Mannahatta Author Tells of Uncovering the Natural History of the City
Eric Sanderson, Ph.D., is a landscape ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society. His acclaimed book Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City reconstructs through words and images what the island of Manhattan looked like in 1609 when Henry Hudson arrived. He will discuss his project in a presentation tomorrow, June 6, at 2 p.m. in the Arthur and Janet Ross Lecture Hall at The New York Botanical Garden and lead a walk through the Native Forest en route to viewing the wigwam in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden. This weekend is also the last chance to see the Garden’s spring exhibition The Glory of Dutch Bulbs: A Legacy of 400 Years.
In 1998 I moved to the Bronx from out West, and the following year my wife, Han-Yu Hung, took a job at The New York Botanical Garden, working with kids in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden. Our son was born in 2000 and shortly after that, early every Saturday morning we would drive to the Garden together: my wife to work, my son to dig for worms, and me to wander in the woods. I never thought moving back East that I would find a forest (the 50-acre NYBG Forest) with a river running through it (the Bronx River, the only freshwater river left in the city) in the heart of the Bronx.
During the week I worked as an ecologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, at the Bronx Zoo across the street, but in the evenings and weekends my mind was increasingly turning to what New York was like before it was a city, to a time 400 years ago when the Lenape, the local Native Americans, called Manhattan Mannahatta—or island of many hills—and the Bronx Wanaqua, after the river that ran through it. I spent my time in the library looking at old maps and in the Botanical Garden looking at old trees.
Though I didn’t know it at the time, ultimately the Mannahatta Project would take me nearly a decade to complete and teach me things about nature and the city that I never thought I would know. But in the meantime, I was doing another kind of research right here at the Garden, finding out for myself how the Lenape might have used the natural resources of the area.
Salvia has been seducing gardeners for centuries. Roman scientist and historian Pliny the Elder was the first to use the Latin name Salvia. The name derives from salvare, to heal and save, and salvus, meaning uninjured or whole. But for today’s avid gardeners salvias, or sages as they are commonly known, are not only used for their culinary and medicinal properties but for their vibrant flowers and easy cultivation in almost any climate.
At the Botanical Garden, you can see several species of Salvia by visiting the Perennial Garden, the Rock Garden, and the Home Gardening Center. The Family Garden has planted a number of varieties as well, including one with dark violet flowers, Salvia ‘Indigo Spires’, and bog sage, Salvia ‘Ulginosa’. And, of course, Martha Stewart used plenty of Salvia in her recent redesign of the historic Herb Garden. You can even download a site plan of Martha Stewart’s Culinary Herb Garden, which will be a feature of The Edible Garden celebration this summer.
If you’re inspired to include salvias in your own garden, be it urban or suburban, you’ll find a wide variety of both perennial and annual salvias in Shop in the Garden, from Salvia officinalis, culinary sage, to Salvia nemorosa, perennial meadow sage, and the unusual annual, black-flowered Salvia discolor.
The genus Salvia has arguably the truest blues and brightest reds of any group of plants and their applications are endless—borders, baskets, herb gardens, and patio pots to name a few. There is room in any garden, terrace, or patio for a Salvia or two. They are deer-resistant, relatively drought tolerant, and attractive to hummingbirds and butterflies. What more could a gardener ask?
Earns Certificate to Be Awarded at Weekend Ceremony
Stephan Chenault is Director of Science Development.
This Sunday I will receive my Continuing Education Certificate in Botany. I enrolled in the program soon after joining the Garden’s staff, in August 1998. My decision to study botany was based on a love of nature that dates from my childhood. I still remember my mother taking me on a walk in the woods around Lake George at the age of three and how much I appreciated and was fascinated by acorns, oak leaves, chipmunks, and mushrooms. My goal in pursuing the Botany Certificate was to gain more knowledge of plant life and the natural world so that I would have a key to turn other people on to the natural world.
