden

Head end of Magelona sinbadi from the Persian Gulf, stained with methyl green. Image: James Turner

An example of a magelonid pouch

Marine bristle-worms (Polychaetes) are related to earthworms and leeches - well known examples are lugworms and ragworms used by sea fisherman as bait. The Magelonidae is a small family of polychaetes that have a unique flattened head, used for digging, giving them the common name, the shovelhead worms. There are over 70 species of shovelhead worms, 11 of which were first described by marine biologists from Amgueddfa Cymru.

Polychaetes are found in nearly every marine habitat and often make up a large proportion of the animals living in and on the seabed. There may be 9000 species worldwide, although estimates vary widely and new species are being discovered constantly (even in British waters).

Polychaetes can vary hugely in their form and size, how mobile they are, and how they obtain their food.

What are Shovelhead Worms (Polychaeta: Magelonidae)?

The Magelonidae is a small family of polychaetes, found all over the world. They burrow in muds and sands, and are generally found at water depths of less than 100 m. They are slender, beautiful worms, usually less than 10 cm long. They have a unique flattened head, used for digging in sediments, giving the group its common name, the shovelhead worms. The have two long feeding tentacles (palps) that are adorned with small 'bumps' (papillae). Over 70 species are known worldwide, 11 of which were first described by marine biologists from Amgueddfa Cymru, including one British species, Magelona johnstoni Fiege, Licher & Mackie, (2000).

Marine biologists at Amgueddfa Cymru have studied the shovelhead worms in the seas surrounding the Arabian Peninsula and confirmed the presence there of Magelona cornuta, Magelona obockensis, Magelona pulchella, Magelona crenulifrons and an undescribed species from the Red Sea (Mortimer, 2010). This research led to collaboration with scientists from the Spanish Centre d'Estudis Avançats de Blanes (CEAB) who made Magelona specimens available from over 100 locations in the same region.

A worm with horns

The undescribed species highlighted in 2010, was first noticed in the collections of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. It is a particularly interesting species as it has uniquely shaped horns on its head, giving it the appearance of wearing a bullfighter's hat! It has now been named Magelona montera, after the Spanish word for a matador's hat (Mortimer et al., 2012).

A further six species of Magelona have now been identified from seas surrounding the Arabian Peninsula, including another new species from Iran named after the fictional sailor, Sinbad (M. sinbadi, M. cf. agoensis, M. conversa, M. cf. falcifera, M. symmetrica, and M. cf. cincta). This raises the total number of species known from the Red Sea/Gulf region to eleven, three of which were originally described from the Seychelles by Museum staff (Mortimer & Mackie, 2003; 2006).

The partnership between Amgueddfa Cymru and CEAB has proven to be successful and also led to a review of the shovelhead worms from Portugal, including the description of a new species, Magelona lusitanica. This work was published in the proceedings of the 10th International Polychaete Conference, held in Italy, June 2010 (Mortimer, Gil & Fiege, 2011). In 2013, Museum staff worked with scientists from the East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Shanghai to describe a new species from the Yellow Sea, China (Zhou & Mortimer, 2013).

Amgueddfa Cymru taxonomists have now studied 30% of all known Magelona species. However, it doesn't stop there. Work is now starting on British species as part of the museum's review of the British Polychaete Fauna. We will also investigate the distinctive abdominal pouches present in some magelonid species, whose function remains a mystery.