Stepping away from our previous animal focused Smackdowns, our focus today is Foeniculum vulgare, also known as common fennel. This culinary herb from the carrot family (Umbelliferae) is native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean area. You can read more about its usage and cultivation in Culinary Herbs, among other volumes.

(c) Henry Evans. to order prints, contact Marsha Evans: marsha@henryevans.com

Henry Evans made numerous botanical prints throughout his career. This fennel image is among several housed in the Archives, likely from an exclusive Academy exhibit.  Revered by botanists for his faithful portrayal of important characteristics, each species is created life size.

Henry Evans at his press, courtesy of the CAS Archive

(c) 2103 Diane T Sands gouache & colored pencil; magazine image created in Photoshop

(c)2013 Diane T Sands

I approached my own image of this plant by asking the question, what sort of client would ask me to create a botanical image of this species today? The most likely option would, I think, be a cooking magazine. So I laid out my image as if it were a magazine cover. The painting was created using gouache, and colored pencils.

Yesterday morning, California Academy of Sciences archivist, Heather Yager was looking through some documentation and stumbled upon quite a gem. In the archives, finding something wonderful isn’t really that rare; recently we found a letter from the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists signed by Albert Einstein. So, while big finds never cease to humble and astound us, we’re not exactly surprised.

However, yesterday we found a letter from local mycologist Lillian S. Mott (who described and named the mushroom endemic to the vicinity of Grass Valley and Nevada City, Boletus mottiae Theirs) to then California Academy of Sciences art director, Johan Kooy expressing an interest in donating slides and images for use in Academy publications. While this in its own right is special, Lillian also included two photographs of owls which she hilariously captioned, leading us to believe she may have unwittingly invented the owl meme in 1971.

(c) Lillian S Mott, 1971.

(c) Lillian Mott, 1971.

Ms. Mott, if you read this, we recognize not only your fine contributions to science but also your wit and innovative spirit. We salute you.

-Yolanda Bustos
MAS, MLIS,  IMLS grant manager, and lover of acronyms and memes.

This Smackdown we feature the largest beetle in the world, Goliathus goliatus. Goliath beetles are often described as the largest and heaviest of all beetles. Adults range from 2-4 inches in length, while the larvae can top 5 inches and weigh 0.25 pounds a piece! There are five different species of Goliathus across the African continent (see this link for a nifty map).

Black and white drawing of beetles, genus Goliathus From Cyclopedia published by Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme 1810

Not too much is known about this image. This publisher put out some beautiful and strange illustrated books in the early 1800’s including Musci exotici :containing figures and descriptions of new or little known foreign mosses and other cryptogamic subjects by William Jackson Hooker. (http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/41803) and A Dissertation on Gunshot Wounds by Charles Bell. (http://www.bibliopolis.com/main/books/1869071/A-dissertation-on-gun-shot-wounds-Bell-Charles-Jeremy-Norman-Co.html) Regardless of the subject it looks like they were masterful printers and included really amazing etchings in their work.

(c) Diane T Sands. Gouache and colored pencil on colored paper

Drawn from specimens housed in the Academy’s Naturalist Center, this color image contrasts the female (left) and male (right) of Goliathus goliatus. For the black and white image below, I wanted to show less of a dead, pinned subject and more of a living critter.

(c) Diane T Sands. Ink on scratchboard

“Sketch of Grizzly” Storer, Tracy I. (Tracy Irwin). 1889-1973.

(c) Diane T Sands 2012   gouache on illustration board

In her recent book, State of Change: Forgotten landscapes of California (2010), Laura Cunningham looks at the grizzly bear Ursus arctos and the habitat it roamed. She recreates East Bay landscapes in paintings and juxtaposes them against modern photographs. It is an amazing look at a species extirpated from the state, yet represented on the flag.

For myself, I wanted to create and illustration that shows something about Ursus arctos that cannot be shown with a photograph. Always fascinated by bones and their articulation I decided to superimpose the skeleton of a brown bear over the more recognizable furry bulk.

The Lobster by Douglas Florian
See the hard-shelled leggy lobster
Like an underwater mobster
With two claws to catch and crush
Worms and mollusks into mush
And antennae strong and thick
Used for striking like a stick
So beware when on vacation
Not to step on this crustacean

Spiny lobsters have two noticeable anatomical differences from the more well known Maine lobster. First are the thickened spiny antennae (hence the common name). Secondly, the first set of walking legs do not end in enlarged chelipeds (or claws). The Japanese spiny lobster, Panulirus japonicus, lives off the coast of Japan, Korea and China. Many restaurants will have it labeled Ise Ebi. It is similar in appearance to the California spiny lobster, Panulirus interruptus.

Asaeda, Toshio. Panulirus Japonicus, Thai Lagoon, Malaita. May 31, 1933. ©California Academy of Sciences Archives, San Francisco, CA.

