Jaime Morin is The New York Botanical Garden’s Assistant Curator in horticulture. She works with the plant records and curation teams to help keep the garden’s information on its living collections up to date. She also oversees the details of the garden’s Living Collections Phenology Project.
Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica) – ripe fruit
Since its creation, the New York Botanical Garden has been a local haunt for scientists studying the phenology (the seasonally changing biological processes) of plants. More recently, the institution has invited the public to study these important seasonal markers as well through two citizen science programs.
In early 2001 the garden began a program that creates the opportunity for novice citizen scientists to collect data on the life cycle changes of plants in the Forest. Dedicated groups of volunteers traverse three different trails on a weekly basis, checking on 17 different kinds of forest plants to record their major seasonal benchmarks such as leaf emergence, flowering, and fruiting.
Starting in 2009, the Garden began to offer Citizen Science Professional Development for middle school teachers, focusing mostly on the native trees in the Forest. In turn, these teachers help their students conduct phenology research projects around their school at local parks, and on the Garden grounds. Over the years, with the support of the NYC Department of Education, the NYBG Professional Development Program has expanded its citizen offerings to K-12 teachers throughout the city.
Ed. note: Sandy Wolkenberg is a Citizen Scientist who has been working in the Thain Family Forest for three and a half years. Over the course of a week on Plant Talk, Sandy will share a five-part series of posts on The New York Botanical Garden’s Citizen Scientist Tree Phenology Program. If Sandy’s experiences motivate you to want to know more about becoming a Citizen Scientist, check out the Garden’s Volunteer Program page.
Now, imagine that it is early to mid-March, the beginning of the spring season. Citizen Scientists excitedly descend upon the Thain Family Forest! We scan the designated trees looking for “emerging leaves.” Protocols describe ”emerging leaves” as follows: ”In at least 3 locations on the plant, an emerging leaf is visible. A leaf is considered emerging once the green tip is visible at the end of the leaf bud, but before it has fully unfolded to expose the leaf stalk (petiole) or leaf base.”
By Kristine Paulus, Plant Records Manager; Deanna F. Curtis, Senior Curator of Woody Plants and Landscape Project Manager; and Todd Forrest, Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections.
Daylily/Daffodil Walk
NYBG’s 250-acre National Historic Landmark landscape and two glasshouses feature 50 gardens and collections that comprise more than one million plants. Well-maintained and displayed collections show the diversity of the plant kingdom and enrich the experience of all who see them. Beautiful displays make visitors stop and examine plants more closely and learn more from their experience, thus fulfilling NYBG’s mission. More than 90% of the plant collections are accessible to visitors every day the Garden is open. All of the plants in the collections are available for research purposes as needed by members of NYBG’s Science Division staff.
Collections are displayed in many ways. They may be incorporated into the landscape, as are the conifers in the Benenson Ornamental Conifers, featured within dedicated gardens, such as the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, presented in organized beds, such as Daylily/Daffodil Walk, or combined in educationally themed and interpreted displays, as in the Upland Tropical Rain Forest Gallery of the Haupt Conservatory. Additionally, collections are displayed in themed exhibitions, such as the annual Orchid Show.
Enjoying the Garden’s magnificent Magnolia stellata are the Symposium’s five speakers (left to right): Sara Tjossem, Carrie Seltzer, Jessica Schuler, Kerissa Battle, and Majora Carter.
On Friday, April 12, 2019, the Humanities Institute, in collaboration with NYBG’s Horticulture and Living Collections and the Center for Conservation Strategy, presented the symposium Nature at Your Doorstep, celebrating the public participant in nature research. The symposium, featuring five energetic experts, officially opened National Citizen Science Day at The New York Botanical Garden, with programs and garden-wide activities extending throughout the weekend.
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction is a book from popular science writer Mary Ellen Hannibal on the topic of citizen science.
Citizen science is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur (or nonprofessional) scientists. Citizen science projects can include all manner of tasks and objectives, and many popular projects involve non-scientists making reports about organisms they have observed, such as bloom times, or phenology, of various plants. Still other projects involve virtual volunteering, such as transcribing specimen label data of herbarium sheets (or other specimens) that have been digitized and made available online.
In her book, Hannibal writes about her experiences working as a citizen scientist on various projects, mostly involving the observation of animals under the direction of trained professional scientists. It is clear that Hannibal enjoys the English language, and this memoir of sorts is littered with references to literary works, historical figures, and poetry-like observations of the natural world. It’s not really a science book at all, although Hannibal does write in praise of the natural world.
Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Visitor Services Attendant and avid wildlife photographer.
