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Plant Talk

Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Matt Newman

Morning Eye Candy: Proof

Posted in Photography on April 15 2014, by Matt Newman

They’re minute but resolute, those small green things that join together to build the season.

Spring in the South Arboretum

In the South Arboretum – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Morning Eye Candy: Clouds of Aroma

Posted in Photography on April 12 2014, by Matt Newman

If you know its scent, you’ll never forget it. The lemony aroma of a springtime caught red-handed.

Lonicera fragrantissima

Winter honeysuckle by the Watson Building (Lonicera fragrantissima) – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

From the Library: The Orchid Illustrated

Posted in From the Library on April 10 2014, by Matt Newman

Ed. Note: In art, as in life, the orchid has enjoyed many decades of popularity throughout the world. But some might be surprised to find that these “exotic” flowers were en vogue with the horticultural set well before the 20th century made their cultivation rote. Even in the 1800s—and as far back as Charles Darwin’s investigation of his eponymous star orchid—there was a fervent interest in these elegant blooms.

Andrew Tschinkel, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s Digital Imaging Technician, gives us a glimpse into the orchid’s illustrated past.

Lager and Hurrell front coverMertz Digital, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s online collection, has just added several vintage nursery catalogs from the firm of Lager & Hurrell. The firm of Lager & Hurrell was established in 1896 in Summit, New Jersey and was, for decades, the largest commercial producer and distributor of orchid plants in the Americas.

John E. Lager (1861–1937), who founded Lager & Hurrell in 1896, was a legendary orchid hunter whose exploits took him to the most remote jungles of the world in a life long quest for extraordinary and beautiful orchid specimens. He was the subject of a 1933 TIME magazine profile for discovering a specimen that the writer described as “the world’s rarest orchid,” the pure white Cattleya Gigas Alba, sold by Lager & Hurrell to the Baron Firmen Lambeau of Belgium for the then astronomical price of $10,000! [Potentially $180,000 by modern estimates.]

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