Thomas Robert Soderstrom Thomas Robert Soderstrom Thomas Robert Soderstrom (9 January 1936 Chicago – 1 September 1987) was an American agrostologist His special field of study was the grass family Gramineae or Poaceae. He was Curator of Grasses at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC for some twenty years. In 1957 Soderstrom graduated from the University of Illinois with a BSc in Biology, and enrolled at the graduate school at Yale University, earning a Master of Science in Biology the following year and a PhD in Botany 1961. He joined the National Museum in 1960 as assistant curator. He became
Orobanche minor nomenclatural problems that have historically been linked with this species. The common broomrape is highly generalist in its host range, and can infect hundreds of species in families from the Ranunculaceae to the Poaceae (=Gramineae) but with a clear preference for the Fabaceae (=Leguminosae) and Asteraceae (=Compositae). However races occurring on different species of host are genetically divergent and physiologically adapted to their local hosts, and may therefore be in a state of incipient speciation. Urgent conservation efforts are required as the survival of some intraspecific taxa is very uncertain. Orobanche minor Orobanche minor, (hellroot, common broomrape, lesser broomrape, small