Since 2010, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know some of our citizen scientist volunteers. From time to time, I get to join them during their phenology walks in the Thain Family Forest. While they conduct their tree studies, I keep an eye out for owls, hawks, raccoons, and other wildlife that call the forest their home. On a recent phenology adventure, I got to photograph one of the Garden’s more elusive inhabitants: the Eastern red-backed salamander. Thanks to our intrepid Forest Manager, Jessica Schuler, I enjoyed a wonderful close-up encounter.
Ecological restoration, or “the process of assisting in the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed” (SER, 2004), is what the Forest staff, interns, and volunteers do in the Thain Family Forest every day to reduce invasive plants and increase native plant regeneration in managed areas through planting.
We start with an inventory that samples nearly 250 plots that are 10 meters by 10 meters squared. The sampling involves measuring all trees and shrubs, living or dead, with one centimeter or greater diameter at breast height (DBH) and collecting percent cover information for all herbaceous plants, woody plant seedlings and saplings, and non-living components such as leaf litter, coarse woody debris, and bare soil. This inventory is repeated every five years and provides a picture of forest change overtime that allows us to prioritize management and guide the restoration process: inventory, establish priorities, manage invasive species, restore native species, and repeat. The Forest staff last carried out an inventory in 2011 and will be repeating this process in the summer of 2016.
Todd Forrest is the NYBG’s Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections. He leads all horticulture programs and activities across the Garden’s 250-acre National Historic Landmark landscape, including 50 gardens and plant collections outside and under glass, the old-growth Thain Family Forest, and living exhibitions in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
The Rock Garden in early spring
Everyone in our area is well aware that climatologists have determined that this winter brought some of the coldest temperatures ever recorded in New York. The professional horticulturists who care for The New York Botanical Garden don’t need official weather data to confirm our suspicions that spring is coming later this year than it has in recent memory. All we need to do is walk through the Botanical Garden to see what our magnolias, daffodils, then flowering cherries and other spring-flowering favorites are doing at the moment. Gardeners’ (and plants’) internal clocks are set according to plant phenology—the timing of natural events such as flowering, fruiting, and leafing out—and all indications are that spring is overdue.
As staff members of one of the world’s great scientific and educational institutions, we have access to a suite of resources we can use to confirm (or deny) our suspicions. Since 2002 Volunteer Citizen Scientists have walked regularly through the Botanical Garden and noted carefully if certain plants are flowering, fruiting, leafing out, or dropping their leaves. The data from these “phenology walks” tell us that on average over the past decade, our native red maple, which is one of the most common street trees in New York and my favorite harbinger of spring, has been in peak flower around the middle of March. As of today, the flowers on the red maples in our Native Plant Garden and Thain Family Forest are just starting to open.
Jaime Morin is The New York Botanical Garden’s Assistant Curator in horticulture. She works with the plant records and curation teams to help keep the garden’s information on its living collections up to date. She also oversees the details of the garden’s Living Collections Phenology Project.
Beautyberry (Callicarpa japonica)
Autumn is by far my favorite season. I know it doesn’t bring that sigh of relief the first warm day of spring seems to evoke, nor does it allow for long days at the beach or lake. Yet, what it lacks in promised warmth it makes up for in color. As a native New Englander I was brought up with a strong appreciation for bright fall foliage and the joys of falling into a freshly raked pile of leaves. What I didn’t begin to appreciate until I started really looking at plants in my professional life were the bright colors and interesting forms of fruit and seeds that autumn delivers to us. I don’t mean tasty fall favorites like the apple, but the smaller seed carriers that are often missed if you’re not looking for them.
Take a couple of my favorite colorful fruiting shrubs, beautyberry (Callicarpa spp.) and winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata), as examples. Callicarpa have attractive arching branches with demure flowers in early summer, but they shine brightest in fall when dense clusters of vibrant purple fruit cling along the stems creating the late season echo to the pink redbud flowers from spring. Similarly, Ilex verticillata isn’t your typical wall of evergreen holly foliage. By late October this shrub has dropped its foliage and the females are covered with fruit in fiery hues like orange or red.
Jaime Morin is The New York Botanical Garden’s Assistant Curator in horticulture. She works with the plant records and curation teams to help keep the garden’s information on its living collections up to date. She also oversees the details of the garden’s Living Collections Phenology Project.
Stewartia rostrata
Ever since my journey into the world of plant obsession began, one my favorite times of the year has always been what I affectionately call “Stewartia season.” This delightful stretch always reminds me of summers spent immersed in unique plant collections, but always being drawn back to this one fascinating group of plants.
The genus Stewartia contains a handful of large shrub and tree species native to eastern Asia and two indigenous to the southeastern United States. Stewartia species all have beautiful white flowers with an obvious tuft of anthers in their center. Their floral show takes place in early to mid-summer, but many species also put on a fantastic display of orange to crimson fall foliage, extending the plants’ season of interest.
