The Plant Press

From The Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 2022.

A momentary thought in time: a letter from Siberia 

By Julia Beros

Opening a letter lends an excitement unlike most paper-related activities. Perhaps through a pen pal, writing with an old friend, or even just a short anecdote on a pre-fab birthday card, letters beget a form of communication that sort of repels time and space; it is written in one scene, with a momentary intention and oblivious to the goings-on outside, and is then received in this very state in an entirely new place, for an intended (or accidental) audience who prepares to enter a brief hiatus from the goings-on of their surroundings. Something akin to time travel. 

On one day this year, I am helping a friend with some old family letters that need to be organized, and I lightly unfold an envelope that is not addressed to me, and it has not been opened or read for many years. In 1964 this envelope was sealed in western Siberia and sent to Los Angeles, California, where it was received as part of an ongoing personal correspondence between two Esperanto enthusiasts seeking to enrich their language skills. Reaching in to pull out the letter I find a few dried leaf bits that crumble out and I begin to carefully unpack the contents. Folded in lightly stained papers are two pressed plants, clung to each other by the pressure of time in this packed envelope. 

With nothing else attached I carefully pry them off each other and look for familiar characteristics. Among them are some catkins and small serrate leaves that look almost undoubtedly like a Betula. I am fascinated by the layers of knowledge through the exchange of language and daily life in this penpalship that this correspondence developed, particularly in inspiring the curiosity of the natural world spanning continents and significant cultural divides. 

With better investigation, I thought, maybe I could learn more about these mysterious birch “specimens” and I went to reference the Smithsonian collections. With a database of over 4,600 images of specimens flagged as “Siberia” there is a lot of diversity to view: alliums, poppies, geraniums, ferns, grasses, and some elusive Indets. “Siberia” is quite a broad search term (and could have many erroneous flags) and a very large region with different ecosystems spanning much of northern Asia. 

Many Smithsonian researchers have worked and collected in areas of Siberia, but from very different regions within. Notable Smithsonian curator Stanywn Shetler (1933-2017) left among a long list of accomplishments a legacy of research in Russia setting a precedent for building international relationships through scientific endeavors. Known most for his contributions in Arctic North American flora, his interest in Russian language ultimately developed into a career long exploration of Russian flora. Having traveled to Russia and the former Soviet Union multiple times, he made significant contributions to the U.S. - U.S.S.R. Botanical Exchange Program (commencing in 1972 as a bilateral agreement to address mutual environmental concerns to override the terse political relationship of the time) and served as an editor of English translations of Russian floras. His work in Russian botany led him and fellow botanists David Murray and Thomas S. Elias to collect plants in Tuva in the remote Russian Far East (one of the “obscure” places that Nobel physicist Richard Feynman had joked wanting to be the first American to ever visit, but didn’t get permission until after his death in 1988; Shetler, Murray, and Elias visited first in 1983 for fieldwork).

A region that is incredibly biodiverse, Siberia has many facets of scientific interest. It inspires in some a sort of vast mystery, and in others a window into natural history. In the news as of late, geophysicist Sergey Zimov studies arctic geology in the arctic far reaches of Siberia. A founder of the “pleistocene park” he and other researchers are looking at different types of permafrost melt and trying to understand its implications, its role in the release of methane, and steps to slow these rapid changes. As biologically viable life forms both familiar and new (including disease causing bacteria) are literally thawed out and released from the ice, these researchers are discovering more about the history of this ecosystem and developing new perspectives on the “best” ways to recover its responsibility in the carbon cycle. Historically this was a grassland-steppe ecosystem traversed by mammoths that Zimov advocates a return to; that is, a desire to repopulate the area with grasses and herbivores (and perhaps in time even mammoths) as a hypothesized solution to protecting the permafrost and its stores of methane.

Botanists have long been thinking about and studying permafrost melt and using it as a marker of change. Having collected in the Russian Far East as well as far north as Nunavut and the northern slope of Alaska, Smithsonian Research Associate Robert Soreng’s work in grasses has led him too into the arctic ecosystems. As Soreng notes, “we have known about the potential for releasing methane and CO₂ for a long time” igniting a feedback loop of melting and methane emissions. Arctic natural history is a rapidly growing area of study right now as the permafrost quickly loses its permanence, which opens many questions for botany. With the melting of these time-capsules comes an explosion of information and an opportunity to apply knowledge of what has already been studied.

Thinking back to that one piece of tiny, pressed birch branch from 1964 “somewhere” in Siberia unearthed from an envelope in a Silverlake kitchen in Los Angeles; this one “specimen” that somehow relates all these different areas of study and pieces of history, shows how crucial sharing knowledge is in fulfilling our responsibility to understanding and being part of the natural world. Over time this pen pal reveals he has a deep interest in the natural world and works mostly as a farmer growing cucumbers, and while he does not explicitly say why he sent this plant fragment, this specimen represents the capability of scientific curiosity in connecting people. Our shared interest in the natural world connects us all beyond the bounds of time and culture and have us posing the same questions in new contexts. 

As a letter represents a momentary thought in time, so too does a botanical specimen or a layer of microbes and mosses frozen in permafrost represent a biological moment now surrounded by a new context. With the common interests of widening scientific and botanical knowledge and acting as stewards of the planet, we are able to develop new relationships across political boundaries. Science bonds the world at a higher level and has us continuing to ask questions as our world changes.