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Plant Talk

Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Orchid

Morning Eye Candy: Let Me Count the Days

Posted in Photography on February 2 2014, by Matt Newman

Less than a month now ’til The Orchid Show: Key West Contemporary sashays its way into the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. I can certainly count the ways that I love this exhibition, but counting the days might be a better pastime.

Oncidium maculatum var. album

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Oncidium maculatum var. album, in the Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections

If you love taking photographs of scenes like this, don’t forget to enter our Tropical Paradise Photography Contest!

An Angel of an Artist

Posted in People on April 4 2013, by Scott Mori

Scott A. Mori is the Nathaniel Lord Britton Curator of Botany at The New York Botanical Garden. His research interests are the ecology, classification, and conservation of tropical rain forest trees. His most recent book is Tropical Plant Collecting: From the Field to the Internet.

Botanical artist Bobbi Angell sketching plants in French Guiana.
Botanical artist Bobbi Angell sketching plants in French Guiana.

A month ago, I blogged about the use of fine art by botanists to illustrate the plants and habitats they study. That blog was based on the work of Michael Rothman, who has prepared 20 paintings to illustrate the research of the Curators of the Institute of Systematic Botany at the NYBG.

Today, I discuss the importance of botanical line drawings in illustrating the diagnostic characteristics of plants. The value lies in the fact that they either represent species new to science, or the illustration makes it easier for users of scientific and popular publications to determine the names of plants they have an interest in. Fortunately, soon after my return from a two-year stay in Bahia, Brazil in 1980, I was introduced to Bobbi Angell; after seeing samples of her drawings, I asked her to illustrate species of the Brazil nut family (Lecythidaceae) for a monograph that Ghillean T. Prance–then Vice President for Science at the NYBG–was preparing with me.

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Garden News: Prepping for The Orchid Show

Posted in The Orchid Show on February 8 2013, by Matt Newman

The Orchid ShowThe climate outside is in a bit of a state, to put things lightly. But a few steps inside our Nolen Greenhouses for Living Collections, the sleet and snow give way to nothing short of a tropical oasis. It’s here, among the kaleidoscope of plants housed within, that you’ll find thousands upon thousands of orchids–all waiting to make their way into the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. It’s sort of a bubble of pleasantry on an otherwise heinous Friday.

With just a few weeks left of our Tropical Paradise exhibition, there are still myriad opportunities to warm up and shrug off the chill. But we figured that on today of all days, you could use a toasty peek at what’s in store for New York come March 2. We stopped in with Kevin Character and the orchid wizard himself, Marc Hachadourian, to see how The Orchid Show is coming along under the glass.

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