fall colors in the tropics recent years, my own research has brought me back to explore southeast...

anniversary

FTBG

1938 - 2013

p u b l i s h e d b y f a i r c h i l d t r o p i c a l b o t a n i c g a r d e n

f a l l 2013

Fall Colors in the Tropics

f a i r c h i l d t r o p i c a l b o t a n i c g a r d e n

THESHOPAT FAIRCHILD

Photo by Gaby Orihuela/FTBG

tropical gourmet foods | apparelhome décor accessories | gardening supplies

eco-friendly and fair trade products | unique tropical gifts | books and much more

Lana Frame 2.5”x 2.5” Regular Price: $32.00Member Price: $28.80

contents

Lana Frame 2.5”x 2.5” Regular Price: $32.00Member Price: $28.80

FROM THE DIRECTOR

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

GET IN ON THE CONSERVATION

EXPLAINING

VIS-A-VIS VOLUNTEERS

TROPICAL CUISINE

WHAT’S BLOOMING

EDIBLE GARDENING

PLANT RECORDS

WHAT’S IN STORE

GARDENING IN SOUTH FLORIDA

BUG BEAT

PLANT SOCIETIES

PLANT EXPLORATION

GIFTS AND DONORS

GARDEN VIEWS

FROM THE ARCHIVES

CONNECT WITH FAIRCHILD

5

7

9

13

16

19

20

29

31

37

38

47

48

55

63

65

68

70

DEPARTMENTS

40Plight of the Honeybees

Underwater Gardening for Conservation

32

Alocasias and Colocasias

49

Underwater nderwater Gardening for Gardening for Conservation

3232

Alocasias and Colocasias

49

Individualadmits one adult

Dualadmits two adults

Familyadmits two adults andchildren of members (17 and under)

Grandparents admits two adults and grandchildrenof members (17 and under)

Family and Friends admits four adults and childrenof members (17 and under)

Sustaining admits four adults and children of members (17 and under). Receives six gift admission passes ($150 value)

Signature admits four adults and children of members (17 and under). Receives eight gift admission passes ($200 value)

$75

$90

$125

$125

$170

$250

$500

Membership Categorieswe have expanded and added membership categories to better fit your needs:

Your Benefits... • Free daily admission throughout the year• Free admission to all daytime events and art exhibitions• Free admission to the wings of the Tropics exhibit• Free parking• Free admission to all Members’ only events, including Members’ lectures, Moonlight Tours, the Members’ day Plant sale and select Members-only evening events• Quick Admit at all admission points• Early admission to select plant sales• Subscription to the award-winning magazine The Tropical Garden• Discounts to all ticketed day or evening events• Discounts at The shop at Fairchild• Discounts and priority registrations to adult education classes and seminars• Discounts to kids’ summer camps• Discounts on a wide variety of products and services from participating Branch Out Partners• Free or discounted admission** to more than 500 other gardens, arboreta and museums in the u.s. and abroad (**certain restrictions may apply)

For more information, please call the Membership department at 305.667.1651, ext. 3362 or visitwww.fairchildgarden.org/Membership

Membership aT FaiRchild

f a i r c h i l d t r o p i c a l b o t a n i c g a r d e nPhoto by Gaby Orihuela/FTBG

xploration has always been a central part of our mission at Fairchild. Our scientists and graduate students regularly conduct expeditions to the tropics, always returning with exciting discoveries. Recently, when describing our work overseas, I have been asked, “What’s left of the tropics to explore?”

I understand why that question might come to mind, especially in the context of the bad environmental news we constantly hear from the tropics. We know about the accelerating pace of deforestation caused by expanding agriculture and development. We have seen how changes in climate can add stress to tropical species and habitats. Rare plants, especially those that have complex ecological relationships with other living things, are always among the first to suffer. Some of the plants we grow at Fairchild are critically endangered or extinct in the wild. As we give our visitors an introduction to the world of tropical plants, we describe the environmental factors that are causing species to decline. Our visitors walk away with the understanding that botanic gardens may be the last refuge for many kinds of plants. In spite of the bad news, we must remember that there is still a vast, incredibly rich tropical world to explore. The tropics hold the overwhelming majority of plant biodiversity on the planet, and much of it remains to be studied. In our archives, I have examined the photos and notes Dr. David Fairchild took during his final expedition to Southeast Asia in 1940. He predicted that war, overpopulation and economic development might have a rapid, disastrous impact on the habitats and plants he observed. Reading Dr. Fairchild’s writings, one might come to the conclusion that the region’s plant diversity would be a lost cause by now. In recent years, my own research has brought me back to explore Southeast Asia and test Dr. Fairchild’s predictions. Although the region has suffered massive environmental changes, many habitats have proven to be more resilient than Dr. Fairchild might have predicted. Some of the locations in his photos appear nearly unchanged today, and all the plant species he collected can still be found in the wild. Within the same forests, many more species have been discovered in the decades since. We have an incredible task ahead of us, with perhaps as many as 50,000 tropical plant species remaining to be discovered and described. At Fairchild we are training a new generation of botanists to join us in that effort. We must not be deterred by reports of increasing habitat loss and extinction in the tropics. On the contrary, we must accelerate our rate of exploration to outpace the loss of diversity. I am encouraged by the fact that some parts of the tropics remain as beautifuland diverse as they were during Dr. Fairchild’s lifetime. I look forward tosharing the new discoveries that emerge from our work in the years ahead.

Best regards,

Carl Lewis, Ph.D.

from the director

Membership AT FAIRCHILD

E

Rice barns at Tana Toraja,South Sulawesi, Indonesia.(T-B)Photo by Edward Beckwith during David Fairchild’s 1940 expedition. Photo by Carl Lewis/FTBG, 2012.

FALL 2013 5

contributors

Richard Lyons’ Nursery inc.Rare & Unusual Tropical Trees & PlantsFlowering • Fruit • Native • Palm • Bamboo • Heliconia Hummingbird • Bonsai & Butterfly

Richard Lyons’ Nursery inc.Rare & Unusual Tropical Trees & PlantsFlowering • Fruit • Native • Palm • Bamboo • Heliconia Hummingbird • Bonsai & Butterfly

[email protected]

@lycheeman1 on TwitterNursery: 20200 S.W. 134 Ave., Miami

Phone: 305-251-6293 • fax: 305-324-1054Mail: 1230 N.W. 7th St • Miami, FL 33125

[email protected]

@lycheeman1 on TwitterNursery: 20200 S.W. 134 Ave., Miami

Phone: 305-251-6293 • fax: 305-324-1054Mail: 1230 N.W. 7th St • Miami, FL 33125

P R O U D M E M B E R O F

Delivery and Installation Available

Do you have PonD Problems ?IS YOUR REAL PROBLEM YOUR

POND SERVICE COMPANY? Call Dr. Jeff Murray, Pondologist

We Do it right the first tiMe!305-251-PoND(7663) | www.PondDoctors.Net

Licensed/insured

Your Water Garden Professionals

BRETT JESTROW is Fairchild’s herbarium curator, a position he has held since 2010. Originally from Northern California, he completed his doctorate through the joint program of Fairchild and Florida International University. Jestrow regularly holds workshops and university courses utilizing both the herbarium and the Science Village. Using anatomical and molecular methods, Jestrow seeks to understand plant diversity while actively collecting plants for both science and horticulture.

LAURA TELLEZ is Fairchild’s Discovery Program coordinator, where she teaches and develops science and nature-based educational programs for students in elementary, middle and high school. She has the support of a committed group of volunteers who allow her programs to reach thousands of students every year.

ON THE COVERBeach Spider Lily loadedwith orange pollen.Photo by Susan Ford-Collins

KENNETH SETZER joined Fairchild as a writer and editor with the marketing team in 2013. He contributes to print and digital media. Setzer enjoys writing about natural and human history and is an enthusiastic photographer, with a particular fascination with fungi. His educational background is in linguistics, with a BA from Queens College, City University of New York, and an MA from Florida International University.

GEORGIA TASKER was the garden writer for The Miami Herald for more than 30 years, and now writes and blogs for Fairchild. She has received the Garden’s highest honor, the Barbour Medal, and a lifetime achievement award from the Tropical Audubon Society. She is also an avid photographer, gardener and traveler. She graduated cum laude from Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana.

THE TROPICAL GARDEN 6

schedule of eventsThe official publication of

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden

The Tropical Garden Volume 68,Number 4. Fall 2013.

The Tropical Garden is published quarterly. Subscription is included in membership dues.

© FTBG 2013, ISSN 2156-0501

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission.

Accredited by the American Association of Museums, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is supported by contributions from members

and friends, and in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs,

the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Miami-Dade

County Tourist Development Council, the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, and

with the support of the City of Coral Gables.

editorial staffeditor in chief

chief operating officerNannette M. Zapata

designLorena Alban

production managerGaby Orihuela

features writerGeorgia Tasker

staff contributorsRichard Campbell

Mary CollinsArlene Ferris

Erin FittsMarilyn Griffiths

Brett JestrowNoris LedesmaKenneth Setzer

Laura Tellezcopy editorsMary Collins

Rochelle Broder-SingerKenneth Setzer

advertising informationLeslie Bowe

305.667.1651, ext. 3338previous editors

Marjory Stoneman Douglas 1945-50Lucita Wait 1950-56

Nixon Smiley 1956-63Lucita Wait 1963-77

Ann Prospero 1977-86Karen Nagle 1986-91

Nicholas Cockshutt 1991-95Susan Knorr 1995-2004

This schedule of events is subject to change. For up-to-the-minute information, please call 305.667.1651 or visit www.fairchildgarden.org/Events

PLANT ID WORKSHOPBring a plant cutting to Fairchild’s Herbarium and let our scientists uncover its identity! Workshops take place at Fairchild’s Natural History Museum. For more information, visitwww.fairchildgarden.org/ EventsFriday, November 1, 1:00 p.m.Friday, December 6, 1:00 p.m.

