Wayt Thomas, Ph.D., is the Elizabeth G. Britton Curator of Botany in the Institute of Systematic Botany.

Editor’s note: Botanical Garden scientist Dr. Wayt Thomas has been filing reports from the field in northeastern Brazil, where he has studied the flora of the Atlantic coastal forest for 20 years. Read his earlier posts from this trip.

Wednesday, 12 May (Continued): We went back to Serra Grande and had dinner with Daniel; we went to the central plaza in town and had acarajé, a Bahian specialty with African origins, and not for the diet conscious. It is a dumpling made of chickpea meal deep-fried in dendê (African oil palm) oil. After it is fried, it is split open and slathered with a combination of other Bahian specialties, including dried shrimp, salad, vatapá (another dish of African origin made of bread pudding with shrimp, coconut milk, peanuts and cashews), and hot pepper paste.

Thursday, 13 May: Today we started for the town of Jequié, but with a planned detour on the way. Leaving Serra Grande, we headed north toward the beach resort town of Itacaré, and then over the new bridge crossing the Rio de Contas (Pebble River). We turned east toward the Marau Peninsula, an area of intense beachfront development and, consequently, increasingly threatened native vegetation. The sandy savannas near the coast are called restingas and harbor a fascinating array of species, some also found in Brazil’s central highlands, others unique to Marau. In some cases, the restinga sands support forests—these, too, are home to fascinating species such as Griffinia espiritense, a lily with beautiful green-and-pink mottled leaves, or the strange Anthurium bromelicola, a slender vine that grows only out of the center of terrestrial tank bromeliads.

The town of Jequié is at the western edge of the coastal forest, at the boundary between forest and dry thorn scrub known as caatinga (it means “white forest,” which is what it looks like when it has lost its leaves). One of our collaborators, Dr. Guadalupe Macedo, is a professor at the State University of Southern Bahia, in Jequié. We drove the four hours west from Marau to Jequié to meet with her to discuss our joint project. read more »

Scott A. Mori, Ph.D., Nathaniel Lord Britton Curator of Botany, has been studying New World rain forests for The New York Botanical Garden for over 30 years. Over the course of his career, Dr. Mori has witnessed an unrelenting reduction in the extent of the tropical forests he studies.

On August 22, an image showing a small green patch of forest in the midst of a treeless area prepared for soybean cultivation appeared on the front page of The New York Times. The accompanying article explained that the fertile soils underlying forests in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, are suitable for supporting large soybean plantations. As evidence of the magnitude of the forest destruction, the author noted that an increasing demand for Brazilian soybeans led to the conversion of 700 square miles of forest to soybean fields in that state during the last five months of 2007 alone!

The future of plant and animal diversity in Latin American forests depends on an understanding of how fragile the plant/animal interactions of tropical ecosystems are and the role human consumption plays in altering natural ecosystems. The relationships between plants and animals in the tropics are so closely co-evolved that man’s utilization of tropical forests almost always results in some loss of biodiversity. Soybean cultivation is an extreme example, because in this agricultural system soybeans entirely displace the plants and animals that formerly occupied the destroyed forests.

Trees remaining after forest destruction such as the Brazil nut tree above, photographed by W. W. Thomas, do not effectively reproduce. While this tree and others like it may still live for many years, they no longer produce the next generation of trees because the forest conditions needed for the pollination of their flowers, the dispersal of their seeds, and the growth of their seedlings into adult trees no longer exist. read more »

John Mitchell is a Research Fellow with the Institute of Systematic Botany at The New York Botanical Garden, where he also chairs the Library Committee. He studies the cashew family (Anacardiaceae) worldwide.

The cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale), a native of Brazil, is the source of cashew nuts and the cashew apple. Wild cashew trees occur in the savannas and some coastal forests in northern South America, Brazil, and adjacent Bolivia and Paraguay. Portuguese colonists introduced the cashew from Brazil to their colonies in India and Africa in the late 1500s. Today cashew is cultivated throughout the lowland tropics of the world. The majority of people who live in the tropics use the cashew tree primarily for its cashew apple rather than for the seed (which you know as the cashew nut).

The seed is enclosed in a brown to gray fruit, often called the cashew nutshell, which contains a dermatitis-causing poisonous resin. This resin is chemically similar to that found in poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), to which the cashew is closely related; they are both members of the same family (Anacardiaceae) along with other commercial crops, including pistachio, pink peppercorn, and mango.

Cashew nuts are roasted or eaten raw after careful separation from the poisonous shell (fruit); chemicals in the nutshell liquid are extracted to produce adhesives, lubricants, solvents, plastics, and antimicrobials. Brake linings of cars and particleboard are two products partially derived from cashew nutshell chemicals. Cashews are also used to make cashew butter, or as an ingredient in cakes, cookies, and candies. Large-scale commercial cashew production is done in Brazil, tropical Africa, India, and Southeast Asia.

