So, this is a first for us on Plant Talk, but I figure this beaver’s visit to our neck of the river is as good an excuse as any to toss a couple GIFs up on the blog. These animations (along with a few others I’ve got up my sleeve; maybe you can see those later) were pieced together from a series of individual frames snapped by one of several motion-activated critter cams we have monitoring the woodsy areas of the Garden.
These cameras have captured everything from owls to foxes, and now they’re documenting the beavers which have called the Bronx River home for at least the past few years. This is important mainly because Justin and José Beaver (hard to tell which one this is, if either) are the first of their species to be seen in New York City in over two centuries!
We’ll be keeping you up to date with all the beaver news that comes our way, but for now, enjoy our paddle-tailed friend demonstrating his feats of Mighty-Mouse-like strength and generally wandering around. Happy Friday!
Scott A. Mori has been studying New World rain forests for nearly 40 years. He has witnessed an unrelenting reduction in the extent of the forests he studies and, as a result, has become concerned about their future.
From December of 1995 onward, the Institute of Systematic Botany at the NYBG has periodically worked with Michael Rothman to prepare paintings representing the research of our curators. Over the next year, the curators and the paintings that represent their work will be presented in a series of essays on Plant Talk. Today, I introduce the artist and discuss his painting of the understory of a lowland rain forest in French Guiana. I chose this painting to start with because it illustrates the rich biodiversity of lowland tropical rain forest, an area where I have studied plants for many years. If you wish to see rain forest or cloud forest throughout the year without traveling, you can enjoy tropical plants and get out of the cold at the same time by visiting the Garden’s Tropical Paradise exhibition in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
“A Terrestrial View of a Rain Forest in Central French Guiana” by Michael Rothman.
Botanical art and the study of plants are inseparable. In the course of my career, I have relied on Bobbi Angell for the preparation of the line art accompanying my species descriptions of the Brazil nut family, as well as those depicted in the Guide to the Vascular Plants of Central French Guiana, and the Flowering Plants of the Neotropics. In all, Bobbi has prepared a total of 600 illustrations for me.
The engines of the ship start at 5 a.m. and, as promised, we get an early start toward our next site. Also as promised, the seas are relatively calm and the bunk room remains a seasickness free zone. I get up at 7 a.m., but when I get up to the galley it is still dark with sleeping crew (after all, their beds had been occupied by oil-body photographers until midnight) and the bathroom is occupied. I tried waiting on deck, but wind and rain chase me into the threshold of the galley where I stand quietly in the dark awaiting my turn. Since there isn’t much point in being up, I return to bed for a couple of hours until there is more activity.
Last year we had a dedicated cook for the whole trip but this year we are told it will be a team effort among three members of the crew. We are initially somewhat apprehensive, but also know the crew themselves won’t tolerate poorly prepared food. It turns out we have nothing to worry about–the two guys who are primarily responsible for the food have proven to be better even than previous years. We get our first fresh bread for breakfast, which completely eliminates our last reservations about the food.
We reach our destination for the day in the early afternoon. This is our second repeat site chosen to show the new people a really mature southern beech forest. Only Laura and I have visited this forest before; it is special enough to show the others and to explore what might have been missed the first time. Much to our delight, the forest doesn’t disappoint.
Thank you to everyone who tried their hand at shooting some Sense of Place photographs! This category was really tough to judge this week, as there were so many beautiful, imaginative shots. Keep up the great work! We love seeing the Conservatory in new ways.
Think you can do better? Then let’s see it! Entering is easy–simply upload your pictures to Flickr (please limit it to your very best photographs taken inside the Conservatory during Tropical Paradise), add them to our Group Pool, tag them with #tropicalparadise, and then sit back and hope we pick your pix! And don’t think that just because you’re snapping with an iPhone, you can’t take part–all skill and equipment levels are welcome to participate.
Alright, let’s get inspired by this week’s crop of tropical beauty!
Lisa Vargues is a Curatorial Assistant with the NYBG’s Steere Herbarium.