This image is a part of Toshio Aseada’s collection housed here at the California Academy of Sciences Archives. Gifted in the arts of painting, photography, and taxidermy, and educated in geology, zoology, botany, and geography,  Mr. Aseada found work at the California Academy of Sciences beginning in 1927 as an artist for the Academy’s ichthyology department. Asaeda accompanied Templeton Crocker and Academy scientists on several scientific expeditions, including a 1933 trip to the Solomon Islands. Because specimens lose their pigmentation quickly when preserved in formalin and other aqueous solutions, Asaeda was tasked with painting the specimens when they were collected in order to capture their brilliant colors. This specimen was captured in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the island of Malaita and drawn from life. Reproductions of some of Aseada’s  specimen illustrations are on display on the California Academy of Sciences’ main floor in the Islands of Evolution exhibit.

Asaeda, Toshio. 1933. ©California Academy of Sciences Archives, San Francisco, CA

For me, this species was more difficult to research. Not only was I unable to get hold of a live lobster, but the literature was either highly specialized (Spiking induced by cooling the myocardium of the lobster, Panulirus japonicus) or very broad (Marine Lobsters of the World, QL444.M33 H658 1991 Main). 

Paniluris japonica (c) 2012 Diane T Sands

I wound up using an older illustration technique for this image. Carbon dust was introduced in 1911 by Max Brödel, the first director of the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. It is one of those methods that produces amazing results, but has become lost due, I believe, to the complexity factor. Most illustration manuals devote two pages to setting up the supplies and preparing the board, followed by one paragraph on application, and another page on keeping everything clean. Computer illustration programs can now produce similar effects for publication with much less mess and without the storage issues carbon-dust involves.

Nonetheless, I readied my piles of dust scraped from various carbon pencils using fine sandpaper. I used good quality paint brushes that have never touched water, their bristles flecked with black dust. I measured the illustration board, lifted all blemishes from the surface with a kneaded eraser, and rubbed the whole thing with a chamois. Bilateral symmetry allowed me to render both the ventral and dorsal surfaces of the lobster in a compact illustration without losing detail.

For the Illustration Smackdown explanation, click here.

From the Academy Archives:

This illustration of a wild boar was stumbled upon while looking for another image in the Academy’s oversized collection in the Archives. Little is known about how the image was used, but it came to us from our own Exhibits Department and was meticulously drawn by Michael E. Cole.

From Sands:

The wild boar and the feral pig are considered the same species despite differences in height, weight and skull shape. I designed this illustration to highlight some of these anatomical anomalies. The skull on the left is a wild boar; the one on the right that of a feral pig.

More about Sus scrofa: Wild Boar, Feral Pig
The wild boar is native to Europe, but has been widely introduced as a game animal throughout the world. In North America, it has successfully interbred with escaped feral farm pigs. This has happened so much that most writings simply refer to Sus scrofa under the blanket term Wild Pigs. In California, these wild pigs run amok through open space land and regional parks. Omnivorous opportunists, they wander the landscape vacuuming up vegetation, and just about any other living thing in their path.

The females become sexually mature at 18 months of age, producing 6-10 young per litter, often having more than one litter per year. A large group of females and their recent young are called Sounders.  Adults can reach sizes over 750lbs. Males are usually solitary and can sharpen their tusks by rubbing the lowers against the uppers.

Here’s a great article about the infestation of wild pigs in the East Bay Regional Park District :
http://baynature.org/articles/oct-dec-2010/ground-invasion/?searchterm=feral%20pigs

Wrack Ball (c) Diane T Sands

In this corner…

The Academy Archives is part of the Academy Library, and includes material on the history of the institution, including scientific expeditions and research, Museum exhibits, building history, and general administrative history. The Archives also houses manuscript collections from our scientists and scientists related to the Academy. Manuscript collections are mainly comprised of field notes, unpublished manuscripts, correspondence, scientific illustrations, and photographs.

And in THIS corner…

Diane T Sands: When not working as the Collection Development Librarian here at the Academy Library, I do freelance illustration. I have been an active member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators for the last 15 years. I have created illustrations (scientific and otherwise) for the North American Diatom Symposium, The Annals of the Entomological Society of America, The Hudson Institute, KQED’s Mind/Shift blog, The Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association, California Wild Magazine, and the education department here at the Academy, among others. Not surprisingly, my interest in the Academy Archives and Rare Book Collection is peaked whenever there are illustrations involved.***

What better way to get acquainted with the Archives and all the wonders it holds than to pit my illustration skills against it? Enter the Illustration Smackdown

The way the Illustration Smackdown works.
Each month, the archive staff, will locate an illustration in the Archives during the course of their regular work. They will not show it to me. Instead they will provide me with two pieces of information;
1. The scientific name of the plant or animal featured.
2. Whether the piece in question is a field sketch or a finished illustration
I will then have two weeks to research the species and produce my own illustration. Then we will feature the two illustrations side by side here on From the Stacks for your viewing pleasure.

