Plant Systematics World

TAXON 63 (4) August 2014: 957958

PLANT SYSTEMATICS WORLD

Edited by Vicki Funk

member of academies of history of Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, San Salvador and Chile, and many other institutions
of this kind. He was also active in the Real Academia Espaola de
Lengua and a corresponding member of the Academia Espaola
de Ciencias Exactas, Fsicas y Naturales. Daz Piedrahita served
Professor Santiago Daz Piedrahita, long known as the Colomas secretary (19841989) of the Academia Colombiana de Ciencias
bian expert on Compositae (synantherologist), passed away unexExactas, Fsicas y Naturales in Bogot (with seat number 22), and
later as director of its journal (19882006).
pectedly on 4 March 2014, just before his 70th birthday. A few
days before, on 23 February, he had collapsed in his car on his
Daz Piedrahita wrote 27 books, 26 book chapters, 51 scientific
way to the Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Fsicas y
papers, and 71 papers in social sciences (mainly in history and literature; see Electronic Supplement to the online version of this article
Naturales, in Bogot.
Prof. Daz Piedrahitas first love in the Compositae family
for a complete list of publications; http://www.ingentaconnect.com/
(Asteraceae) was the Espeletiinae, the impressive stem-rosettes of
content/iapt/tax). He produced treatments and detailed studies for
legumes and various tribes of Compositae: Barnadesieae, Mutthe pramos, and Espeletia oswaldiana S.Daz (1970) was his first
described species. The species name was dedicated to his father
isieae, Astereae, Senecioneae, Lactuceae, Inuleae, Anthemideae,
Oswaldo Daz Daz, a devoted historian and writer. In February
Tageteae, Liabeae, Eupatorieae and Heliantheae. In the context
1972 the first author collected an unknown Espeletia in the southof historical botany, Daz Piedrahita edited four volumes of the
ern Pramo de Guantiva, on a ridge West of Beln, Boyac, which
Flora de la Real Expedicin, and he was author of books on Mutis,
Daz Piedrahita later published as Espeletia brachyaxiantha S.Daz
Caldas and Triana, just to mention a few. In the course of his studies he described at least 104 species (for a complete list see Elec(1972). A long list of new species of Espeletiinae would follow
until 2010, when he published his last one, Espeletiopsis laxiflora
tronic Supplement, http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iapt/
S.Daz & Rodrguez-Cabeza. Recently a new species of frailejn
tax), mainly in Compositae, and eight taxa have been named in his
honor: Aragoa diazii Fern.Alonso; Berberis diazii L.A.Camargo;
was named after him: Espeletiopsis diazii M.Diazgranados &
R.L.Snchez (2013).
Critoniopsis diazii H.Rob.; Gunnera diazii L.E.Mora; Heliopsis
Don Jos Cuatrecasas (19031996), the father of the Espelanceolata var. diazii R.K.Jansen & Stuessy; Pseudosarcopera
letiinae studies, actively worked on a monograph of the group (pubdiaz-piedrahitae (Gir.-Caas) Gir.-Caas; Espeletiopsis diazii
lished posthumously in 2013) for most of his academic life, and Daz
Diazgr. & Snchez; and Schwartzia diaz-piedrahitae Gir.-Caas.
During his career he received many honors and awards (e.g.,
Piedrahita was considered by some to be the successor of Cuatrecasas.
Daz Piedrahita and Cuatrecasas met in 1970 in Bogota and they comfrom the Universidad Nacional de Colombia; from the Asociacin
bined their interests to produce a
Colombiana para el Avance de
treatment for Pentacalia and Denla Ciencia in 2003; and from the
drophorbium (published posthuAcademia Colombiana de Cienmously in 1999). In addition, Daz
cias Ex., Fs. y Nat., the Premio a
Piedrahita published 32 names for
la Obra integral de un Cientfico in
2008). His most important award
Pentacalia.
However, the talents of Daz
was the Premio Iberoamericano
Piedrahita were not limited to his
de Botnica Jos Celestino Mutis,
work in botany. He was president
received in March 2012 in Cdiz,
of the Academia Colombiana de
Spain. The citation for this award
Historia and a member of a large
referenced Daz Piedrahitas
number of regional academies of
exceptional botanical, cultural,
history in Colombia, as well as
linguistic and historical conthose of a number of cities such as
tributions. Indeed, he has been
Bogota, Mariquita, Cartagena and Santiago Daz Piedrahita with Espeletiopsis corymbosa (Humb. & Bonpl.) commemorated by Colombian
Mompox. He was a corresponding
journals as a successor of Mutis.
Cuatrec., in 1979. (Photograph by V.Funk).