FESTIVALS BIRD FESTIVALThursday through SundayOctober 10 and 11, off-site birding field tripsOctober 12 and 13,at Fairchild9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

THE INCREDIBLE EDIBLE GARDEN FESTIVAL Saturday and SundayOctober 26 and 279:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

THE 73RD ANNUAL RAMBLEFriday through SundayNovember 8, 9 and 109:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

FAIRCHILD’S FALLORCHID FESTIVALFriday through SundayNovember 15, 16 and 179:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

GARDENMUSIC FESTIVALThursday, January 9, 7:00 p.m.Saturday, January 11, 7:00 p.m.Tuesday, January 14, 7:00 p.m.Sunday, January 19, 7:00 p.m.Concert for KidsSaturday, January 1810:30 a.m.Tickets available atwww.fairchildgarden.org or 305.661.1651, ext. 3303

INTERNATIONALCHOCOLATE FESTIVALFriday through SundayJanuary 24, 25 and 26 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

MORE FUNAT FAIRCHILDSUNDAY SOUNDSAT FAIRCHILD Presented by the University of Miami Frost School of MusicOctober 27November 3November 17February 2February 9February 16 February 231:00 - 2:00 p.m.

FRIENDLY CREATURESOF THE NIGHTFriday, October 255:00 - 8:00 p.m.

HOWL-O-WEENAT FAIRCHILDBring your dog!Thursday, October 319:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

HOLIDAY MUSICAT FAIRCHILDSunday, December 86:00 - 10:00 p.m.

DOG DAY AT FAIRCHILDSunday, January 59:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

VOLUNTEERINFORMATION DAYSInformation sessions for prospective volunteersThursday, January 9Saturday, January 11All Information Days beginat 10:00 a.m. To register, please call 305.667.1651, ext. 3360

FALL 2013 7

Bruce W. GreerPresident

Louis J. Risi, Jr.Senior Vice President

& Treasurer

Charles P. SacherVice President

Suzanne SteinbergVice President

Jennifer Stearns ButtrickVice President

L. Jeanne AragonVice President

& Assistant Secretary

Joyce J. BurnsSecretary

Leonard L. AbessAlejandro J. Aguirre

Raymond F. Baddour, Sc.D.Nancy Batchelor

Norman J. BenfordFaith F. BishockBruce E. Clinton

Martha O. ClintonSwanee DiMareJosé R. Garrigó

Kenneth R. GravesWillis D. Harding

Patricia M. HerbertRobert M. Kramer, Esq.James Kushlan, Ph.D.

R. Kirk LandonLin L. Lougheed, Ph.D.

Bruce C. MathesonPeter R. McQuillanClifford W. Mezey

David MooreStephen D. Pearson, Esq.

Adam R. RoseJaná Sigars-Malina, Esq.

James G. Stewart, Jr., M.D.Vincent A. Tria, Jr.

Angela W. WhitmanAnn Ziff

T. Hunter Pryor, M.D. Trustee Emeritus

Carl E. Lewis, Ph.D.Director

Nannette M. Zapata, M.S.Chief Operating Officer

fairchild board of trustees

get in on the conservation

Symposium on Conservation of Palms from Hispaniola at National Botanic Garden of the Dominican RepublicCaribbean palm conservation initiatives received a boost from a symposium at the Dominican Republic’s National Botanic Garden. The symposium focused conservation education strategies in botanic gardens and ways to protect species of Pseudophoenix in Hispaniola (the island which includes the Dominican Republic and Haiti). Attendees looked at conserving the Haitian endemic P. lediniana (which has Critically Endangered status), P. ekmanii (Critically Endangered status) and P. vinifera. The latter two species are under threat because of extraction of sap to make a local drink known as “Mabí de Cacheo.”

This was a joint international and inter-institutional event with speakers from the Jardin botanique des Cayes (Cayes Botanic Garden), Haiti (William Cinea); the National Botanic Garden of the Dominican Republic (Alberto Veloz and Rosa Rodríguez, who is currently conducting her graduate studies at Florida International University and Fairchild); Montgomery Botanical Center (Chad Husby); and Fairchild (Javier Francisco-Ortega, who is a Fairchild/FIU scientist). Material presented at the symposium will be used for palm conservation education activities by both the Botanic Garden of Cayes and the National Botanic Garden of the Dominican Republic. The symposium is part of Caribbean palm conservation initiatives sponsored by the Mohamed Bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund.

(L-R) Rosa Rodriguez, Francisco Jimenez, William Cinea, Ricardo Garcia (director of the National Botanic Garden of the Dominican Republic), Javier Francisco-Ortega and Chad Husby.

FALL 2013 9

Student Scientists Help Conserveand Study Pine RocklandDr. Joyce Maschinski and Devon Powell of Fairchild’s South Florida Conservation Team and The Fairchild Challenge have partnered with 32 Miami-Dade County schools to grow native pine rockland grasses in the schools’ existing gardens. The project asks students to harvest the seeds of their grasses for Fairchild to use in ongoing pine rockland restoration efforts. The students also collect valuable data about the growth, flowering and seed production for Fairchild scientists. We are happy to report that after the first year of the program, several schools were able to harvest seeds that are now being sowed at Fairchild. The students are gaining invaluable scientific skills and experience while making an important contribution to the conservation of this unique and endangered habitat.

Examining How Forests Store CarbonChristine Pardo, a senior undergraduate student at Florida International University, spent this summer in the deciduous forests of northwestern Massachusetts as part of the Harvard Forest’s Summer Research Program in Ecology. Supported through the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates fellowship, she spent 11 weeks developing a research project in collaboration with Harvard Forest researchers. Pardo’s project focused on the quantification of carbon stored in the soil underlying the forest. Her research will help answer important ecological questions such as: Has the forest’s soil been accumulating carbon through time? What effect does the legacy of past land use have on the storage of carbon in the forest’s soil? And what role will North American forests play in regulating future climate change?

The summer research program gave Pardo, who is a student of Dr. Ken Feeley—a Fairchild/FIU scientist—the opportunity to work closely with other students and network with senior researchers from across the nation. It also introduced her to a new part of the country with a distinct flora and fauna and helped prepare her to apply for graduate programs and pursue a career in ecology and conservation biology.

Celebrating the Start of a New SchoolYear—�e Fairchild ChallengeMore than 600 teachers attended two information sessions for The Fairchild Challenge as the 2013-2014 school year kicked off. The educators enjoyed a delicious brunch and received an introduction to this year’s new and exciting multidisciplinary challenges.

Now in its twelfth year, The Fairchild Challenge anticipates that more than 260 schools (PreK-12) will participate in environmental- and science-based activities offered by Fairchild in collaboration with Florida International University and The University of Miami.

This year’s challenges celebrate Fairchild’s 75th anniversary through video performances, musical compositions in partnership with UM’s Frost School of Music and a Schoolyard Conservation Plan in cooperation with the USDA.

Phot

o by

Jaso

n D

owni

ng/F

TBG

Educ

atio

n St

aff/F

TBG

FALL 2013 11

et in the Halloween spirit with Friendly Creatures of the Night, on Friday, October 25. During this night of discovery, Fairchild visitors will have the chance to hear and

see some of the Garden’s most elusive creatures, from bugs to bats and beyond.

Ever wonder how fast a trained chef can carve a pumpkin? Find out at Fairchild’s Incredible Edible Garden Festival, taking place October 26–27. The sixth annual event will feature gardening demonstrations by Fairchild experts, booths from local farmers and artisan vendors, demonstrations and presentations by renowned chefs, as well as educational programs for the whole family. Plus, in our first-ever pumpkin carving contest, two local chefs will put their knife skills to the ultimate test.

The Ramble Festival is South Florida’s beloved fall event. This year’s 73rd Annual Ramble, taking place November 8–10, tops them all. Come enjoy some of your favorite booths, such as Going Coconuts, Antiques and Collectables, Old and Rare Books, Design Fairchild, Wood Works (presented by the Wood Turners) and more. Plus, enjoy interactive learning activities for the entire family, delicious foods from every continent and great shopping as the holidays near. It’s the perfect way to fall into the season.

The Fall Orchid Show, taking place November 15–17, features a weekend of all things orchids. In partnership with the Coral Gables Orchid Society and the American Orchid Society, this event is the perfect way to learn everything you need to know about orchids. Buy elegant plants from some of the world’s best orchid growers and make your home ready for holiday visitors. Stroll the Garden and enjoy Fairchild’s Orchid Collection and see the beautiful orchid exhibit in the Lakeside Marquee.

�is fall,the fun is

at Fairchild! Festivals, shows and events for all ages

will o�er plenty of opportunities to enjoy South Florida’s beautiful fall weather. Catch

a pumpkin-carving contest or a cooking demonstration from a celebrity chef, stroll

among spooky and friendly creatures of the nights, enjoy �e Ramble’s traditions, encounter thousands of orchids, fall back

into science education and more.