The cashew apple is a pear-shaped juicy structure that subtends the fruit and is actually the swollen flower/fruit stalk (pedicel) called a hypocarp. (Above is a photo of an immature cashew fruit and hypocarp developing on a tree, taken by Susan K. Pell, BBG.) The cashew apple can be candied or its juice fermented to make wine or spirits, or it can be used as an ice cream flavoring. The “apple” attracts dispersers such as fruit bats, coatis (relatives of raccoons), monkeys, lizards, and various fruit-eating birds who discard the poisonous fruit and consume the cashew apple.

My apprenticeship with Garden senior curator Dr. Scott Mori in the early 1980s resulted in the publication of a monograph, The Cashew and Its Relatives (Anacardium: Anacardiaceae), published by NYBG Press. The cashew genus, Anacardium, was originally described by Linnaeus and includes 11 species native to South and Central America.

Please help support important botanical research such as this that is integral to the mission of The New York Botanical Garden.

Scott A. Mori, Ph.D., Nathaniel Lord Britton Curator of Botany, has been studying New World rain forests at The New York Botanical Garden for over 30 years. As part of The Edible Garden, he will hold informal conversations about chocolate, Brazil nuts, and cashews—some of his research topics—during Café Scientifique on August 13.

The chocolate that we eat and drink is one of the most complicated foods utilized by mankind. Not only did it co-evolve in the rain forests of the New World with still unidentified pollinators and with the help of animals that disperse its seeds, but it also undergoes an amazing transformation when it is processed, going from inedible, bitter seeds to the delicious chocolate products that most of us enjoy.

I became fascinated with the natural history and cultivation of chocolate while working for the Cocoa Research Institute in southern Bahia, Brazil, from 1978 to 1980. I directed a program of plant exploration in what was then, botanically, one of the least explored regions of the New World tropics. During those two years, I made 4,500 botanical collections, including many species new to science and many from cocoa plantations.

The scientific name of the chocolate tree is Theobroma cacao L. Theobroma means “food-of-the-gods” in Greek; cacao is derived from the Aztec common name chocolatl; and “L.” is the abbreviation for Linnaeus, the botanist who coined the scientific name of the chocolate tree. The genus Theobroma includes 22 species.

One of the unsolved mysteries of the natural history of chocolate trees is its pollinators. Most varieties of chocolate are self-incompatible, which means that pollination of the flowers of a given plant with pollen from the same plant does not yield fruit. There are, however, some varieties that are self-compatible—the single tree growing in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at NYBG is proof, because it sets fruit. Nevertheless, for most chocolate trees to produce fruit, pollen has to be moved from one tree to the next. This does not happen frequently in plantations, because the average tree produces between just 20 and 40 fruits each year from the thousands of flowers that open on the tree.

Thus, a limiting factor in the production of chocolate is successful pollination, and because this has economic implications there has been considerable research about how to increase the production of chocolate by enhancing pollination. Some researchers believe midges (minute, mosquito-like flies) are the pollinators of chocolate trees. But the complexity and relatively large size of chocolate flowers in comparison to the size of midges indicates that they might be occasional visitors rather than the true or only pollinators of chocolate. read more »

Dr. Wayt Thomas holds a begonia he’s just collected in the montane tropical forest of the Serra Bonita Private Reserve in Bahia, Brazil.

Photo by Rogerio Reis/Black Star

During The Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern, Plant Talk takes a look at some of the research and conservation efforts of The New York Botanical scientists whose work is focused in Brazil. This interview was conducted by Jessica Blohm, Interpretive Specialist for Public Education.

Botanical Garden scientist Dr. Wayt Thomas knows first-hand the importance of his research in Brazil. A planned highway that would have cut through the sensitive Serra Grande Forest in coastal Bahia was diverted thanks, in part, to the identification by him and his Brazilian collaborators of 458 species in an inventory of 2,500 trees—one of the highest forest diversity levels ever recorded.

“Our data about the high diversity of this forest came out while [local officials] were in the planning stage for this highway/road project. The local NGO [non-governmental organization] got our data, and they ran with it,” Wayt says.

The impressive data led officials to change the path of the road from a straight shot through the forest to a park-like road following the contours of the land and avoiding big patches of forest. In addition, a state park was created to protect that section of the forest, one of the world’s most critically endangered rain forests. Less than 5 percent of the original forests in the region remain.

“I can do my science and really have an impact on local conservation,” Wayt says.

He frequently finds species that no one has ever studied before: In Bahia, 7 percent of the tree species his team has found were unnamed. Wayt suspects that the area supports such diversity because three or four different kinds of forest intersect there. “Seeds are going to go where they want to. So you have plants that are from one forest that end up in another type of forest. The populations mix,” he says.