SANTIAGO DAZ PIEDRAHITA (19442014),

COLOMBIAN SYNANTHEROLOGIST AND
HISTORIAN

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Plant Systematics World

TAXON 63 (4) August 2014: 957958

Colombia has lost an impressive botanist and historian, one

who made substantial contributions to science and culture and we
have lost a valued colleague and friend.
Personal impressions
Antoine: Santiago Daz Piedrahita was a good friend who was
always ready to serve the scientific community. After his retirement
from the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, where he was a Professor, as well as spending some years as acting Director and Dean
of the Faculty, he dedicated himself to new goals and continued
his work. I met him in Bogot in November 1971, at the Instituto
and I went with him several times to the pramo, and shared many
adventures. I remember one expedition when he and his team were
arrested after one month of fieldwork in Sumapaz without a shower,
and with dirty clothes and boots and unshaved faces. From the
very beginning Daz Piedrahita was very friendly, muy cordial,
and a gifted Compositae botanist. He was dedicated and persistent
in his taxonomic work and historical research. At the time of his
death Diaz Piedrahita and his wife, Clemencia Manrique, were
planning a trip to Europe (Cologne, Berlin, Italy and Spain) for
his 70th birthday on 18 July and I was planning on meeting them
at that time. Over the years our friendship never ended and I was
looking forward to seeing him again.
Mauricio: It was 2005 and I was getting ready to start my
Ph.D. thesis working on the Espeletiinae. I tried to contact Prof.
Daz Piedrahita but his secretary at the Academia Nacional de
Historia told me that he had a pretty busy agenda with committees
and meetings. I said please tell him that I need to talk to him about
my future dissertation on Espeletiinae. Seconds later he was on
the phone, and the same evening we met at his office. In a matter

Santiago Diaz Piedrahita (left) and Antoine Cleef (23 November 2007).
(Photograph by C.Manrique)

of minutes he was giving me all sort of tricks about the morphology of the group, something that he acquired after long years of
work on the Compositae. At that point we began a fruitful relationship that was the beginning of a very long collaboration. In 2013
Roberto Snchez and I dedicated a species of Espeletiinae to him
and when we described Espeletiopsis diazii, a beautiful and very
unusual species. The news about his death came so unexpectedly
that it was hard to believe. For all of us that had
the honour to work with and learn from him, it is
going to be difficult to continue working on the
Compositae without him.
Vicki: When I was a graduate student I met
Santiago at the herbarium (COL). He introduced
me to fieldwork in Colombia and to many colleagues and friends. He was extremely helpful
even accompanying us into the field on the first
day of collecting. Since then our paths crossed
many times under different circumstances (field
work, teaching, herbarium visits) and he was
always the same: gracious, helpful, and generous. I cant imagine Colombian botany without
him and I know the Compositae have lost their
Colombian champion.