G

FALL 2013 11

COLORGARDENS by CARLOS SOMOZA LANDSCAPE DESIGN

design + installation t 786.440.6567 w CarlosSomoza.com

{ orange/naranja/laranja }

Transforming your brand from one stage

to the next

T. 305.234.3846 • 1.888.853.8644 • [email protected]

Your Marketing Communications Partner®

creative e-business print fulf illment signs

“Let a native help you establish roots”

Carrie C. Foote realtor

[email protected] | 305.520.5420

www.somirealestate.com

8 3 7 O B I S P O A V E N U E

CORAL GABLES: HISTORIC HOME

sold sold

6 6 4 0 S W 1 2 9 T H T E R R A C E

PINECREST: LUSH TREE LINED HOME

Discovering the Citizen Scientistin every StudentBy Laura Tellez

explaining

�e Discovery Program at Fairchild o�ers a selection of guided, multi-disciplinary �eld studies designed to enhance science and environmental education for students in grades 3-12. Students explore the natural world through hands-on, inquiry-based activities, designed to intrigue and inspire while meeting the Florida Department of Education’s state academic standards. �rough this interdisciplinary learning adventure, students connect environmental issues and topics to their lives.

quipped with GPS units, compasses and maps, students work together to navigate their way to hands-on activity stations located throughout the Garden. They identify butterflies and their host and nectar plants, discover the diversity of the plant

kingdom and explore contemporary environmental topics such as biomimicry and biodiversity.

This fall, the Discovery Program will introduce a new citizen science project into its biodiversity curriculum. Students will participate in scientific research, sharing their findings and contributing to data collection for important work on butterfly behavior. This is the essence

E

ABOVELaura Tellez recording data

using the Discovery program citizen science application

at Fairchild. RIGHT

Discovery students using GPS units to find Discovery

stations at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.

To learn more about Fairchild’s education programs please visitwww.fairchildgarden.org/Education

of citizen science: public participation and collaboration in scientific research. Using a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education approach, students will learn about the scientific method while collecting data on butterfly behavior and butterfly-plant interactions. Thanks to a generous donation from The Ethel & W. George Kennedy Family Foundation, the Discovery Program was able to incorporate new technology for data collection: Using iPads, students will record their observations in a customized application that utilizes the Fulcrum platform (created in Florida) to share the data. Through this project, hundreds of students will come together to participate in data collection—making our data collection bigger and stronger.

Building Teamwork, Communicationsand STEM SkillsStudents work in small teams, identifying plants and butterfly types, learning about butterfly behavior, categorizing plant-butterfly interactions, recording data and understanding how to use technology to further ecological understanding. This will expose them to ecology—the study of the relations of organisms to one another and their physical surroundings. Through the Garden’s website, students will be able to see the progress of the larger project to which they are contributing.

Collaboration and teamwork within the small groups is crucial to students’ abilities to collect data effectively and efficiently during their visit to the Garden. This will provide them with the opportunity to develop important social skills that will be of great benefit in their future careers. According to the Carnegie Foundation, “civic engagement describes the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.” This project strives to introduce students to civic engagement, an important practice as they become leaders in our society and stewards for the environment.

This citizen science project erases the lines between theory and practice as students from elementary, middle and high school simultaneously learn and conduct scientific studies. This project invites, welcomes and equips every student with the skills necessary to actively participate, contribute and be part of scientific inquiry, and transforms their visit to Fairchild from a one-day event into a year-long journey of scientific discovery.

If you are a school group (grades 3-12) interested in participating in this program, you can register by calling 305.667.1652 ext.3322 or email [email protected].

�is project strives to introduce students to civic engagement, an important

practice as they become leaders in our society

and stewards for the environment.

Discovery students working together identifying butterflies

and their behavior.


Become a Fairchild volunteer and let a few hours of your time blossom into a world of new experiences!

Fairchild volunteers serve the Garden, the community and the world through their hands-on participation in Fairchild’s programs and activities, while meeting others who share their interest in plants and gardens. volunteer opportunities range from gardening to guiding, hosting to helping with the wings of the Tropics exhibit. To learn more about becoming a Fairchild volunteer and how you can help the Garden grow, come to one of ourvolunteer Information Days: thursday, January 9Saturday, January 11

information day sessions10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

For reservations and additional information please call 305.667.1651 ext. 3360.

volunteeringat Fairchild


vis-a-vis volunteers

Fairchild’s Volunteer Tradition:75 Years Old and Still Going Strong By Arlene Ferris. Photos by Archives

oday’s volunteers continue the work of the Garden’s founders by supporting programs in education, horticulture, conservation, visitor services, science, membership development, collections management,

research and more. The hands-on support of more than 650 Friends of Fairchild volunteers, plus hundreds more special events volunteers, is widely acknowledged as one of Fairchild’s greatest assets. As the Garden has grown, so has the involvement of volunteers.

In 1940, volunteers held the first Fairchild Ramble, a community-wide event held to raise friends and funds to support the young garden. Today, 73 years later, volunteers give more than 16,000 hours each year to support The Ramble and other popular festivals.

Volunteers have played a vital role at Fairchild since its founding in

1938. Col. Robert Montgomery, Dr. David Fairchild, Marjory Stoneman

Douglas, Charles Crandon—all volunteers—donated time, talent and

energy to turn their dream into reality.

Under the leadership of Nell Montgomery Jennings, volunteers held the first Ramble to raise funds to buy the fledgling Garden a new truck. Hundreds of dedicated volunteers keep The Ramble tradition going by donating thousands of hours each year to this well-loved festival.

Since 1980, volunteers have devoted themselves to teaching students about plants and nature through Fairchild’s Field Studies programs. After returning to the classroom, many students write thank-you notes to the guides, often saying “I loved visiting Fairchild and I can’t wait to come back with my family. I hope when I come I see you there.”

T

1940

1980

Volunteers began working in horticulture in the 1950s, collecting seeds from the Garden’s palms and other rare plants and propagating them in the nursery, then selling the young plants at Members’ Day, The Ramble and the Spring Plant Sale. Over time, volunteers began working in Plant Records and in the Conservatory. Today’s hard-working horticulture volunteers do every type of gardening task imaginable, and give more than 11,000 hours annually.

In the 1970’s, volunteer extraordinaire Bert Zuckerman took on the task of organizing walking tours for Garden visitors. He researched stories about Garden plants, then recruited and trained guides to give tours of the collections. Today, walking tour guides, tram guides and guides stationed at touch carts educate visitors on a wide range of subjects, helping them see the Garden with new eyes, and increasing their appreciation of plants and nature.

In 1980, two visionary volunteers, Suzanne Steinberg and Rita Perlman, developed a program to bring elementary school students to visit the Garden. Now, 33 years later, the program they began has grown into a multitude of education programs serving students from pre-K through graduate school, supported by more than 75 field studies guides. Many more education volunteers help with The Fairchild Challenge, judging entries and assisting at high-energy Challenge awards ceremonies.

Volunteers began serving as garden hosts and shuttle drivers when the Shehan Visitor Center opened in 2003. They provide visitors with directions and assistance of all types, serving as goodwill ambassadors throughout the grounds. They are indispensable, and are one of the reasons why, when visitors leave, they often comment, “Everyone is so nice here!”

When the Wings of the Tropics exhibit opened in December 2012, Fairchild experienced another surge of volunteer activity. Between 80 and 110 volunteers work weekly in Wings of the Tropics, helping to maintain its operations, sharing knowledge about butterflies and plants, and helping visitors enjoy that fantastic exhibit to the fullest. The dedication of these volunteers has become legendary. There are also teams of devoted volunteers in conservation, membership, admissions, the Herbarium, science labs, library, archives, the Garden Shop, offices and in other areas.

All of our volunteers have made immeasurable contributions to advancing the Garden’s mission. Many work entirely behind the scenes or contribute their talents in singular ways, but it is the collective effort of all volunteers that makes the Garden shine in a unique and special way. Their generous support helps to ensure an exciting and successful future for our beloved Garden. Keep up the great work and thank you to all Fairchild volunteers, past and present!

1992

2013Staff and volunteers gathered to celebrated their efforts in restoring the Garden after Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992. Volunteers came from all over the country to help save Fairchild’s invaluable plant collections. Photo by William Houghton

Wings of the Tropics volunteer Leonor Gonzalez places a butterfly on the hand of an enthusiastic visitor. Visitors are amazed by the beauty of the butterflies and the friendliness of the volunteers who share the wonders of the tropics with them.Photo by Arlene Ferris/FTBG

FALL 2013 17

tropical cuisine

A Jack of all FruitBy Noris Ledesma

Boiled Jackfruit SeedsBoiled jackfruit seeds are a plain and simple snack made at home.When you prepare ripe jackfruit, each pocket of the yellow fleshy “fruit” surrounds a large seed. That seed is edible once peeled, cooked and removed from its husk.

Begin by scooping the seeds from the fruit. To peel, first let them drain and dry (wet seeds are very slippery and difficult to handle). The skin covering the seed is thick, similar to shrink-wrapped plastic. Some seeds will crack open, making it easier to peel with your fingernails, but others might need help from a knife.

Add the peeled jackfruit seeds to a pot. Pour in enough water to cover the seeds with an inch of water above them. Bring the water and seeds to a boil. Lower the heat and cover the pot. Let the seeds boil for 25-30 minutes or until soft. Check if they are cooked by pushing a knife/fork/toothpick into one: It should go in easily.

The simplest preparation is just to boil the seed and peel the thin husk that remains on it. The boiled seeds taste like a combination of boiled potato and taro, with a soft and creamy texture. You can enjoy them plain, or roast with sea salt, garlic or hot chilies!

he jackfruit traces its origins to India. Dr. David Fairchild collected a variety in Ceylon, which was planted on his

property in Coconut Grove. Large and ungainly, this green fruit covered with spiny protrusions may weigh upwards of 30 to 60 pounds. Inside its leathery exterior, a sweet and aromatic flesh surrounds starchy seeds. When ripened, it is extremely sweet, with a distinctive flavor reminiscent of bananas and pineapple.

The jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is a unique and charming species, with an erect trunk and highly ornamental, oval-shaped, green leaves with a glossy or leathery texture. The tree’s dense canopy can provide many benefits, but one of its best features is, of course, the fruit.

In India, where the fruit is very inexpensive and affordable to most, the jackfruit has become a dietary staple. The nation’s culinary culture has adopted it not only as a sweet fruit treat, but also as a vegetable and even as a meat substitute. There, it often goes by the name “the meat fruit” because of the meaty texture of immature fruits. It is common in many regions of India for the main course of a meal to be composed only of jackfruit.

Immature fruits can be cut into segments, boiled and eaten like a vegetable. Fresh seeds are good boiled and roasted.Ripe fruit can be chilled or mixed in a fruit salad. This is one of the most versatile fruits.

Here, in the subtropics, we live in a paradise of unique fruits, rich in a melting pot of cultures. It’s now about time to venture into jackfruit!

T

dd the peeled jackfruit seeds to a pot. Pour in enough water to cover the seeds with an inch of water above them. Bring the water and

et the seeds

cooked by pushing a knife/fork/toothpick into one:

blo mingWhat’s

this fallText and photos by Mary Collins and Marilyn Griffiths

Fall in South Florida is a time of subtle changes (no hillsides of red and gold trees for us).

Shorter days and a slight decrease in humidity and temperature are the only indications we

get that fall is upon us.

But with these low-key natural changes comes a new palette of colors in the Garden, along with new textures and new fragrances. Take a walk through our Arboretum and on to the

Rainforest and Palmetum to observethe changes of the season.

Three plants featured in this issue are members of the Rubiaceae, a large family that includes Pentas, Hamelia and Ixora. An economically important family, it includes plants used in medicine, for timber, in dyes and perfumes and ornamentally. The most widely traded plant of this family is Coffea arabica, our morning coffee.

Our first Rubiaceae member is

Gardenia carinata, native from Thailand to Peninsular Malaysia. This

species has grown very well

next to the loggia of the Visitor Center. Its

cartoon-like pinwheel flowers open a deep yellow and gradually fade to white.

Cubanola domingensis, the second of the Rubiaceae, produces long, white, tubular flowers that drape gracefully from its outspread branches. This

is a relatively new species for Fairchild, having been received in 2004. As the specific epithet indicates, it is native to the Dominican Republic. Look for specimens in Plot 43.

Our third Rubiaceae species, Portlandia proctorii, is native to limestone cliffs of Jamaica and has grown beautifully in

our limestone soil in Plot 44. Deep pink bell-shaped flowers adorn the branches of this small shrub. Our plants grew from seeds collected in the wild in 1993 by Dr. George Proctor, the person who is honored by the specific epithet. Proctor,

a botanist who has studied the flora of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands for many years, has collaborated with many of Fairchild’s scientists and horticulturists.

A 2007 winner of the Fairchild Plant of the Year award, Clusia lanceolata can be found at the north end of Plot 49. Its flower and fruit are both distinctive. The flower has a deep

red center, which fades to creamy white. The fruit is crowned with a ring of black glands. It is native to the restingas of Brazil, which are coastal sandy regions.

Another stunning Brazilian plant is Neomarica caerulea, found in Plots 49 and 50. Tropical blue iris begins blooming in late summer and continues through winter.

Individual flowers last a single day but are quickly replaced with new blooms. The lightly fragrant blossoms emerge fromspecialized leaves.

Cassia roxburghii, a member of the Fabaceae, or legume, family, trails its long branches near the tram path in Plot 34. The deep-green leaflets frame delicate

pink flowers along the center of the stems. C. roxburghii is native to India and Sri Lanka. We received this plant in 1958 from the USDA Research Station at Chapman Field.

Visitors to Fairchild can obtain a plot map of the garden, which includes a list of currently flowering plants, at the Visitor Center, the South Gate booth or the kiosks set up around the Garden. Volunteers at the Visitor Center desk also have a complete list of Fairchild’s plants. Our website is also an invaluable resource for Garden information, including lists of plants with their locations, organized by both common and scientific names; a downloadable map of the Garden with plot numbers; and What’s Blooming information for each month of the year. Visit www.fairchildgarden.org/livingcollections to find all this, plus information about gardening, horticulture, conservation and plant science, as well as information about all of Fairchild’s exhibits.

Go to www.fairchildgarden.org/WhatsBlooming to find the current year’s list of flowering plants for each month.

Our first Rubiaceae member is

Gardenia

from Thailand to Peninsular

43

4434

50

49

Experience a luxurious tropical garden witha large selection of proven and exotic

plants for South Florida

Orchids, begonias, water lilies, vines,flowering trees and shrubs. rare plants,

butterfly plants, supplies and more

Landscape design | WaterfallsPond installation | Water features

Palm Hammock Orchid Estate, Inc.Est. 1973

Visit our website, then visit our garden9995 SW 66 St. Miami, FL 33173 305-274-9813

www.palmhammock.com

Families&

FormsShowy rare trees,

carnivorous pitcher plants and other

diversity in the GardenBy B rett Jestrow

Photos by Brett Jestrow and Kenneth Setzer

Last year, while preparing to teach a course on tropical plant families at the Garden, I spent time looking over Fairchild’s plants from the perspective of family and plant diversity. While looking for examples for the course, I found some surprises, and noted a few new additions.

A Remarkable Rare TreeThe proteas, famous for their showy floral displays, which are often seen in floral arrangements, are the namesake for the family Proteaceae. Primarily from the southern hemisphere, many of the showiest species of the family are native to the Mediterranean climates of South Africa and Australia and will not tolerate our humid summers. Of the few in cultivation, most do not thrive in South Florida. Yet an exception to this rule can be found along the allée at Fairchild. The Finschia chloroxantha tree here may be the only individual of the species in cultivation, perhaps anywhere. Nearly 20 years ago, while collecting palms on the South Pacific island of Vanuatu, Dr. Scott Zona found some curious seeds on the forest floor. After he identified them, the seeds made their way to Fairchild, and one individual grew into this tree. In July, the F. chloroxantha

tree came into flower, giving me the chance to collect a specimen and photograph these rarely-seen blooms. If you want to find this tree, look for the one with the unusual prop roots. In the wild, this species can reach 70 feet tall with the prop roots reaching six feet up the trunk. In time, I hope to see fruits mature for propagation, but I have also read that the seeds are edible. As the Proteaceae family also includes macadamia, I am curious to know if the seeds are anywhere near as delicious as those.

New Plant FamiliesCertainly, unusual plant families can be found at Fairchild, and we hope to broaden the diversity of our plant families both for education and horticulture. One of the most recent experimental additions can be found in the conservatory, and is part of the carnivorous tropical pitcher plant family, Nepenthaceae. A few can approach large proportions, as with Nepenthes rajah of Mt. Kinabalu of the East Malaysian state of Sabah—which has pitchers large enough to have been documented catching rats. Nepenthes are often considered difficult to grow, and this is especially true here in South Florida. The first difficulty is water quality, but the large reverse osmosis filtration system installed for the new Wings of the Tropics exhibit makes all the difference for the entire conservatory. Second, most species are from the highlands, like N. rajah, and thrive in cool temperatures across the seasons. But lowlanders exist, and we are now testing N. ampullaria, originally from the peat swamps of Borneo. This species requires heat and humidity year-round and temperatures that don’t go below 50 degrees—much like the durians currently growing in the Tropical Fruit Pavilion.

Our Nepenthes plants are not wild-collected, but were propagated through tissue culture. Often referred to as “conservation through propagation,” tissue culture has saved these plants from being wild-collected to extinction.

PREVIOUS PAGEFinschia

chloroxantha flowering in

Fairchild.

RIGHT (L-R)Prop roots of Finschia

chloroxantha as seen growing in

Fairchild.

The hybrid Nepenthes ‘Mata-

Hari’ growing in the Conservatory.


Other cultivated hybrids have shown to be adapted to our climate, though many still require rain-quality water and acidic sphagnum soils. Nepenthes ‘Mata Hari’, for example, is a complex hybrid developed in South Florida and may be the best choice for intrepid gardeners looking to grow this curious family in their gardens year-round.

I continue to look for more plant families to bring into the Garden—from the more well-known, such as the nutmeg family, Myristicaceae, to the truly unusual as in the Eupomatiaceae. I look forward to seeing these families flowering at Fairchild.

Diversity Within FamiliesPlant diversity doesn’t only come through the evolutionary distance across plant families. Often a single family can include species that at first glance seem completely unrelated. A great example of this is the ribbon plant, also unfortunately known as the tapeworm plant, Homalocladium platycladum. It is unusual, though not unique, among flowering plants, because it has specialized stems which function as leaves. These flattened and photosynthetic stems are known as phylloclades and are understandably often confused for leaves. The ribbon plant exemplifies the condition, and it is surprising to realize that it is in the same family as our native seagrape, Coccoloba uvifera. A great test for the student of tropical plant family identification, both of these species exhibit technical features of the plant family Polygonaceae. The ribbon plant was grown at the Garden until the 1990s, but was removed during a construction project (a reality of growth and development of a garden). Although the species is endemic to the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific, recently we were able to collect cuttings of the ribbon plant from Waimea Arboretum and Botanical Garden of Oahu, Hawaii. The cuttings are now rooted and growing vigorously in the nursery, so the species will once again be introduced into the Garden.

The ribbon plant is not alone in the nursery for being an oddity of form, and in the future I look forward to

displaying the zigzag plants of Madagascar, Decarya madagascariensis, which are now rooting in thenursery as well.

