Snowy days are here at last. Whether they'll stay, who can say, but we're enjoying the change of scenery.
"Do plants feel?” This is one of many questions that Indian scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose posed. Bose, today's featured Google Doodle (11/30/16), did extensive research into measurable physical responses that plants exhibit, even claiming that plants, like humans and other animals, have a pulse. Bose wrote in 1926, "The barriers which have separated kindred phenomena are now thrown down and plants and animals are found to be a multiple unity in a single ocean of being. Our sense of wonder is quickened, not lessened, when we realize our kinship with all that live."
While Bose's research was at times controversial, this essential question of whether (and how) plants feel has remained one that some botanists and other scholars continue to research.
The clipping here comes from the collections of the LuEsther T. Mertz library at NYBG.
Sundown at the Marjorie G. Rosen Seasonal Walk. Have a beautiful weekend, everyone. —MN
Moving our ozukuri (thousand bloom) chrysanthemum is no simple task, but it safely made the trek from our greenhouses to the Haupt Conservatory ahead of its big debut in just over a week. Our Kiku exhibition kicks off Saturday, October 8, and only runs through the 30th, so don't sit idle next month!
We're just seven months away from the April 22, 2017 opening of CHIHULY at NYBG—the first major New York exhibition of the sculptor's works in more than a decade. Learn more about the artist, his inspiring glass creations, and the Garden's nights of light and color planned for this momentous occasion at nybg.org.
This 1925 algae specimen from our Herbarium proves there’s beauty (and sometimes horses) to be found in all plants. –MN
While Rio's Olympic games have come and gone, there's always a race on in the Amazon. Ghillean T. Prance, former Vice President of Science at NYBG, spent a great deal of time in the Amazon documenting its vast world of plant life alongside the Tikuna people, seen here in a photo from his book That Glorious Forest: Exploring the Plants and Their Indigenous Uses in Amazonia.
This week from the stacks of our LuEsther T. Mertz Library, original watercolor drawings from the 1885 copy of Flowers and Ferns of America by Sprague, Faxon, and Emerton; and Rembert Dodoens’ Nievve Herball in its 1578 English translation, demonstrating centuries-old annotations that gave us the word “marginalia.” You can learn more about that from The New Yorker!
For 120 years, NYBG Press—the publishing program of The New York Botanical Garden—has made advancements in the discovery, use, and conservation of plants and fungi available to researchers and enthusiasts the world over. This week we highlight Anemia (Anemiaceae), a book by John T. Mickel that details one of the oldest still-living fern genera going back to Cretaceous times. Learn more about this and other books by NYBG Press here!
For the first time in nearly 80 years, NYBG has a corpse flower on display! Also known as the titan-arum, Amorphophallus titanum last bloomed here in 1939, and our current specimen looks just about ready to unfurl. These unpredictable flowers—some of the largest on earth—have a brief but vivid blooming period of just 24–36 hours, and that's after 10 years of careful tending by our horticulturists.
We expect the plant to live up to its name in the next few days with a vibrant color and fragrance that should make clear why it's called the corpse flower. Head through to learn more and find out the best time to see this botanical spectacle!
Eevees feeling at home in the ferns of the Native Plant Garden. Exeggcutes and Pinsirs causing trouble for joggers and hydrangea-lovers, respectively.
It’s because of your support that NYBG’s good works in science, horticulture, education, and conservation are made possible. That said, today is the last day to see your impact doubled by our generous Board Members and the Urban Oasis Challenge when you make a contribution to the Garden. You can learn more here, and thank you for being a part of our 125-year history! —MN
A little tease of our new, GIFable photo filter launching alongside our latest exhibition, Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas. Stay tuned! —MN
The following passage is an excerpt from The New York Botanical Garden: Revised and Updated Edition by Gregory Long and Todd Forrest.
Not far north of the concrete and steel of Manhattan, there is a living, growing tropical rain forest, a dry cactus-filled desert, a cool and misty cloud forest, and a mercurial landscape that changes from a Renaissance garden to a Japanese autumn garden to a woodland glade full of spring flowers to a village animated by garden scale trains, and into yet other gardens with each change of the seasons. All of these plant worlds are found within one structure: the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
The Conservatory is a grand Victorian-style crystal palace made up of eleven interconnected glasshouse galleries, which are arranged in a symmetrical, rectilinear “C” shape around two elegant pools. The centerpiece is a magnificent glass dome that features a collection of the world’s palms under glass. The other ten glasshouse galleries are arranged in pairs on either side of the Palms of the World Gallery, each one displaying a different natural habitat and offering visitors an environmental tour around the world.
These displays of plant life are set inside one of the most extraordinary historic glass structures in the world. In the early days of the Garden, at the end of the nineteenth century, the founders were inspired to re-create in America the experience of the great glasshouses of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The founding director of the New York Botanical Garden, Nathaniel Lord Britton, and his wife, Elizabeth, who were enthralled with the glass Palm House at Kew, were successful in garnering enough financial support to build such an architectural gem in New York. The preeminent American glasshouse firm of the time, Lord & Burnham, was hired to design the Garden’s own crystal palace. Although Lord & Burnham designed a number of important conservatories during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, none can compare with their glasshouse for the New York Botanical Garden.
At the time of the Conservatory’s completion in 1902, the exotic plants were displayed in a style popular during that era. That is, the individual specimen plants were each grown in pots that were arranged throughout the glass galleries according to botanical relationships, so that closely related plants were displayed next to each other, regardless of their provenance, habitat, or place of origin. The Victorians were excited to view the myriad curiosities of exotic plants and to understand their relationship to one another in a systematic way; they were less concerned with how the plants fit into a larger ecosystem or habitat biology; indeed, the field of ecology did not formally exist at that time. All of the tropical and subtropical plant collections were rare treasures from far-flung parts of the globe.
More than 110 years later, the Conservatory still contains rare treasures, but the shape of the collections has changed dramatically. As part of the significant restoration in 1997, an examination of the plant collections and how they were displayed led to new and exciting ideas about how the mysterious and dramatic world of tropical and subtropical plants could be better brought to life for the education and enjoyment of visitors. The work of exhibition designer Jon Coe, along with Garden staff and other consultants, created a new approach in the exhibition of the plants. Today all Conservatory horticulture, often recognized as the world’s most beautiful, is under the direction of gifted horticulturist Francisca Coelho.
The Conservatory’s eleven glasshouse galleries are now designed to offer an in depth experience of a series of tropical plant habitats and living collections. Diverse natural habitats of tropical rain forests and American and African deserts complement collections of tropical palms, aquatic and climbing plants, and special collections of carnivorous plants and hanging baskets. Two galleries are devoted to changing seasonal exhibitions of horticultural interest. All exhibitions are interpreted with informative signs, audio guides, and publications. This delightful array of educational and ever-changing exhibitions offers visitors, teachers, school groups, specialists, artists, gardeners, and researchers a rich experience of the tropical plant world on every visit to the Conservatory.
For more information on The New York Botanical Garden: Revised and Updated Edition, click here.
Our friends at Abrams have a terrific primer on the history of our landmark glasshouse, the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. ~LM
Source: abramsbooks.com
Poppies in the Nolen Greenhouse, awaiting their debut in our summer exhibition, Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas, opening May 14.