As springtime quietly lingers around the corner, the 85th Academy Awards ceremony also draws near. While we wait for both the red carpet and springtime flowers to unfurl, this is an ideal opportunity to consider some garden-focused movies, as well as the connection between horticulture and film-making.
Have you ever found yourself watching films with a “botanical eye,” ogling the scenery; zeroing in on flowers in the set; or perhaps debating the name of a plant in a fleeting scene? Presumably, many garden enthusiasts have this inclination. Whether we are conscious of it or not, greenery (simple or grand-scale) is frequently an essential ingredient in shaping the atmosphere of film scenes.
Credit for the green on the silver screen often goes to the Greensman (a.k.a. the Greensperson), depending on the production arrangement. Working with the Art Department as a type of set dresser, this is the professional who typically locates, arranges, and maintains the necessary foliage and flowers (real and artificial), as well as other landscaping elements, for film sets. If a large amount of greenery is needed for a film, a greens team is utilized, as in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which included a Greensmaster for its elaborate, naturalistic scenery.
The night ends early and abruptly. Right after 1:30 a.m. we hit a very rough stretch of seas where we have to cross–perpendicular to the wind and waves–a large stretch of open, rough water just south of Cape Froward (the southernmost tip of continental South America). At first the ship is tossed into the air and banged back down into the sea, awakening everyone. Our little ship, a mere 60 × 20 feet, tosses about for hours on end. Anything not tied down or already on the floor is soon there.
Quite reasonably, the crew closes the door to the bunk room so waves won’t slosh down the ladder. However, this makes the room quite warm and increases the prospects of seasickness. And then, just like that, around 4:15 a.m. it all stops; I feel a cool breeze and the seas calm. Most of the group, exhausted from fighting to stay in our bunks and not get sick (some more successfully than others) fall swiftly back to sleep. Unfortunately it is to be a short reprieve.
Ed. note: NYBG scientist and Mary Flagler Cary Curator of Botany, Bill Buck has just returned from his annual expedition to the islands off Cape Horn, the southernmost point in South America, to study mosses and lichens. For the past two years he was able to file stories from the field, but this year’s locations proved so remote he was forced to wait until his return. We will be publishing them over the course of several days.
The waiting is finally over. I arrive here Sunday evening after a grueling 36 hour trip from my home in New York. The trip is always horrible with inevitable long layovers, a 9+ hour international flight, an an additional 4-5 hour flight down to Punta Arenas. It seems somehow unjust after enduring that long flight to then be crammed into an Airbus 320 with scarcely enough leg room for someone significantly shorter than me.
I meet up with Juan Larraín (of previous trips) who is now a post-doctoral student at the Field Museum in Chicago. Juan has already been in Chile for a few weeks to visit his family over the holidays. I hardly recognize him because he has shaved his beard since I saw him last, but he hasn’t shrunk and so is still at least a head taller than most Chileans. I had asked Juan to arrive in Punta Arenas a day earlier than everyone else so he and I could start preparations for this year’s expedition. Additionally, we are welcomed to Punta Arenas by our old friend Ernesto Davis, who also acts as our local facilitator.
Salt damage after coastal storms is not uncommon. Coastal gardeners will notice an appreciable amount of burn on their lawns and their ornamental beds after a storm, damage which will generally be more prominent on the windward side of the garden. Foliage will look desiccated and brown and you will discover that leaf buds have either been killed or are slow to leaf out in the spring.
If salt damage has affected large areas of your garden and plants are wilting, growth is stunted, or buds are slow to break in the spring, then it is worth getting a salinity test for your soil. It is possible that the roots were damaged from increased levels of salt water, or the soil has excess adsorbed sodium which is preventing the plant from taking up nutrients and water.
Last week we discussed how to take a soil sample in your garden, while this week we will focus on gardeners who were affected by Super Storm Sandy. For coastal gardeners who experienced flooding, requesting an extra test for soil salinity measurements will be important–it measures the amount of soluble salts in the soil. There will most likely be an additional charge for this test, but it is usually fairly reasonable, with most laboratories generally performing an Electrical Conductivity (EC) test to determine the amount of soluble salts.
