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As the parent of a toddler, Alan Weakley knows that naptime and snack time trump everything else. Skip either, and you're asking for trouble.
But sometimes — when you're taking your family on a hike in the middle of nowhere — naps get skipped, and toddlers get miffed. So it was that Weakley, the curator of the University Herbarium, found himself in the middle of the Buck Creek Serpentine Barren between Franklin and Murphy, with his wife, two companions, and one exasperated daughter, 1-year-old Rhiannon.
Weakley's group plopped down to give Rhiannon a snack and a chance to rest. As Rhiannon recovered, the rest of the group started musing over a particular plant they saw growing all around. It was a well-known aster. Well known, that is, for being unidentified: For years, botanists had been wondering exactly what kind of aster it was.
In the late 1970s: Laura Mansberg, a grad student in botany at N.C. State, was trying to collect and identify every plant at the Buck Creek Serpentine Barren. This aster was not in any guidebooks or manuals. She took some specimens and mailed them to several aster experts.
Eventually, the experts decided that they didn't know what the plant was either.
And that was that.
Weakley and his hiking companions decided that the aster had been a mystery long enough. After all, the herbarium is in the business of discovering and identifying North Carolina's plants.
So the group sent specimens to some aster experts that weren't active in the field back when Mansberg sent her specimens out. The experts became convinced that it was a new species. Eventually, so did Weakley and Mansberg (who is now Laura Cotterman, publications coordinator at the North Carolina Botanical Garden).
Now, all the aster needed was a name. In December 2004, the journal Sida, Contributions to Botany, announced the new arrival: Symphyotrichum rhiannon.
Rhiannon's aster looks like it has daisy-sized flowers with blue petals and bright yellow centers.
"But what appears to be one flower," Cotterman said, "is actually a cluster or 'head' of tiny flowers, of which there are two kinds: bluish-purple ray flowers and yellow disc flowers."
Weakley is well aware that there are many unknowns about the plants in our state.
"The southeast has a very rich and very diverse flora," he said. "It was not really seriously studied until the early 1900s. There have probably been two or three hundred new species named in the southeast over the last 20 or 30 years."
So what does Rhiannon think about all this?
"She really likes plants and likes to be out in the garden," he said. "But I don't think she identifies with the fact that it's named after her. In a few years, I'm sure she'll think it's pretty cool."
The herbarium's web site, www.herbarium.unc.edu, features a searchable plant database, distribution maps, and more.
Provided by Research and Economic Development.
Editor: Neil Caudle
Writer: Jason Smith