My past experiences in nature education have been as a counselor and teacher at a camp in New Hampshire. Helping children encounter and enjoy the environment through hikes, nature walks, aquarium- and terrarium-building, gardening, and art has been one of my most rewarding vocations. Later, as a volunteer activist in the Sierra Club, the country’s largest environmental organization, I would participate and help lead hikes with my activist collaborators. Many of these volunteer partners switched careers and became full-time professional environmental leaders, and I, myself, switched careers to take on a position in science fundraising for The New York Botanical Garden.
The knowledge I have gained from being a student in the Continuing Education program has been very helpful to me in understanding the Garden’s scientific programs and describing them to potential donors in the philanthropic community.
New Book by Garden Scientists Identifies Role in Seed Dispersal
Scott A. Mori, Ph.D., Nathaniel Lord Britton Curator of Botany, specializes in the classification, ecology, and evolution of the Brazil nut family and is especially interested in plant/animal interactions in tropical forests, including the pollination and dispersal of seeds by bats, the subject of his new book recently released by NYBG Press. Scott co-authored Seed Dispersal by Bats in the Neotropics with Botanical Garden post-doctoral fellow Tatyana Lobova, Ph.D. (now an Assistant Professor of Biology at Old Dominion University and an Honorary Curator of the Institute of Systematic Botany of NYBG) and student Cullen Geiselman (doctoral candidate in the joint program of the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology of Columbia University and the Institute of Systematic Botany of NYBG).
This yellow-shouldered bat (Sturnira lilium) is carrying a fruit of Solanum rugosum (a member of the tomato family). The bat digests the pulp surrounding the seeds and passes the seeds unharmed through its digestive tract; thus, the bat receives an important source of food from the plant and, in return, provides a service to the plant by dispersing the seeds away from the mother plant. Photo: Merlin Tuttle, Bat Conservation International
One of my roles as a scientist at The New York Botanical Garden is to inform policy makers and the general public about the ways in which plants depend upon animals for their survival, because conservation programs that fail to take the co-evolutionary relationships between plants and animals into account are doomed to failure. That, in part, was the purpose for writing Seed Dispersal by Bats in the Neotropics, in which my co-authors and I demonstrate the vital role bats play in maintaining the diversity of plants in New World tropical forests.
Bats are especially important as pollinators of flowers and dispersers of seeds, and this has become increasingly apparent as more and more bat/plant studies are published. In the book we review the role bats play as seed dispersers for the first time since A.L. Gardner’s classic paper on the topic in 1977. We present a literature review of all plants known to be dispersed by bats and all species of bats known to disperse seeds. We also present a summary of our intensive field studies of bat seed dispersal in central French Guiana. Our sampling expeditions took us to disturbed rain forest habitats as well as to some of the most pristine rain forests in the world.
Doctoral candidate Cullen Geiselman carefully untangles a bat from a mist net used for capturing specimens for identification and study. Photo: Patrick Chatelet
For over five years, we reviewed the literature on Neotropical bat/plant interactions and carried out field trips to French Guiana. Our basic research technique was to capture bats in the same kind of mist nets normally used to catch birds (see photo), hold the bats in numbered cloth bags until they defecated, and then identify the seeds found in the bags by comparing them to seeds represented in herbarium collections. We would look at the specimens of plants we had collected on the same expeditions that we were netting bats (we netted bats at night and collected plants during the day) and would also use the descriptions and images of seeds we found in the reviewed literature to help us identify the seeds we found in the bats’ feces. Our book includes 32 color plates of seeds that we demonstrated to be dispersed by bats, and this will be useful to help other researchers identify fruits and seeds regardless of where in the Neotropics they are carrying out their studies.
Debbie Becker leads a free bird walk at the Garden every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., beginning at the Reflecting Pool in the Leon Levy Visitor Center. The last one for the season will be June 27.