Introducing a New SpeciesFinally, besides diversity through families and form, occasionally we are able to introduce a new species to horticulture. Last summer, while on an expedition in the Dominican Republic, we traversed the Bahoruco Mountains. Though it was mid-July, we were at a high enough altitude for the weather to be cool and foggy and found ourselves in a clearing surrounded by pine trees and ferns. Though not the ideal habitat from which to choose a horticultural introduction for hot and humid South Florida, we came across an unknown sage, a species of Salvia, which caught our attention. Though we doubted this species could adapt to our climate, we made collected cuttings for propagation and a herbarium specimen for identification. Once we returned to the Garden, all the herbarium specimens from the trip were prepared and mounted by the herbarium volunteers, who held an informal vote on their favorite specimen from the expedition. The sage won, and the herbarium specimen was identified as S. selleana, an endemic species of Hispaniola. Later, to my surprise, the cuttings not only rooted but have grown quickly even with our hot summers. The species is now being tested at the Garden and can be seen growing near the Visitor Center. Hopefully, this Salvia will become available through the Garden, and may one day be a new addition to South Florida horticulture.

(L-R)Salvia selleana

growing wild in the Dominican

Republic.

The herbarium specimen of

Salvia selleana collected in 2012.

n 1962, Garden Director Nixon Smiley wrote, “This is the first major coverage in the Bulletin of an off-shore area.” So began a long history of articles, expeditions and collaborations

on the subject of the Bahamas at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, including the highly respected 1982 publication Flora of the Bahama Archipelago.

Both Dr. David Fairchild and the Garden’s landscape architect, William Lyman Phillips, had given indications that a collection of the flora of the Bahamas should be a significant goal for the Garden.

Dr. Fairchild visited the Bahamas during expeditions to the Caribbean in search of useful plants for the United States Department of Agriculture. Fairchild’s Archives hold a “Central Lake Planting Study,” drawn by Phillips in 1955, that shows plants native to the Bahamas in what is now Plot 166.

Restoring the

Bahamas Legacy,

revisiting the

Michaux CollectionText and photos by Elaine Mills

I

Capparis cynophallophora. The Jamaican Caper occurs throughout most of the Bahamas, Florida, the Caribbean region, Mexico and South America.

Smiley was ahead of his time in proclaiming the need to preserve native vegetation, especially along coastlines, and was a major proponent of planting ornamental natives of South Florida and the Bahamas in parks, parkways and gardens. Since the Bahamas and Miami-Dade County share similar environmental conditions, Smiley postulated that plants from the Bahamas would “feel right at home in our unspeakable climate.”

In 1963, Dr. John Popenoe, the Garden director from 1963 to 1989, received a grant from the American Philosophical Society to establish a collection of Caribbean plants from the Bahamas and Florida. The collection was to be named the Michaux Collection, after famous French botanist François André Michaux, a recipient of France’s Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Michaux (1770 - 1855), an explorer and plant collector in that nation’s service, explored Florida and the Bahamas in 1787. In 1809, he became a member of the American Philosophical Society, which was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin and is the oldest learned society in the U.S. Its purpose, outlined by Franklin, is “promoting useful knowledge.”

Popenoe’s original acquisitions proved enormously successful in our Lowland Bahamas Plots 164 and 166, and the Michaux Collection has grown into the most extensive living collection of native and endemic Bahamian plants outside the archipelago. Many of the collection’s existing plants are hurricane survivors, and exhibit a strange kind of tortured beauty, common in the Bahamas.

Fairchild’s herbarium director, Dr. Brett Jestrow (and collaborators), have produced extensive research on

the history of this collection, and it will be published in an upcoming issue of Botanical Review.

The Bahamian collection remains true to its three main goals:1. To preserve, under similar conditions, rare plants

which may be endangered in their own habitat

2. To assemble as complete a collection as possible to facilitate worldwide scientific study

3. To evaluate plants for distribution to members and the horticulture industry

In the 50 years since the original grant, many scientists and horticulturists have contributed to the collection. In 2012, Jestrow and Jason Lopez, Fairchild’s manager of living collections, collected Bahamian plants in partnership with Bahamas National Trust botanists Dr. Ethan Freid and Mark Daniels. This year, a collaborative effort is underway by staff, interns and volunteers to rejuvenate and expand the collection. By selectively thinning existing plant material for collection accuracy and eliminating unruly tenants, we have made room to plant out expedition material grown at the nursery during the past year. Ninety newly-collected plants were installed in Phase 1 of the Bahamas Plots Restoration Plan. Plot 164 was restored to its original boundary, and is an example of a Dry Broadleaf Evergreen Formation, known in the Bahamas as a coppice. Plot 166, containing both brackish shoreline and dry hillside conditions, will be expanded as expedition plants tolerant of wet conditions mature enough to be planted out.

Elaine Mills was Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden’s conservation research and records intern. The yearlong Fairchild Conservation & Horticulture Internship Program is conducted in partnership with Gemini Botanical Garden in Palm Beach County.

(L-R)Plot 164 has been

expanded to its historic boundaries and planted with materials collected

in the Bahamas during the 2012 expedition.

Phyllanthus epiphyllanthus. Notice that the flowers

occur on the edges of the phyllodia (photosynthetic

modified stems which appear as leaf-like

branches). It occurs throughout the Bahamas

and the Caribbean region.

Flora of the Bahama Archipelago.

t is hot and going to stay that way for a while, but in The Edible Garden at Fairchild one must see beyond this to a time of temperature moderation, lower humidity and luxuriant blooming. It is August, September and October in South

Florida that lay the foundation for the upcoming fruiting season—pruning, shaping and preparing all occur now. So get out your hat, grab your clippers and make your way into your edible garden.

Your vegetable garden is either fallow or producing a late-season crop such as Seminole pumpkin or papaya. It needs weeding and little else, so keep right on going to your fruit trees. Now is the time to make your pruning cuts, reduce your tree size and ensure a fruitful future. Sure, you should have done this earlier in the summer right after the fruit came off, but let’s face it, we all procrastinate a bit. Now you have to get busy. There is no excuse, and without a good formation pruning, you will have an unruly tree next year.

If you do not have a good saw and clippers, go and buy them. Do not prune with a machete, and also do not use your chainsaw. All your pruning can be done with a good-quality hand pruning saw and hand clippers. By using these hand tools, you will be more likely to think about your cuts. It is hot and humid. You do not want to waste your energy. With the right tool it is easy; with the wrong tool it is hellish.

Each fruit tree is different, but there are some good generalizations. First, aim to reduce the overall size of the tree to keep it manageable, facilitate harvest and avoid hurricane damage. You should remove 20% to 30% of the upper canopy by making proper thinning cuts. With this you remove wood and a minimum of leaves; the tree remains calm and productive. The width of the tree should also be reduced to keep growth in check, since it will keep on growing if it is healthy. By reducing the fruit tree’s height and width each year, you can maintain it in its space. This is also a good reason to invest in a modern, semi-dwarf variety of fruit tree for your edible garden. Today, size does matter—small size that is.

Take the pruned branches and mulch them within the garden. This organic matter is the best mulch one can obtain. Use hand loppers to cut the branches up and allow them to settle well. They will compost at an amazing rate and create the perfect soil additive for your garden. They also are a good worm food, and weed suppressor. Clean up your edible garden, oil your new tools and watch your fruit trees flush back with youthful vigor. Now you are content and have made your mark as a horticulturist—so wait and reap your reward.

edible gardening

I

Pruning, Shaping andPlanning in the Edible GardenBy Richard J. Campbell, Ph.D.

Saturday, February 1, 20146:30 p.m.For information, please call Susannah Shubinat 305.663.8075 or email [email protected].

Gala in theGarden

Luncheon and fashion show al fresco featuring Neiman MarcusVP and Fashion Director, Ken Downing and the presentation ofthe Fairchild Philanthropy Awards. Hosted by Laurie Jennings,

Local 10 News Anchor. Sponsored by Mercedes Benz. Tickets start at $300. Reservations are required. Please contact

Susannah Shubin at 305.663.8075 or [email protected]

Save the Date for our 3rd Annual

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Splendor Gardenin the



ith 3,438 tropical and subtropical species representing 180 plant families in our marvelous

collections, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is a valuable resource for scientists around the world. Scientists who are studying tropical plants often utilize the Garden’s well-documented collections.

A few examples of researchers from around the world who used our collections during 2012 and 2013:

Kristen Hasenstab of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden collected inflorescences in various stages of development from three species of Cordia. She is a Ph.D. candidate studying inflorescence architecture.

Michael Calonje of Montgomery Botanical Center, in his ongoing studies of the genus Zamia, collected leaflets of two species of wild-collected plants in our collections.

New York Botanic Garden’s Dr. Dennis Wm. Stevenson collected rhizomes and small plants from five genera in theorder Zingiberales.

Dr. Richard Olmstead of the Department of Biology at the University of Washington sampled nine species in the family Bignoniaceae for DNA isolation for his systematics research.

From Mexico’s Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán, Dr. Rodrigo Duno collected 11 samples of species in the family Fabaceae for his DNA work. From London, Jaume Pellicer of the Jodrell Laboratory at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, collected leaf material from 40 palm species. He is studying genome size evolutions in the palm family (Arecaceae).

Dr. Mary Beth Von Holle of the University of Central Florida sampled fruit from Eugenia foetida and E. axillaris. She is studying the seeds of these plants to understand their likelihood of responding to soil biota during climate change.

Dr. Usher Posluszny of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Canada’s University of Guelph collected sections of stems from two species of Tetrastigma. He is studying stem anatomy in the family Vitaceae.