Stay Tuned Illustration Lovers!
Diane T Sands
Collection Development Librarian

*** Diane will be doing a live illustration demo during the Academy’s Nightlife on Thursday, June 28, 2012

We recently digitized a series of photographs of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake from our Rixford collection for our upcoming Earthquake exhibit premiere party.

We scanned the Rixford photos because images were needed for the tickets and web site for the Earthquake Premiere Party. Only nine photos were requested for those purposes, but since the images were so compelling we decided to scan the entire collection of twenty.

Gulian Pickering Rixford (1838-1930) was a major figure in early California agriculture, responsible for introducing the pistachio and Smyrna fig growing industries to the state. He served the California Academy of Sciences in many capacities, including Director of the Museum. He was the Librarian of the Academy at the time of his death in a train accident at the age of 92.

The 1906 earthquake photographs are 5×7 glass plate negatives, which present a host of scanning challenges. Fortunately we also have a set of modern contact prints that we were able to digitize instead.

Most of the photos capture the destruction of downtown San Francisco, including landmarks like the St. Francis and Fairmont hotels. However, the collection also includes images of Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach, and the Marina District, then home to a few frame houses and a now vanished creek.

A benefit of working with huge negatives is the wealth of detail visible in these images. One notable detail is the small military prison on Alcatraz Island, since construction of the large cell-blocks didn’t begin until 1909.

The Academy’s G. Rixford collection includes photographs, scrapbooks, and materials related to early California agriculture.

- Kelly Jensen
Library Assistant

I just finished importing 312 Philip Tompkins images into our internal digital asset management system and I thought I would share a few of my favorites here.

South Central Utah – Lower Goblin Valley, 1950.

Philip Tompkins was born in San Anselmo, California. He graduated from the University of California in 1894. An analytical chemist and chemical engineer, he was a founder of the San Francisco chemical firm of Curtis and Tompkins where he continued to work until two years before his death (on 6 December 1972 in San Anselmo, California.)

An avid photographer, he explored Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. Tompkins aided in discovering and recording the “Lost Valley of the Goblins” in Utah (1949). His article, “Goblin Valley, Recent History and Need for Protection” accompanied by many of his photographs of the area appeared in National Parks Magazine (October-December 1954).

As an expression of appreciation to the Botany Department of the California Academy of Sciences, and a memorial to Alice Eastwood, he funded the Tompkins, Tehipite Botanical Expedition of the Sierra Nevada, California. An account of this journey was published in Leaflets of Western Botany by John Thomas Howell (1958). Tompkins also assisted in the publication of A Flora of Lassen Volcanic National Park, California (1961).

Tompkins was a California Academy of Sciences member (1930) and Academy lecturer (1953 “Sections of South-Central Utah”, 1955 “Southern Utah Scenes”). His extensive collection of slides, photographs, and negatives were donated to the Academy Library (1957, 1963). (Biography by Sharon Landwehr, Archives Volunteer)

Hoover Dam Construction – 5th trip, May 1935.

Utah – Arizona trip. Rainbow Bridge & vicinity, 1933.

Yellowstone National Park, July 1904.

Mt. Baker – Washington, August 1928.

First Death Valley trip. Tram from tunnel, March 1929.

- Danielle Castronovo
Archives & Digital Collections Librarian

The digitization of the Cordell Expeditions slide images is complete. I continue to marvel at the amazing diversity of life. It’s been quite a treat to be among the first to peer into this hidden underwater community.

Now that the digitization is finished, the images will be cataloged and made available for professional scientists and enthusiasts alike to view at anytime on the Web. Cataloging the images will be a collaborative project involving the Cordell Expedition divers and photographers, the Academy’s Invertebrate Zoology and Geology Department researchers and Academy’s Archives staff.

The Cordell Expeditions’ Director, Robert Schmieder, wrote reports that have a wealth of information about the various species observed and about the slide images.  The reports will be used to help identify the date, location, and organisms in the slides.  To help complete the picture, the Academy’s Invertebrate Zoology team will assist with the identification of various species featured in the images. Together we will create a valuable resource that can be easily accessed and searched by many different criteria through http://calphotos.berkeley.edu//

This is a lengthy and involved project and we’re pleased that we have the participation of so many dedicated individuals. We’re also very fortunate to have received generous support from the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Take a look below and you can be one of the first to see too:

Cordell Expeditions/ Rob Morris © California Academy of Sciences

Cordell Expeditions/ Ron Owen © California Academy of Sciences

Cordell Expeditions/ Don Dvorak © California Academy of Sciences

-Kristin Jeffries, Library Assistant for Archives and Digital Collections