Three fuzzy heads can be seen bobbing up and down in the red-tailed hawk nest. Just like Central Park’s Pale Male and Lola, our red-tails have made a neat little “cliffside” home at the top of a structure—in this case the Library building. It is interesting to watch mom and pop fly in with food to feed the babies. The hawks’ diet consists mainly of small mammals (such as squirrels and chipmunks) and birds, keeping the balance of nature in check. The female red-tail seems to find mockingbirds a special treat and has resorted to robbing mockingbird nests. Recently, we saw the red-tail perched atop the Watson Building with a baby mockingbird in her talons and mother mocker desperately trying to get mother hawk to free her prey. The mocker aggressively attacked the hawk, but in the end the hawk had a meal for her babies and the mocker went home to an empty nest. It is the circle of life.
While searching for warblers in the Forest we were treated to a very rare sight at this time of year: Our well-hidden female great horned owl flew from her perch followed by her fledgling. We were able to follow the mature owl to a new perch but lost the young owl in the leaves. As we watched the mom settle in, she kept looking around for her baby. Suddenly she looked forward and began to hoot. Then she turned her head right and hooted and then left and hooted. I guess she heard the young owl reply, because she closed her eyes and seemingly went to sleep.
As the warbler numbers begin to dwindle, the birds having moved on to northern climes, we are grateful for another wonderful migration. Most of us were treated to the sightings of warblers such as black-throated blue, black-throated green, northern parula, Tennessee, chestnut-sided, bay-breasted, American redstart, common yellowthroat, yellow, prothonotary, and ovenbird. We also had warbling, red-eyed, and blue-headed vireos and a long list of other spectacular birds: Baltimore oriole, scarlet tanager, rose-breasted grosbeak, wood thrush, veery, hermit thrush, gray catbird, brown creeper, house wren, rough-winged swallow, bank swallow, tree swallow, chimney swift, eastern kingbird, great blue heron, great egret, night-heron, green heron (in full breeding plumage, see above photo, courtesy Debbie Becker), cormorant, wood duck (adults with 11 babies), mallard (adults with 12 babies) indigo bunting, cedar waxwing, savannah sparrow, ruby-throated hummingbird, eastern towhee, and northern flicker.
The first time I spoke with Ellen Conrad it was a long phone call. Not in a bad way—there was just a lot to say.
Ellen is the President of the Bedford Garden Club in Westchester County. She called looking for ways to provide high-quality educational content for her club members. With over 500 different courses offered for adults, I assured her that The New York Botanical Garden was certainly a good place to start. I explained that our 300-plus instructors included many of the Garden’s own staff—the world-class horticulturists who bring to life the stunning exhibitions and who care for the collections—in addition to a wide range of professional nurserymen and women, landscape designers, arborists, gardening authors, and others. All have both the knowledge of plant care and the ability to convey these skills in a classroom/workshop environment.
“But that’s just background!” I said. I was getting warmed up.
The Garden had never before customized a curriculum for a Garden Club (at least not in the 10 years I’ve been here), but for some time I had been contemplating the feasibility of such an arrangement. With the array of educational content, instructors, facilities, and resources available, the Garden could ostensibly design a customized curriculum to meet a group’s specific needs, schedule the classes around the group’s availability, and deliver a one-of-a-kind educational experience. All the Bedford Garden Club would need to do is get at least 15 of its members to enroll in the class—“to make it worth the investment of time to develop and schedule a specialized program like this,” I explained. “If you give me 15 students, I can teach you whatever you want. I mean, I could teach you Latin…OK, Botanical Latin, but you get the idea.”
“Wow!” Ellen exclaimed. Now she was as excited as I was. From there the conversation exploded into a dizzying back-and-forth of scheduling concepts, programming ideas, and possible follow-up opportunities down the road if the first course went well.
That was almost a year ago. Since then, the Garden has worked closely with the Bedford Garden Club to devise a tailored curriculum around essential horticulture principles within a schedule that accommodated their needs. Todd Forrest, the Garden’s Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections, arranged a number of unique Curator-led workshops and special behind-the-scenes tours of Garden exhibitions, including The Orchid Show. When the eight-session course was offered last fall and winter, more than 20 club members participated and were enthusiastic about the results.