David Kuhn, who works at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Station at Chapman Field in Miami-Dade, collected seedpods of Herrania umbratica for his molecular genetics study of Theobroma cacao relatives.

Keith Clancy, who is with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Plant Protection and Quarantine, in Jamaica, NY, collected samples from 21 species for use in training customs agents to identify plant species entering the United States.

Dr. Richard F. Lee of the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository for Citrus & Dates in Riverside, Calif., has collected

samples from plants in the Rutaceae (citrus) family. He is studying citrus greening, tracking the psyllids that carry this disease.

Closer to home, Dr. Hong Liu, our own Fairchild/FIU research ecologist, and Jason Downing, a Fairchild Challenge graduate student, studied the Florida native orchid, Cyrtopodium punctatum. They have been observing and collecting the fungus that lives on and provides nourishment to the roots. Downing is collecting the fungus in baits and growing it in the lab for further study. This “cigar orchid” appeared spontaneously in our Palmetum many years ago and is now growing onseveral palms.

All of the researchers who use our collections agree to provide the Garden with a fair and equitable share of non-monetary benefits obtained from the use of the biological material. Those benefits may include exchange of scientific information and data, joint research projects and publications, access to and exchange of scientific collections, transfer of technology and technological expertise, as well as collaborative institutional partnerships.

The collections at Fairchild not only provide beauty and pleasure, but also contribute to the ongoing work of our scientists and researchers from aroundthe world.

Serving Scientists Around the WorldUsing Fairchild’s collections to advance research into tropical plantsBy Mary Collins and Marilyn Griffiths

plant records

WJason Downing, FTBG graduate student, observing the seed pod of Cyrtopodim punctatum.

Phot

o by

Mar

ilyn

Grif

fiths

/FTB

G

In the next issue, we will focus on plant records, describing the history and current practices of this most important aspect of our collections.

FALL 2013 31

Underwater GardeninGfor conservation

By Georgia taskerPhotos by Ken nedimyer

arden clubbers around the state—and there are 13,000 of them—have taken up underwater gardening. No, they aren’t

wading into ponds or planting aquariums. They have embarked on something with even more depth: growing a coral reef in waters off the Florida Keys.

Together, members of the state’s garden clubs have pledged to raise $10,000 to re-populate a reef with 100 nursery-grown staghorn and elkhorn corals—two endangered species that have all but disappeared from Florida waters. Under the direction of Ken Nedimyer and the Coral Restoration Foundation, thousands of small corals are swirling in 20 or 30 feet of water, awaiting their turn to become reefs once more and resume their role as home to a quarter of all marine life.

The women and men in the 12 districts of the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs are so enthusiastic about rebuilding a reef, they already are dreaming of taking the project to national garden clubs.

Here’s how it came about.

Back in the 1990s, pieces of dead coral that supported invertebrates were popular in aquariums to create naturalistic reefs. They were called live rock. Key Largo

resident Ken Nedimyer, who ran a business supplying aquarium shops with invertebrates and fish, had an aquarium live rock farm. In 1996, something happened that prompted Nedimyer to quit selling pieces of reef and start conserving what grew on them: he found a rare staghorn coral growing on a live rock. His high-school-age daughter, Kelly, needed a 4-H Club project, and Nedimyer envisioned growing staghorn corals with Kelly and selling them to put her through college.

“I got real excited about them, and started paying attention to staghorns,” Nedimyer says. “As the coral grew bigger, I realized we could replant a reef.” Stage one of the 4-H project was to see if the corals could grow from three- or four-inch living pieces. They could. Stage two was to try and reestablish them on a damaged reef. By that time, though, the staghorns had been declared endangered, so selling them was out of the question. With permission from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Nedimyer and his daughter put several nursery-grown corals on the Wellwood shipwreck site at Molasses Reef, and they grew well. In 2007, he started the nonprofit Coral Restoration Foundation. (Daughter Karen and her husband Philipp Rauch have taken over the aquarium business, while daughter Kelly now is a dentist.)

G

TOPA damaged reef that awaits new corals.

Photos courtesy Ken Nedimyer.

ABOVEStaghorn corals are

suspended in the water column to grow freely

before attachment to a reef.


In 2009, Nedimyer, who is now anadjunct scientist at Mote Marine Lab on Summerland Key, began working with elkhorn coral, one of the most important reef components in the Caribbean. It, like the staghorn, has become endangered as bleaching from warming waters, stresses from cold weather and various diseases have wiped out perhaps 90% ofthe population.

Over time, Nedimyer and his wife Denise refined coral-growing techniques, switching from gluing fragments to little pieces of rock to developing a coral “tree” that allows the attached fragments to swirl in the water column and increase more rapidly in size. To grow elkhorn corals, which develop antler-like formations, Nedimyer removes narrow rectangular pieces from the edge of a head and attaches them with underwater adhesive to the sides of a concrete block, where they grow for three years before being transplanted. Another technique is to attach them with monofilament line to a tree-like frame that is tethered to the ocean floor— the same way the staghorn corals are grown.

Coral Restoration Foundation now has 35,000 corals growing in its Keys nurseries, plus another 4,500 in Bonaire and 3,000 in Colombia. In 2012, the first elkhorn restoration was established using 18 small corals.

Garden Clubs HelpGrow CoralThe foundation linked up with garden clubs through the chairman of its board, Mike Echevarria, an attorney from Tampa who serves on the board of the aquarium there. Echevarria told his mother Kathy about CRF. His mother, it turns out, is a garden club member. She sent an email to Pat Carver, the water and wetlands chairman for the state organization. Carver liked it immediately. “We were in the process of adopting water bodies that were impaired and doing things to improve it,” says Carver, who thought the Keys reefs qualified as an impaired aquatic environment.

Carver proposed that Judy Clark, then director of the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs’ District XII—the only tropical district in the state—drum up enthusiasm about the project. It would be her job to get the district clubs to adopt it. Clark rallied her troops. Then, she went after the state organization, which adopted the underwater gardening project at the end of April and now is well on its way to reaching its $10,000 goal. Sue Angle, the president of the FFGC, says, “It was not a hard sell. We have many projects that we have worked with in the past that are environmentally oriented.”

Nedimyer’s environmental work is “pioneering,” says Dr. Dave Vaughan, who directs coral research for the Mote Marine

BELOWJudy Clark with Ken Nedimyer at the Coral Restoration Foundation

education center, examining a piece of staghorn coral large

enough to attach to a reef.Photo by Georgia Tasker/FTBG

BOTTOMStaghorn corals growing on

“trees” so that water circulates around them.

Lab. The Sarasota-based marine life research center maintains a coral nursery on Loo Key, near Summerland, and has volunteered to help oversee Nedimyer’s Key West nursery since it is so far from the foundation’s home on Key Largo. Students from Keys Community College also volunteer to dive and maintain the corals.

When he started, Nedimyer had three coral genotypes. Now, the foundation has 105 genotypes to preserve as much diversity as possible. The corals are planted in groups of 10, close enough together that they can spawn successfully. “We are learning which ones are resistant to disease and warm water. We are learning as we go,” Echevarria says. Divers keep track of where the corals come from and send samples of each location to a geneticist at Pennsylvania State University, where Mote Marine’s Vaughan also sends corals. “They keep the information,” Nedimyer says. “The genome has not been mapped yet, but eventually that might be done.”

For Nedimyer, diving often includes three or four dives a day for three or four days a week. The foundation also does educational dive trips and two-day seminars on how to plant coral. Nedimyer works with Keys dive shops and hotels to solicit volunteers, and last year, volunteers clocked more than 10,000 hours of water time—meaning the foundation has entered the ecotourism business.

At the Foundation’s education center onKey Largo, volunteers from schools and diving clubs are taught about the biology of corals and how diseases, pollution, ship accidents and other forces have decimated the reefs. They also learn how to attach corals with underwater epoxy so they will grow and thrive.

In October, the Garden Club of the Upper Keys will host the District XII annual meeting for the 13 clubs in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. Nedimyer and Echevarria will give presentations and the state garden club officers will attend. “I’m encouraging everyone to come early and go diving,” Clark says.

Volunteers help in the coral nurseries and in replanting.


It’s Gardening Time at the Shop!By Erin Fitts, photos by Rey Longchamp

what’s in store

F A I R C H I L D T R O P I C A L B O T A N I C G A R D E N

Your WeddingInvite your guests to step into the Garden

and feel the urban world fade away... With three reception areas and multiple

outdoor spaces among Fairchild’s 83 acres,the possibilities are limitless.

For more information and availability,please call 305.663.8058.

AT FAIRCHILD

Foxgloves Gauntlet Gloves This tough but breathable glove is for all of your gardening projects. $39.95.

How to Grow More Vegetables By John Jeavons. Explains how to produce a beautiful organic garden with minimal watering and care. $19.95.

New Kitchen GardenBy Adam Caplin. With a focus on plants that are easy to grow, this guide illustrates ways to cultivate edibles in beds and containers, in mixed borders and decoratively with flowers. $16.95.

at Fairchild

Sunday, December 86:00 -10:00 p.m.

Enjoy a music repertoire led by esteemed conductor Robert Heath, with a special performance by husband

and wife duo Igor and Vesna Gruppman, while sipping champagne and dining on dinner and desserts by Macy’s Catering. Tickets start at $250 and can be

purchased by calling 305.663.8058.

CELEBRATING OUR 20TH ANNIVERSARY

F A I R C H I L D T R O P I C A L B O T A N I C G A R D E N

Holiday at Fairchild

Holiday at FairchildMusic

Tula HatThe Tula gardening hat is made from sustainable royal palm materials. Rated UPF 50+ with a handy chinstrap, this hat is every gardener’s favorite companion. $35.00.

