Specials
Little Known, But Giant in
Scientific Significance
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.
Although tew Hoosiers and not
many Purdue University students and
faculty members know of its existence, the Arthur Herbarium in the
Department of Botany and Plant
Pathology is nonetheless a giant in
scientific significance.
The herbarium, with nearly 100,000
specimens, is one of the largest research, teaching and reference collections of rust fungi in the world, and
has an insured value of more than $1.5
million.
Why is a collection of rust fungi
important? Because rusts are one of
the largest natural groups of plant
parasitic fungi (5.000 to 7,000 species). These fungi cause plant diseases
that are damaging to many of the
world's leading crops, such as cereals,
forage and range grasses, sugar cane,
grain legumes, fruits and vegetables,
ornamental flowers and shrubs, forest
trees, and coffee.
Joe F. Hennen, current curator of
the Arthur Herbarium, explains that
programs for crop improvement and
protection are constantly focused on
avoiding the disastrous results of losses
due to rusts.
"The potential that these pathogens have, if they are not held in
check, is catastrophic," he adds. "Serious epidemics of plant rusts have
grave international economic, social,
and political consequences," he says.
Therefore, "agricultural scientists
depend upon rust taxonomists to develop theories of classification that
will serve as a'framework for predicting, organizing and incorporating new
knowledge about the relationships of
these fungi," Hennen says. "Classification hypotheses are not static but
change as new and old data about similarities and differences are reinterpreted. "The long term goal of Arthur
Herbarium personnel is to study the
anatomy of as many different rusts as
possible so that their relationships to
each other are better understood, he
points out.
Worldwide in scope, the herbarium has been nearly 100 years in
developing to its present level. It contains voucher specimens for most of
the theories about rust relationships
in the Americas and for many other
regions of the world. And it is one of
the most accessible sources anywhere
for new data about the wide array of
rusts.
Hennen says its scientific value
transcends space, time, and personnel
boundaries so that it is one of Purdue's
most important, internationally significant, scientific resources. If properly maintained and developed, it will
continue to be so, the curator says.
Currently working with Hennen at
the herbarium, and the project areas
of each man, are John W. McCain,
who is investigating how spores are
produced by the coffee rust fungus;
Pablo Bui itica of the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture, who is engaged in
a taxonomic analysis of certain rusts
of soybeans, corn, grapes, and figs;
and Ibra I.. Conners, who donates his
time to the preparation of a bibliographic index of rusts of the neotrop-
ics, including information for more
than 2,000 species.
Hennen's research is the taxonomy and life cycles of neotropical rust
fungi, including rusts on plant families such as Bignoniaceae(vvith Dr. G.
B. Cummins), Compositae, and Mal-
pighiaccae. He is also doing field
study in Brazil to understand the sexual cycles of peanut rust and soybean
rust.
Source: Joe Hennen (317) 494-4623
Editor:  Ed Kirkpatrick
88-Year-Old Canadian Still
at Work
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.
At the remarkable age of KS-plus
years. Canadian-born Ibra L. Conners
is still working at what he loves. He's
collecting and catalogingTnTormation
about plant rusts, an important type
of plant disease. Furthermore, he's
doing it at Purdue University as a
volunteer.
Nearly every work day of the year,
Conners can be found in the Arthur
Herbarium, located in Purdue's Botany
and Plant Pathology Department. This
month he plans to join his colleagues
in an Oct. 22 symposium that will
honor the herbarium's founder, Joseph
C. Arthur.   .
Like Arthur, Conners has spent
his entire adult life in learning more
about plant diseases such as the rusts
and helping to catalog the information for future generations. He holds
degrees from McMaster and Toronto
Universities and has been involved in
some form of plant disease work for
nearly seven decades.
For nine years in the 1920s he
worked in the prairielands of Canada,
and then did a year of graduate work
in Minnesota. In 1929 he went to
Ottawa to supervise a Canadian Plant
Disease Survey for the National Myco-
logical Herbarium, and the next year
visited leading mycologieal herbaria
to access curatorial methods. As a
consequence, he established an herbarium along modern lines.
Although unassisted for many
years, he a'tained for the Plant Disease Survey an enviable international
reputation. After World War II, he
was given an assistant and the herbarium and its studies began to expand.
In the ensuing years other changes
came. One was the recognition of
mycology as a separate unit.
In 1953, Conners became an assistant to the division chief at one of
the branch headquarters but had to
sever his connections with the herbarium. Then in 1959, Conners received
an extension beyond his normal retirement date to complete a project
begun earlier a book containing all
published reports on fungi of plants in
Canada, Alaska and Greenland.
Although delayed, the major effort
appeared in 1967 under the title "An
Annotated Index of Plant Diseases in
Canada and Fungi Recorded on Plants
in Alaska, Canada and Greenland."
By that time, Conners. then 73, was
hard at work on his next project, the
assembling of the original descriptions
and illustrations, in photocopy, of all
the genera of fungi. In 1970, when the
Canadian Phytopathological Society
wanted a written history of Canadian
plant pathology. Ibra Conners was
sought to do the work. He traveled
from coast to coast gathering firsthand accounts.
Since 1977, Conners has been busy
at his favorite pastime plant rust
work in the Arthur Herbarium. He
makes his home with a daughter and
son-in-law. Prof, and Mrs. Paul Crane.
Crane is a member of the Department
of Agronomy staff.
Source: John McCain(317)494-4622
Editor:  Ed Kirkpatrick
31
7       8       9      11
copyright reserved
Purdue
UNIVERSITY