I saw Ellen Conrad a few weeks ago. I asked her whether the participants had any further thoughts now that they’ve had time to digest and reflect on the experience. “Sure,” she replied. “What’s next?”
To learn more about tailoring a curriculum for your garden club or interested group, contact Duncan Himmelman at 718.817.8741 or dhimmelman@nybg.org.
Brian M. Boom, Ph.D., is Special Assistant to the President and Director of the Caribbean Biodiversity Program at the Garden.
I have been around The New York Botanical Garden and involved in its scientific enterprise in one way or another for nearly three decades. Until now there has never been a publication as comprehensive as the one released last month that provides an overview of how the Botanical Garden’s scientific mission is realized. Scientific Research at The New York Botanical Garden features beautiful full-color photographs of work conducted both in the field and laboratory with informative text about current projects and facilities. It can currently be downloaded online.
Following the Preface by the Chairmen of the Garden’s Botanical Science Committee, Edward P. Bass and George M. Milne, Jr., Ph.D., and Introduction by James S. Miller, Ph.D., Dean and Vice President for Science, the book is organized as Research Facilities and Collections; Research Programs and Projects; Faculty Research Profiles; Results Shared with the World; and Training, Science Education, and Collaboration, including lists of selected research grants and faculty publications.
One of the best ways to get to the heart of the Garden’s scientific activities is to browse through the research profiles of the 32 Ph.D. faculty members who comprise the core of the Garden’s scientific staff and who are assisted in their programs and projects by postdoctoral researchers and doctoral students. The team is further enhanced by Honorary Curators and Research Fellows and hundreds of additional local, national, and international collaborators.
Readers will learn about the state-of-the-art research and collections facilities located on a 23-acre science campus within the Garden’s 250-acre landmark grounds as well as in far-flung field locations around the world. Research results, many serving to inform plant conservation and sustainable development policies, are regularly disseminated through books and journals of The New York Botanical Garden Press and increasingly via electronic catalogs and publications available from our C.V. Starr Virtual Herbarium.
For those who want to discover even more, consider attending special lectures and symposia offered by the Garden, signing up for a Continuing Education class, or participating in the ecotour Ten Days in Brazil (October 10–21, 2009). Readers inspired to support the Garden’s scientific activities by volunteering and/or making a donation can learn how by clicking here.
Explore, Plant, Scavenge, and Create a Field Journal
Andrew Haight is Manager of the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden.
Many bright ideas were brought to the table when the Children’s Adventure Garden staff first discussed programming for the spring bulb show, The Glory of Dutch Bulbs. Several exciting suggestions emerged from this creative conversation, which gave life to Bulbs Unearthed.
The Everett Children’s Adventure Garden always tries to find new ways for young children and their families to explore nature and plants through their five senses. As a result, the Bulbs Unearthed program provides the youngest learners with a tactile, interactive experience.
Facilitated by members of the Intern Explainer program for teenagers, visitors to the Adventure Garden learn how bulbs are neatly packaged containers of plant parts. When given the right conditions, they will grow into next year’s plants and will flower. After taking a close look at these parts inside the bulb, children can plant their own bulb in a biodegradable pot to take home. Children can also make a field notebook and go on a scavenger hunt around the Adventure Garden to search for signs of bulbs. Then they can complete the activities by making a paper iris flower.
Beyond bulbs, the Adventure Garden is home to many exciting spring awakenings. Sit outside on the benches and watch the robins nesting in the eaves of the Discovery Center or rest beneath the shade of the Pond Pavilion while mallards graze for duckweed or marvel at the caterpillar, ladybug, and frog topiaries. Come and enjoy all of these exciting opportunities with us.
Richard Fleisher is a professor of Political Science at Fordham University. He has been keeping watch at the red-tailed hawk nest at The New York Botanical Garden and chronicling the activity of the nestlings. Additional photos of the red-tailed hawks can be seen on his Web site.