Phot

o by

Roy

Lle

ra p

hoto

grap

hy

gardening in south florida

eople and gardens—we have a connection unlike any other. Gardens can be our solace and oasis from the world. We can

escape into a little bit of nature in our gardens, get closer to wildlife, even grow the food we eat. They relax us while simultaneously rejuvenating us.

Several scientific studies have examined the therapeutic qualities of gardens and gardening, for both the mind and the body. Ecotherapy, for instance, is the use of contact with nature as a means to improve mental wellbeing. In 2007, British mental health organization Mind published a report called “Ecotherapy: The Green Agenda for Mental Health.” That report presents real data and case studies demonstrating the effectiveness of ecotherapy. For the body, the American Horticultural Therapy Association cites studies demonstrating improved immune

response, decreased stress, lower heart rate and improved motor skills as a result of gardening activities. Although gardening can be strenuous, when done safely it can be a good workout, burning calories and developing muscles.

But, just as our gardens grow and change through time, so do our bodies. The ability to perform common gardening activities can be impeded by arthritis, rheumatism or other joint or muscular conditions, but these needn’t stop us from gardening. In fact, a study funded by the Arthritis Foundation and published in 2007 showed that exercise can actually reverse aging in muscle cells. As a low-impact exercise that requires no gym membership or bulky equipment, gardening can be an ideal activity throughout a person’s lifetime. Of course, you should check with your doctor about staying active in your garden if you’ve experienced any health or mobility issues.

Planning for accessibilityIf you don’t yet have your garden planted, plan for accessibility now and in the future—so that you’ll be able to continue to enjoy this activity throughout your lifetime. Create wide paths to accommodate a cane or walker, ensuring that you can easily access your beds for weeding and maintenance should you require either form of assistance. Be cautious of placement of mulched areas, as mulch is quite slippery when damp. Consider sand paths instead: Not many weeds like sand, and it’s fairly stable, even when wet. Lay out your garden to suit your needs and ability, with an eye towards your future requirements. If your garden is already established, you may need to consider hiring a landscaper to modify it to allow you easy and safe access.

Bring the garden to youPatty Cassidy, a registered horticultural therapist, certified master gardener and author of The Illustrated Practical Guide to Gardening for Seniors and The Age-Proof Garden, advises that, “adding vertical structures can add a whole new dimension to your experience and to the look of your garden. Not only do they enable you to do a lot of your tending and maintenance standing up, thus putting less pressure on your back and knees, but they are also great space-savers on decks or porches.”

Vertical gardening can take many forms. “Trellis or lattice structures come in plastic, wood or metal grid design and can be attached to walls or fences or can be free-standing,” Cassidy explains. “These are popular for showcasing delicate flowering vines.” She also recommends taking advantage of arbors and archways: “Try growing cantaloupes or other small melons on these more sturdy structures.

“All My Hurts My Garden Spade Can Heal”By Kenneth Setzer

A trellis allows those who have difficulty bending to garden while standing.

P

Or try using an expandable teepee, often made from bamboo or plastic poles. This can be easily set in a raised bed to provide more height for easy access. They are perfect for pole beans and peas.”

Raised garden beds can also help bring your garden within easy reach. Essentially bottomless boxes, they can be purchased as kits or made from wood (preferably naturally rot-resistant cedar), and should ideally be about two feet high, allowing access to the soil surface from a seated position. To avoid soil compaction, use coir (derived from coconuts) as a planting medium in your raised plant beds. It’s also lighter than soil and helps retain moisture.

Plant smartKeep low maintenance in mind when choosing what you want to grow. Xeriscapes (gardens using plants with low water needs) are great for the environment, and reduce or eliminate the need to haul around heavy and awkward hoses for watering. Native plants are always a great bet, because they are already completely suited for your environment. Once established, they often do not require any additional irrigation beyond what nature provides. And they, too, are great for the environment. If you must water your garden, invest in a lightweight hose and a wheeled cart that you can use to haul your watering can. Throughout your garden, use weed-blocking fabric or plant a ground cover to help block out weeds and retain moisture, thus reducing maintenance requirements. Also keep in mind that planting perennials instead of annuals should reduce your future workload.

Avoid pain with be�er toolsGardening is great exercise for maintaining joint flexibility, but using some gardening tools may initially aggravate joint problems. Look for tools that are designed to go easy on your joints. Tools labeled “ergonomic” are often specially designed to be easier on your hands, and may even have been designed specifically for those with arthritis. However, Cassidy cautions, “Some designs are better than others.”

Lightweight tools with long handles let you avoid having to bend or stoop. Ratcheting hand pruners are convenient for those with limited hand strength. Cassidy says

you should also look for hand cushioning. “For tools that require us to grasp, most arthritic hands require and appreciate more cushioning,” she notes. “Many hand tools like trowels, weeders or pruners now come with foam rubber or some soft materials. If you need more sponginess, buy inexpensive pipe insulators that are easy to cut and wrap around handles, and secure with brightly colored duct tape.”

Avoid repetitive tasksEven with comfortable tools, it’s essential to avoid extended, repetitive tasks. The Arthritis Foundation recommends switching tasks every half hour, and taking 15-minute breaks every hour, as well as using larger muscles when possible (for instance, carrying items with your shoulders instead of your hands). The foundation also publishes a list of products awarded its “Ease-of-Use Commendation”— those which the foundation has tested and believes will help people with arthritis and other physical limitations.

And finally, remember to listen to what your body is telling you: If it hurts, stop. Don’t be afraid to ask for, or hire, help. Cassidy summarizes well: “Staying involved in your garden is healthy, and knowing your limits is wise.”

ResourcesFind more information with these resources:“Ecotherapy: The Green Agenda for Mental Health,” Mindwww.mind.org.uk/campaigns_and_issues/report_and_resources/835_ecotherapyAmerican Horticultural Therapy Associationwww.ahta.orgThe Arthritis FoundationArthritis.org

Patty Cassidywww.pattycassidy.comArthritis Foundation Ease-of-Useproducts listwww.arthritis.org/resources/ease-of-use-new

Gardening tools designed with ease in mindRadius gardening toolswww.radiusgarden.comFiskarswww2.fiskars.comGarden at Easewww.gardenateaseshops.comBionic Gloves (Gardening and other gloves designed for arthritis sufferers)www.bionicgloves.com

Raised garden beds help gardeners avoid bending or sitting on the ground to tend plants.

FALL 2013 39

honeyPlight of the

by Georgia taskerbees

very couple of months, Richard Campbell sprinkles powdered sugar on his honeybees to control parasitic varroa mites that attach themselves to bees’ backs and drink bee blood

(hemolymph). The powdered sugar causes the bees to groom themselves and scrape off the mites. Campbell, Fairchild’s director of horticulture, has long had a hobby of beekeeping and oversees hives at the Garden, at the Fairchild Farm and at his home in Homestead. It’s no longer just an enjoyable hobby, though. It is crucial work, as honeybee populations around the world fall.

“This year, I had a big problem because I didn’t have enough drones and ended up with queens

that only lasted six months,” Campbell says. “There was not enough sperm. My queens had varroa and I didn’t know it. I had one queen I really liked and collected (larval) cells from her, but they’d all been damaged by varroa and were rejected. When the larvae come out, the colony will force them out or kill them.”

Campbell’s bee woes, from fewer drones and queen longevity to mites, have been noted across the country, with the result that the inner workings of beehives have never been more fully studied than they are today. Since the late 1990s, beekeepers in North America have been losing bees for unknown reasons. By 2006, losses reached an average of 30% a year—making it harder and harder to produce enough healthy honeybees to pollinate such crops as almonds, cranberries, blueberries, carambolas, avocados, eggplants, rapeseedand watermelon.

As they struggle to maintain their colonies, beekeepers debate the potential causes of their losses, and ways to address them, online. There are rarely clear answers. Take the varroa mites, which arrived in the United States in 1987 from Brazil: Beekeepers initially relied on chemical miticides to control them, but those depress reproductive activity in the colonies, compounding the problems. Now, although some scientists question the effectiveness of dusting bees with powdered sugar to control the mites, beekeepers are increasingly discussing it. The mites, originally believed to be from Asia but now found worldwide, have been found to depress the bees’ immune systems, making them more susceptible to diseases and pesticides and to spreading viruses such as deformed wing virus and acute paralysis virus.

“Historically the U.S. had as many as 6 million colonies in 1947, with declines

since that time to about 4 million in 1970 and 3 million in 1990. Today’s colony

strength is about 2.5 million.” —Report of the National Honey Bee Health Stakeholder Conference, 2012

ERichard Campbell shows a

frame of healthy honeybees at the Fairchild Farm.

FALL 2013 41

Other diseases that may plague honeybees include Nosema virus (which is actually a microsporidian or fungal infection in the gut of bees that causes dysentery when they are confined to their hives in winter), bacterial diseases, hive beetles and wax moths.

But disease and mites may not be the only things causing honeybee populations to fall. More attention is being paid these days to a relatively new form of systemic pesticide that may be adding to the misery.

In April, European regulators suspended for two years the use of systemic pesticides related to nicotine, called neonicotinoids. In high doses, they cause paralysis and death in insects. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not suspended their use—although the Oregon Department of Agriculture stopped the use of 18 products containing one of the related chemicals while it investigates two massive bee kills in June.

In mid-August, the EPA unveiled a new pesticide warning label that will prohibit use of some neonicotinoid pesticide products where bees are present, and it established a Pollinator Protection Workgroup in 2011. It also is reevaluating risk assessment standards that have been used since the 1950s. The standards only measure direct killing effects on adult bees. They do not account for sub-lethal and accumulative effects of chemicals on the social lives of bees inside the hives—the queens, nurse bees, drones and developing larvae.

