Research Training Program

Jon Ricketson
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, Arizona

George Russell
Department of Botany

Small Family Curation / Aquatics

Curation of 19 small aquatic plant families took place during the week of March 24-29, 1986. Over 1,000 sheets of newly mounted and returned loans were filed. By far the largest families were the Hydrocharitaceae and the Potamogetonaceae complex (including the Najadaceae, Zannichelliaceae, Ruppiaceae, Zosteraceae, Posidoniaceae and the Cymodoceaceae). These families required approximately 3.5 days to curate. Fortunately, the remaining families required very little curation and mostly just needed specimens refiled. Half of a day was spent sorting cases of grasses, a time-consuming but necessary project. The other day was spent working on the other aquatic families as mentioned above. Much of the curation that was done was to update the synonym of the specimens. George Russell has a complete list of changes that were made and a list of suggested changes.