FIELD BRIEFS 



"Plant Lady" Retires 



Field Museum's volunteer "Plant Lady," 

 Helen Ruch, has retired after nearly ten 

 years of faithfully tending the Museum's 

 many living plants throughout the large 

 building. 



Helen Ruch came to Field Museum as 

 a volunteer in 1976 after a career as an 

 administrative assistant at Michael Reese 

 Hospital and Medical Center. The tender 

 loving care which she lavished on the 

 Museum's plants for those ten years will be 

 sorely missed, and the staff wishes her well 

 as she joins her family in Oregon. 



Distinguished Peruvian Botanist 

 Visits Field Museum 



Abundio Sagastegui Alva, of the Univer- 

 sidad Nacional de Trujillo, Trujillo, Peru, 

 recently completed a two- month study visit 

 to Field Museum's Department of Botany. 

 His trip was funded in part by a Science 

 in Developing Countries Program Grant, 

 awarded by the National Science Founda- 

 tion to Field Museum. Dr. Sagastegui is a 

 Field Museum research associate as well as 

 a contributor to the Museum's Flora of Peru 

 program. During his stay, he worked closely 

 with Associate Curator Michael O. Dillon 

 on several research projects involving Pe- 

 ruvian plants. 



A leading Peruvian botanist, Dr. Sagas- 

 tegui has trained a generation of students 

 now occupying positions in Peruvian uni- 

 versities. The Peruvian government re- 

 cently honored him for his many years of 

 service in higher education. He has au- 

 thored many scientific papers and books, 

 and is currently chairman of the Botany 

 Section and head of the Herbarium Truxil- 

 lense in Trujillo. During his U.S. visit. Dr. 

 Sagastegui also traveled to the Missouri 

 Botanical Garden, in St. Louis, which con- 

 tributed toward his sponsorship. 



Energy Reduction Award 



On December 4 the Field Museum was 

 recipient of the 1985 "Energy Achievement 

 Award" from the Illinois Chapter of 

 ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, 

 Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engi- 

 neers). The award was for a project initiated 

 in 1982 as part of the Museum's energy 

 management and utilization program. 



With the implementation of this pro- 

 gram, the Museum has been able to reduce 

 the overall use of energy, staying somewhat 

 even with the increased cost of utilities. 



Shown holding the award is Norman P. 

 Radtke, Field Museum's physical plant ad- 

 ministrator. With him is Lee Woods, pres- 

 ident of the Illinois Chapter of ASHRAE. 



Michael Dillon Promoted 



Michael O. Dillon, who joined Field 

 Museum in 1978, has been promoted to 

 associate curator of Botany. His research 

 activities have been focused on the sun- 

 flower family (Asteraceae) and the flora of 

 Peru. Dillon was responsible for the descrip- 

 tive labelling in the Plants of the World 

 exhibit hall, reopened in 1983, and his field 

 work has been the subject of a recently 

 completed section in the Bringing the World 

 to Chicago exhibit. 



Dillon's present research includes a 

 study of the unusual lomas formations in the 

 Pacific coast deserts of Peru and northern 

 Chile. He is coordinating final treatments 

 for the Flora of Peru project. His identifica- 

 tion of specimens belonging to the very 

 large sunflower family has made him many 

 friends and brought much new material to 

 the Museum. 



John Terrell's New Book on 

 Pacific Islands Prehistory 



Field Museum's curator of Oceanic 

 archaeology and ethnology, John Terrell, is 

 the author of Prehistory in the Pacific Islands: 

 A Study of Variation in Language, Customs and 

 Human Biology, published this month by 

 Cambridge University Press. 



How, asks Dr. Terrell in this richly- 

 illustrated and original book, can we best 

 account for the remarkable diversity of the 

 Pacific Islanders in biology, language, and 



custom? Traditionally scholars have 

 thought in terms of a neat racial division be- 

 tween Polynesians, Micronesians, Melane- 

 sians, Australians, and Southeast Asians: 

 peoples allegedly differing in physical 

 appearance, temperament, achievements, 

 and perhaps even intelligence. However, 

 Terrell shows that such simple divisions do 

 not fit the known facts and represent little 

 better than a crude, static snapshot of hu- 

 man diversity. 



In a fresh and stimulating study that 

 brings to bear a wide range of data drawn 

 from anthropology, achaeology, biogeog- 

 raphy, human ecology, and linguistics, he 

 poses a whole series of unfolding and inter- 

 linked questions about prehistoric life in the 

 Pacific that effectively unite the human 

 imagination with logical and empirical 

 methods of evaluation. 



The 300-page book is illustrated with 

 19 halftones and 77 diagrams. At the time 

 this issue of the Bulletin went to press, it was 

 expected that the new book would be avail- 

 able at the Field Museum Store in February. 

 Price: $44.50 (10% discount for Members). 



Herbarium Gift 



A collection of 4,625 mounted herbarium 

 specimens were recently given by the Pro- 

 gram for Collaborative Research in the 

 Pharmaceutical Sciences (pcrps) of the Col- 

 lege of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at 

 Chicago — Health Sciences Center, to Field 

 Museum's John G. Searle Herbarium. At 

 the university the collection was used 

 mainly in teaching, and as a repository of 

 voucher specimens of plant samples used 

 for phytochemical and pharmacological in- 

 vestigations. The pcrps collections include 

 several important early herbaria from the 

 Chicago region, notably the Bastin Herbar- 

 ium of more than 900 specimens collected 

 between 1870 and 1890. 



A special interest of Dr. Charles F. Mill- 

 spaugh (a trained physician), the organizer 

 and first head of the Botany Department, 

 was medicinal plants, an interest which has 

 been perpetuated at the Museum since its 

 founding. It is for this reason that many of 

 the pcrps specimens documenting pharma- 

 cological studies are especially welcome. 



The transfer of the collections to the 

 Museum will make them more readily 

 available to researchers worldwide, and en- 

 sure their proper curation. The specimens 

 will be available to students and research- 

 ers, both at the Museum and at other insti- 

 tutions, through an active loan program. 



