Exploring the science of plants, from the field to the lab
Annie Virnig
Posted in NYBG Grad Students on July 17, 2014 by Matt Newman
Annie Virnig is no stranger to tackling formidable challenges. Whether she’s hiking through the dense tropical forests of Colombia in search of rare plant species, noting her findings in the laboratory, or blocking a header on the soccer field, she employs the same diligence and problem-solving tactics to ensure the best possible result.
As a grad student at NYBG, Virnig’s work focuses on the neotropical blueberries that so often cause a stir in our Haupt Conservatory. The exotic shapes and colors of the Conservatory’s collection are only a small sample of their incredible diversity in South America, where the wealth of species goes well beyond the common blueberries, cranberries, and huckleberries that we associate with this plant tribe in the U.S. Zoning in on the historic and cultural uses of these plants, as well as the antioxidants and other health benefits provided by them, Virnig has found herself drawn to the town of El Queremal in Colombia, where an eponymous flower has captured imaginations for centuries.
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Posted in Interesting Plant Stories on March 3, 2014 by Annie Virnig
Annie Virnig is a graduate student in the Commodore Matthew Perry Graduate Studies Program at The New York Botanical Garden.
“The beauty of this species is its undoing,” wrote New York Botanical Garden botanist James Luteyn in 1983 regarding this flower, which is native to the Andean cloud forests of Colombia. Since then, his words have only become truer.
The founders of El Queremal in southwestern Colombia were inspired to name the town in honor of this beautiful and intoxicatingly fragrant flower that grows there, called quereme de la rosa by locals and known scientifically as Cavendishia adenophora.
Long before settlers reached El Queremal, the indigenous people of the area, the Anaconas, valued quereme de la rosa and believed it to be a charm for love and enchantment. The story goes that if a woman wears the quereme flower, its beautiful fragrance will inspire men to fall in love with her and women to be drawn to her in friendship. Likewise, if a man wears the flower in his lapel, women will flock to him. One story told in El Queremal involves a man who could not rid himself of the women who pursued him after he wore the quereme, so he ran away to live the rest of his days deep in the rainforest.
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