Dr. Alan Smith is in charge of the
Pteridophytes and Grasses in the University Herbarium. He supervises all
matters concerning pteridophyte collections and handles public service
identifications for pteridophytes and grasses and plant identifications
for campus, municipal, state, and federal agencies, as well as for
private institutions and public universities.
His major research efforts during 1997--1998 included continued studies
of higher-level phylogenetic relationships of ferns and fern allies (with
Kathleen Pryer and Paul Wolf) and of phylogenetic relationships of
Polypodiaceae/Grammitidaceae (with Tom Ranker and Chris Haufler). He
also carried out floristic studies on Venezuelan pteridophytes, Bolivian
pteridophytes (with J. Gonzáles and M. Kessler), pteridophytes of
Mexico (with John Mickel et al.), and pteridophytes of Rarotonga, Cook
Islands (with John Game). He continued collaboration with R. Moran to
examine biogeography of pteridophytes having African--American
distributions, in an evolutionary context.