Wayt specializes in research of the sedge family, especially the beaked rushes, and the Tree-of-Heaven family. “In this research, I define species concepts, describe species and genera new to science, and use molecular techniques to understand the evolution of each group,” he says.

He also heads the international Organization for Flora Neotropica, which promotes the preparation of systematic monographs of plants and fungi in the American tropics.

“I have been working in this region for at least 17 years.  There is no end to stuff to do here,” Wayt says.

Batty for Brazil Nuts

During The Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern, Plant Talk takes a look at some of the research and conservation efforts of The New York Botanical scientists whose work is focused in Brazil. This interview was conducted by Jessica Blohm, Interpretive Specialist for Public Education.

Dr. Scott Mori holds the giant, woody fruits of the sapucaia, a species belonging to the Brazil nut family.
Photo by Carol Gracie

“The diversity of Brazil is amazing,” Botanical Garden scientist Dr. Scott Mori says. “I grew up in Wisconsin, where there are 74 different species of trees in the entire state. In Brazil, there can be 300 different species of trees in the area the size of two American football fields. That means that every second tree that you look at is something different.”

Scott, who once met Roberto Burle Marx, the inspiration for this year’s Orchid Show, at a party in Brazil, is helping to preserve the Brazil nut family (Lecythidaceae), which includes the Brazil nut we eat and several hundred other species of magnificent, towering trees. Brazil nut seeds are easy to harvest because they are trapped inside woody, cannonball-like fruits that fall from the tree at maturity. These “packages of seeds” are simply picked from the ground and broken open to yield a harvest of 20 to 30 Brazil nuts per fruit. Brazil nuts are an economically important, non-timber forest product in the Brazilian Amazon.

Over the course of 40 years studying New World rain forests, Scott, the Nathaniel Lord Britton Curator of Botany, has described 51 new species of the Brazil nut family. His research has demonstrated many co-evolutionary relationships among species of the Brazil nut family and different animals, including bats and bees. Understanding these plant-animal interactions is an important part of understanding the plant’s biology and how best to conserve these plants. Scott co-authored Seed Dispersal by Bats in the Neotropics, which will be released in late April by NYBG Press.

“I am a hard-core scientist,” says Scott. “I go out into the field, collect plants, bring the specimens back here, and study the specimens.” This increased understanding of tropical plants, how they function and what they need to survive, often leads to efforts to conserve the rain forest habitats in which they are found.

Scott has shared his expertise on the Brazilian Amazon with Botanical Garden supporters on dozens of ecotours, combining informal natural history instruction with a myriad of other activities such as swimming in the tea-colored waters of the Rio Negro, hiking in the rain forest, fishing for piranha, early morning birding by canoe, and nocturnal trips for alligator spotting. He will lead his next ecotour, Ten Days in Brazil, October 10–21 with Botanical Garden President Gregory Long and James Miller, Ph.D., Dean and Vice President for Science. For additional information contact Brian Boom, Ph.D., Special Assistant to the President, at bboom@nybg.org or 718.817.8708.

To learn more about the Brazil nut family, visit the exhibition Plants and Fungi: Ten Current Research Stories in the Britton Science Rotunda and Gallery or view the online audio/visual presentation. Read Scott’s blog entry about the importance of primary old-growth rain forests to the health of the Brazil nut family and biodiversity in general.

Rustin Dwyer is Visual Media Production Specialist at The New York Botanical Garden.

Raymond Jungles from The New York Botanical Garden on Vimeo.

Vote for Your Favorite Orchid

Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media.

Orchid lovers, rejoice! The Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern opens this weekend and runs through April 12. Visitors will have the chance to escape the winter blues and enjoy the thousands of orchids on display at The New York Botanical Garden.

The orchid is the world’s largest family of flowering plants with more than 30,000 naturally occurring species and tens of thousands of artificially created hybrids. Which is your favorite? Let us know by clicking on the Orchid Poll at right. Do you love the amazing shapes of the Oncidium or Paphiopedilum? Are you captivated by the stunning colors of Vanda orchids? Are you a Cymbidium or Phalaenopsis fan? Or does another species or hybrid capture your fancy? Vote now and let us know.

Brilliantly colored orchids and the lush tropical setting of a contemporary Brazilian garden await you at The Orchid Show, now in its seventh year. Miami-based landscape architect Raymond Jungles has created this contemporary Brazilian garden design, inspired by his mentor, the renowned Roberto Burle Marx. The design features fountains, pools, and colorful mosaics combined with graceful palms, delicate orchids, bromeliads, and other native plants of Brazil. The orchids have been selected by Marc Hachadourian, Manager of the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections at the Botanical Garden and Curator of The Orchid Show, and are featured throughout the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.

Let the orchid mania begin! Get your tickets today.