Adventures in Adaptations

Posted in Around the Garden, Exhibitions on January 26 2012, by Matt Newman

At the core of botany is a rampant love of adventure. It’s traipsing through the back yard in search of four-leaf clovers as much as it’s hiking through a cloud forest on the trail of a rare epiphyte. It’s about climbing trees, whistling through blades of grass, and chasing the satisfaction of discovery. The need to uncover new things begins early. And if, as Carl Sagan once said, “every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist,” there’s no better team to enlist in our search for Dr. Ed!

That’s Dr. Ed Apshon to be precise. The good professor travels the globe in his quest to uncover the many unique adaptations the plant world employs to survive in all manner of climates and conditions. But he’s occasionally a little hard to keep up with. For this year’s Caribbean Garden, we’ll need the sharp eyes of a younger crowd to help us find him.

Running now through February 26 in our century-old glasshouse, Adventures in Adaptations challenges young visitors to put on their thinking caps and puzzle out the whereabouts and traits of strange trees, hardy flowering plants, and even the very Doctor himself. Where has he been, and where is he going next? Kids will each spend about an hour exploring the Conservatory with field notebook at the ready and pencil in hand, decrypting Dr. Ed’s riddles on a scavenger hunt through our many living habitats. But the Conservatory is only one part of the equation.

Deciphering the notebook’s mysteries means traveling to the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden nearby. Along the way, native pines and deciduous trees will need the young scientists’ identification. Finishing the trek means stepping into the Discovery Center to pot their very own plants (we weren’t about to leave them with nothing more than the reward of completion, satisfying as it is).

So encourage exploration! It’s part of keeping a young mind sharp. When you come for our Caribbean Garden, don’t forget to outfit your tagalongs with a field notebook from the ticket booth; you’ll need a cell phone with text messaging ability as well for checking answers as your kids work out each puzzle. And when the day is done, they can pick up where they left off by logging in to Plant Hunters at home, a challenge of discovery featuring more than 60 other Conservatory specimens.

Adventures in Adaptations is just one facet of the Caribbean Garden, our mid-winter exhibition designed to let you escape the frigid city for a moment and step into tropical warmth. Visit the NYBG from now until February 26 for salsa dancing, photography mini-workshops, and the kind of climate that makes the islands such a daydream this time of year. Don’t forget to pick up tickets, either at the gate or online.