For the past four years I have watched and photographed two red-tailed hawks nest, hatch, nurture, and successfully fledge 11 young red-tails at Fordham University. The pair were named “Hawkeye” after Fordham alum Alan Alda’s character in M*A*S*H and “Rose” for Rose Hill, the Bronx campus of the University. Hawkeye is lighter in color than Rose, who has a distinctive band on her right leg. I had grown accustomed to watching this pair each spring as they fortified the nest on Collins Hall in preparation of another breeding cycle. In April the eggs would hatch, and soon young hawks that looked like little cotton balls would be visible through my scope. Very quickly these hatchlings (usually three) would get bigger, and by June they would be seen fledging (leaving the nest).
This spring, however, was different—there were no signs of the adult pair engaging in this practice. For sure, in early winter I would see them perched atop some of their favorite high spots on the campus. But when February became March and there continued to be no activity, I figured something was up. Sure enough, I got word that a pair of red-tails was nesting on the Library building at the Botanical Garden. I gathered my equipment, including my scope, cameras, 500mm lens, and tripod, to investigate the report of this new nest.
Though I cannot be sure, I am fairly confident that the pair of red-tails in the Botanical Garden is the same pair that spent the past four years on the Fordham campus. The similarities between the two nests are quite striking—both were built on a pediment of a frequently used building. In addition, it strikes me as too much of a coincidence that the same year the Fordham nest was abandoned a new nest was built by red-tailed hawks at NYBG. Finally, I got a close-up photo of the female and can see that she has a band on her right leg. (For more on the debate about whether the pair is Hawkeye and Rose, click here.)
As was the case in previous years, the pair produced three increasingly active hatchlings, which are now visible in the nest.
To learn more about the Botanical Garden red-tailed hawk nestlings…
Douglas Daly, Ph.D., is Director of the Institute of Systematic Botany and B.A. Krukoff Curator of Amazonian Botany. He is the co-author, along with Beth Ellis, Leo Hickey, Kirk Johnson, John Mitchell, Peer Wilf, and Scott Wing, of the newly released Manual of Leaf Architecture, published by NYBG Press. In this blog entry, Doug describes the invaluable information the book provides.
Often we can distinguish two unrelated plants just from their leaves, even if the leaves are similar in size and shape, but how do we pinpoint those differences and put them into words? Similarly, foresters in the tropics need to be able to distinguish valuable timber trees from closely related tree species that may be endangered or have poor quality wood, but what characteristics can they use to detect those species? Other scientists who study the plants of the distant past need to be able not only to separate leaf fossils but also to quantify how many of the same species are found at a given site; how can they do that consistently?
Until now, plant classification and identification have relied heavily on flowers and fruits, but these structures are not present most of the year. Moreover, fossil leaves are almost never found together with reproductive parts. Leaves display a wealth of characteristics that can be diagnostic at the level of genus or even species, but there wasn’t a logically ranked system that defined, described, and illustrated these characteristics. My co-authors and I wrote the Manual of Leaf Architecture precisely to provide an exhaustive, comprehensively illustrated reference for thoroughly describing the leaves of flowering plants, especially their vein patterns.
In our reasearch and writing we were able to draw fundamental conclusions about the evolution, ecology, diversity, and management of ecosystems and plant resources, based on identifications and characterizations that in turn are based on leaves. This reference puts all that work on a more secure footing.
Editor’s note: Manual of Leaf Architecture is receiving rave reviews. Lawren Sack of UCLA considers it a major contribution that will “revolutionize the study of leaves” and says it is “analogous to the first manual on human anatomy.” Sir Peter Crane of the University of Chicago calls it “indispensable” for researchers.
In 1998 I moved to the Bronx from out West, and the following year my wife, Han-Yu Hung, took a job at The New York Botanical Garden, working with kids in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden. Our son was born in 2000 and shortly after that, early every Saturday morning we would drive to the Garden together: my wife to work, my son to dig for worms, and me to wander in the woods. I never thought moving back East that I would find a forest (the 50-acre NYBG Forest) with a river running through it (the Bronx River, the only freshwater river left in the city) in the heart of the Bronx.
