Graduate student Herendeen proposes a systematic/ biogeographic study of the Eocene legumes of the southeast U.S. Pod and leaflet morphology will form the basis of the study. Description of herbarium material and new collections will be followed by attempts to associate organs to species, and then compare fossil to modern taxa. Eocene representatives from Western U.S. will also be compared. The Eocene is an important time period for the radiation of the legumes, and increasing our understanding of the group at this time would impact on evolutionary studies of this and other related groups. The new data resulting from this study will also increase our ability to reconstruct the climate and environments of the Eocene.