Antoine M.Cleef,1 Mauricio Diazgranados2,3

& Vicki A.Funk2
1 Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Science
Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam
2 Department of Botany, National Museum
of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, U.S.A
Santiago Diaz Piedrahita (2nd from the right) and colleagues, during the First Workshop on
Colombian Compositae (10 August 2011). Vicki Funk and Mauricio Diazgranados (both with red 3 Jardn Botnico Jos Celestino Mutis,
Bogot, DC 111071, Colombia
jackets) organized the workshop. (Photograph by M.Diazgranados)
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Plant Systematics World

TAXON 63 (4) August 2014: 959

WORLD FLORA ONLINE COUNCIL MET IN

ST. PETERSBURG
The World Flora Online (WFO) is being coordinated by a consortium of botanical organizations (managed by a council of botanists and IT experts) under the auspices of the Global Partnership for
Plant Conservation (GPPC), as a response to Target 1 of the Global
Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC). A total of 194 countries
are signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity which,
through the GSPC, calls for the achievement of 16 targets by 2020.
Target 1, An Online Flora of all known plants, will summarize
information on the ca. 400,000 known species of vascular plants
and bryophytesinformation that is currently scattered in a wide
variety of floristic and monographic works, both printed legacy
publications and online digital resources.
The WFO project is organized and coordinated by the WFO
Council, which formed at a WFO workshop held at the Missouri
Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., on 1718 July 2012.
The first meeting of the WFO Council was held at the Royal Botanic
Garden, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 1415 November 2013. The most
recent, second meeting of the WFO Council, was held at the Komarov Botanical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, on 2627 June 2014.
The WFO Council currently comprises 22 member institutions or
projects that have signed the Memorandum of Understanding and
committed to the goals of the WFO: the MoU is available on the
WFO website at: http://www.plants2020.net/wfo_mou/. Membership of the WFO Council remains open and signature of the MoU is
expected for those institutions that wish to participate on the Council, but neither membership nor signature of the MoU is required for
institutions or individuals to contribute content to the WFO.
It is anticipated that assembly of content and review of the classification used for the WFO will be a combined effort of compiling
published materials via protocols established by the WFO Technical

Working Group, as well as by working networks for all plant orders

being coordinated by the WFO Taxonomic Working Group. Instructions for Contributors, which will lay out and describe the format for
information that will be presented for each taxon, will be available
on the WFO website in the near future at: http://www.worldflora
online.org. Data presented in the WFO will be fully and clearly
attributed to the providers.
The WFO traces its roots to earlier efforts to meet the goals
of the first phase of the GSPC from 2002 to 2010, with its original
Target 1 of A widely accessible working list of known plant species,
as a step towards a complete world Flora. This was addressed by
publication of version 1.0 of The Plant List, a cooperative efforts
of ten institutions to compile a working list of all plant species:
http://www.theplantlist.org. Version 1.1 of The Plant List was
published in September 2013, incorporating many revisions. These
efforts will help to serve as the basis for a classification backbone
for the WFO.Data ingestion of published Floras and monographs
is underway at multiple sites, and more than one hundred thousand
descriptions have now been ingested. Several families have been
completed or nearly so in prototype format.
Both working groups are continuing to develop informative
materials and these will soon be posted on the World Flora Online
website at: http://www.plants2020.net/world_flora/. The next meeting of the WFO Council will be held in early 2015 in Geneva, Switzerland.
James S.Miller,1 William Wayt Thomas,2 Mark Watson,3
David Simpson4 & Peter Wyse Jackson1
1 Missouri Botanical Garden
2 New York Botanical Garden
3 Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh
4 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Author for correspondence: J.S. Miller, james.miller@mobot.org
Participants of the World Flora Online
Council Meeting, St. Petersburg, Russia,
2627 June 2014: Top Row, Mikhail
Ignatov, MHA; Chuck Miller, MO;
Thomas Borsch, B; Melissa Tulig,
NY; Alan Paton, K; Paul Wilkin, K.
Second Row, Haining Qin, PE; Thomas
Haevermans, P; Eduardo Dalcin, RB;
Nicky Nicolson, K; William Wayt
Thomas, NY; Katherine Willis, K;
Marianne LeRoux, PRE; Roman Ufimov,
LE. Third Row, Walter Berendsohn, B;
Karol Marhold, SAV; Dmitry Geltman,
LE; James S. Miller, MO. Front Row,
Peter Wyse Jackson, MO; Visotheary
Rivire-Ung, P; Mark Watson, E; PierreAndr Loizeau, G.

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