Botany Information

Botany History

The Botany Section is much younger than the Division of Plant Industry (DPI). In the early 1960's, Dr. Kenneth R. Langdon, a DPI nematologist who had expert knowledge of native and cultivated plants, began to receive more and more questions concerning botany, and in 1963, he was put in charge of a new Office of Systematic Botany. In 1964, Dr. Langdon established the DPI Herbarium (internationally-recognized acronym: PIHG) to provide specimens for use in identifying and verifying plant samples.

Dr. Langdon retired in 1991 and Dr. Nancy C. Coile took his place. In 1993, the Office of Systematic Botany became the Botany Section within the new Bureau of Entomology, Nematology, and Plant Pathology. Dr. Coile retired in 2002. Dr. Richard Weaver followed Dr. Coile, and retired himself in 2010. Today the Botany Section is headed by Dr. Patti Anderson.

Botany Activities

Plant identifications are the primary service provided by the Botany Section. The botanists identify or verify scientific names of plant specimens for the Entomology, Plant Pathology, and Nematology sections as well as plant samples that are sent to the Botany Section directly from DPI, other agencies, and the general public. To assist in these identifications, the botanists collect native and cultivated plants for the DPI Herbarium. With the increasing interest in Florida's many unique native plants and in the effects of invasive plants on Florida's agriculture and natural areas, over the years the activities of the Botany Section have expanded beyond our basic identification service.

Since 1993, DPI has regulated noxious weeds like tropical soda apple and cogon grass that impact Florida agriculture, and in 2004 the botany administrator became a member of the Noxious Weed and Invasive Plant Review Committee, which recommends additions to and deletions from Florida's list of noxious weeds and invasive plants. The Botany Section disseminates information about these pest plants. As part of this effort, the botanists write a web column titled, “Weed of the Month” with information useful for identifying the plants on the noxious weed and invasive plant list, as well as other common pest plants. The botanists also review permits for transporting and growing noxious weeds in the state.

The botanists continue to assist the Endangered Plant Advisory Council (EPAC), which recommends additions to and deletions from Florida's lists of endangered, threatened, and commercially exploited plants. The botanists review permits for harvesting whole plants, or parts of plants, that are endangered or commercially exploited.

Finally, the botanists provide training in basic botany and in plant identification to nursery inspectors and others in DPI.

Botany Staff

Patti J. Anderson

Botany Administrator
Biological Scientist IV
Phone: 352-395-4701
FAX: 352-395-4614
s-mail: P.O. Box 147100, Gainesville, FL 32614-7100
e-mail: Patti.Anderson@freshfromflorida.com
B.A. Rice University
M.A. Boston University
M.A. Lehman College of the City University of New York
Ph.D University of Florida

Growing up on a farm gave me a wonderful opportunity to experience both agriculture and the natural habitats of south Mississippi. It also gave me a craving to see city sights. I went to college, then graduate school, studying social science rather than plant biology, to find work in the city. During my first job as a sociologist for the New York City Human Rights Commission, I took a programming course for fun and discovered a talent for solving computer problems. I found exciting and rewarding work in this field in business, then government, then as a self-employed computer consultant.

Eventually, I missed having time with plants and decided to give biology another chance. After studying botany and ethnobotany at the New York Botanical Garden and receiving an M.A. in Biological Sciences from Lehman College, I moved to Florida to study ecology at the University of Florida. I hoped to combine my interests in ecological and social processes to better understand conservation and economic development. A Fulbright fellowship allowed me to carry out research in Ecuador that became the basis for my dissertation. I hoped to find work in this field and make a contribution to the conservation of tropical forests.

As it turned out, after doing post-doctoral research at Penn State, I found work as the Science Educator for Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida. There I began a project funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute using ethnobotany to encourage pre-college science education and multigenerational cultural exchange. The project paired students in two Miami middle schools who interviewed older Hispanics and Haitians about plants. About this time, I moved to Gainesville for family reasons and found work at the Florida Museum of Natural History, again as an educator. After four years, I learned there was an opportunity for a botanist with the state Department of Agriculture. Now I identify plants and learn from the entomologists about bugs and have a wonderful time. Sometimes I even get to collect plants from long leaf pine habitats that are not so different from the Piney Woods in Mississippi where I started.

Marc S. Frank