In July, Congressmen Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and John Conyers Jr. of Michigan introduced

H.R. 2692: The Saving America’s Pollinators Act of 2013, which directs the EPA to suspend use of the most bee-toxic neonicotinoids for seed treatment, soil applications and foliar spray until reviews show they are safe. The bill also asks the Department of the Interior and the EPA to report on native bee populations, showing potential causes of any declines.

Colony Collapse DisorderHoneybees, which were introduced to the United States from Europe beginning in 1662, began disappearingin huge numbers a decade ago. By 2006, the disappearance got a name: Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Dr. Eric Mussen, extension apiculturist at the University of California, Davis, describes CCD this way: “Foragers stop returning to the colony. They leave and don’t come back. Once you depletethe foragers, then the house bees come out and don’t come back. Only a handful of bees with no experience of flying and the queen are left. That handful of bees cannot take care of the queen. And eggs, larvae and pupae are left behind. The few bees cannot keep the brood alive. You normally cannot pry nurse bees off brood with a crow bar, but in this case they leave. They just go.”

Yet, says entomologist Dr. Jamie Ellis, who directs the University of Florida’s Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab, “CCD is only responsible for a fraction of the losses. I don’t even use the term anymore. When you combine mites, pesticides and Nosema, that’s when you get losses. I wonder if we haven’t already discovered the factors and are unwilling to believe there is not a single smoking gun. Pesticides are one of the stressors but not the only stressor.”

TOPA bee harvesting pollen.

ABOVEVarroa mite on larvae.

Photo by Jacopo Werther,commons.wikimedia.org

Other diseases that may plague honeybees include


In Fort Myers, commercial beekeeper Dave Mendes says, “Varroa mites are in the center and pesticides are in the thick of it because bees are exposed to them either on agricultural crops or because beekeepers use them to control mites. It’s a crappy position for beekeepers to be in.”

The New Demandsof BeekeepingAdding to the stresses of predators, disease and pesticides, it is also more difficult than it once was for bees to find the right food. Habitat loss has depleted their foraging areas, impacting bee nutrition. “Acreage of corn and soybeans have high dollar value, and the acreage is expanding either into conservation areas or prairies or places good for pollinator habitats,” Mendes says.

In mid-summer at the Fairchild Farm, in a landscape altered by nurseries, farms and houses, Campbell’s six bee colonies would starve if they weren’t fed honey. “That’s the biggest limitation here at the farm,” he says. “About a month ago (May), when everything finishes blooming, they started to starve. Hungry bees get weakened and you get [problems with] hive beetles and varroa mites.” So Campbell feeds his bees honey to counter the lack of natural flowers. At the Garden, the bees feed on palm and mangrove flowers in the summer. In Fort Meyers, professional beekeeper Mendes also relies on palms and mangrove flowers, followed in September and October by melaleuca blooms and Brazilian pepper. When he has to supplement food for his bees, he mixes brewer’s yeast, sugar, dried eggs and some oils

to give them protein, “which seems to make a difference” in keeping his bees healthy, he says. Many beekeepers use sugar water to feed bees, but that lacks the proteins needed to keep bees healthy, says entomologist Dr. Malcolm Sanford, University of Florida professor emeritus and author of Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees.

At the Tucson Bee Lab of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, team leader Dr. Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman spent four years analyzing nutrients in pollen and developed a protein supplement with lipids, minerals and carbohydrates called Megabee. It now is in commercial production. Her next long-term research will focus on how microbes in bees affect pollen that is mixed with honey to become beebread, or food for the hive.

DeGrandi-Hoffman also has worked with a team of researchers to come up with a natural miticide made from the byproducts of hops used in processing beer (now sold as Hopguard). It’s one of several biological mite-control products on the market. She stresses that the best nutritional supplement or natural miticide isn’t enough. While doing her work on varroa mites, she found that mite population in a beehive is dynamic—mites on bees move into hives all the time. “You can lose control of the population quickly,” she says. “So I’d say beekeepers need constant vigilance. Check the populations monthly and rotate controls.”

Mendes has managed to grow his colonies during the last three years, to almost 20,000 hives. He’s done so by engaging in “high-input beekeeping” that requires far more work than beekeeping

Powdered sugar dusted onto bees stimulates them to clean themselves, removing mites.

FALL 2013 43

did a decade ago. He splits his hives annually, introduces new queens often and takes his bees to California in the spring to pollinate almonds.

But Mendes is picky about where he’ll take his colonies. He goes only to the southern end of California’s San Joaquin Valley for almond pollination because there’s not a lot of rain there and growers don’t use fungicides. “One hundred miles farther north, where there is a lot of fungicide use, you bring them back and the bees are sick,” he says. “Raising bees today is like raising a child with a lot of health problems.”

California almonds command the biggest pollination event on the planet. Some 800,000 acres are planted with the trees, and the acreage is growing. Two-thirds of the country’s honeybee colonies are needed to pollinate them. In 2006-2007, there weren’t enough honeybees in the U.S. to pollinate all the almonds, and bees were imported from Australia. That stopped when Asian mites were found on them.

The trek to California for almond season can be profitable, but risky. Eric and Sue Olsen from Yakima, Wash., have been in the beekeeping business 32 years. They lost 65% of their bees in 2010 in California. Like others in the bees-on-wheels pollinator business, they transport their hives on trucks to different parts of the country as crops come into flower. After the California die-off, says Sue Olsen, they had to get a $700,000 bank loan to buy new bees. “They were sprayed with something,” she says. “It probably wasn’t the chemical itself. There are

nasty little secrets about some chemicals.”Many agricultural chemicals, especially fungicides, have added adjuvants, or spreader-stickers that help active ingredients adhere more readily to leaves. Some adjuvants “appear to be good enough to move viruses through insect tissue,” Mussen says. “So if they could do that, they could move chemicals through tissues. So the world is continually changing and maybe neonicotinoids are synergizing all the others.” These inert ingredients historically have not been considered toxic enough to warrant risk assessment. Nonetheless, entomologists at Pennsylvania State University have found that they impair bees’ navigation abilities and can kill larvae in the hive. Many of the adjuvants are said to be proprietary and are not listed on pesticide labels. In 2010, Penn State and ARS scientists found 121 different pesticides and metabolites in honeybee wax, pollen and hives, with samples coming from 23 states.

Home gardeners are allowed to use the same pesticides. “We know there’s a reason for concern in urban environments,” says Dr. Jeff Pettis, who leads the Bee Research Lab of the Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Md. “Rates allowed to be used by homeowners are higher than for growers. Homeowner rates are too high for use in backyards and gardens, and we know that.”

“Before varroa and tracheal mites got here (in 1987 and 1984 respectively) there was a five to 10% annual loss,” says extension bee specialist Mussen. “When we started to bombard colonies

TOP To calm the bees before

working with them, Campbell uses a smoker.

ABOVEA bee with full

polen pouches on apineland acacia.


with (chemical) mite controls, losses jumped to 15 to 20%. Now, we’re up to an average of 30%. Now, we have varroa mites with viruses that they move around. And yes, neonicotinoids are on the market. Put all that together, and meanwhile all the rest of the chemistries are changing, too.”

A Multifaceted Problem that Requires a Collaborative Solution“From the beekeepers’ standpoint, we’re not finding answers fast enough,” Pettis says. “They’re struggling. And more attention on the research side is focused on neonicotinoids because “they move through the system of the plant and can concentrate in the pollen. It’s a new route of exposure for pollinators. In general, the jury is out, but pesticide exposure has come up higher and higher on the radar.”

There are other ways of keeping mites at bay, such as mite-resistant queen bees, which are being developed in Minnesota and Louisiana “If a beekeeper is willing to purchase queens so those lines can continue in the colonies, it’s one way to keep mite levels low,” Tucson’s DeGrandi-Hoffman says. “But it requires an area-wide approach because of the mite migration problem.” DeGrandi-Hoffman believes the problems will be overcome, “but the beekeepers, researchers, growers and chemical companies all have to come together

to find solutions that actually are going to work.”To that end, Jerry Hayes left his job as chief apiary inspector for Florida to go to agricultural technology company Monsanto and set up a bee program two years ago. He got a lot of online flack, but stuck with it. Both Hayes and Mendes had been working with a small Israeli company called Beeologics to develop a way to use RNA to silence the gene that causes one of the bee viruses. The University of Florida’s Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab also is working on possible RNA solutions. “If you could control varroa using a natural process, that would change beekeeping globally,” Hayes says. Monsanto purchased Beeologics, and has the money to fund the research. “Scientists in Israel have gene targets picked out in the mite and viruses that won’t turn off any honeybee genes,” Hayes says. “They say they would have a preliminary report by the end of the year. The actual product is still three or four years away.”

To the three Ps afflicting honeybees—pathogens, pesticides and poor nutrition—Mendes says he would add a fourth: politics. “Trying to separate science from politics is messy. It’s not just a scientific issue,” he says. “Companies involved in the manufacture of pesticides are multi-billion and multinational and making a lot of money from some chemicals beekeepers are concerned about. EPA is in the thick of it because they’re charged with showing that the products are safe. It’s messy.”

A bee harvesting pollen.

Planting for

BEESBy Georgia Tasker

As we look to fall and winter, we have the opportunity to provide honeybees with pollen and nectar plants that

are unavailable to bees in temperate climates. Many honeybee plants are native, some are in our vegetable gardens and of course there are wildflower gardens that can offer

sustenance to them as well.

he late Julia Morton, who ran the Morton Collectania (a collection of papers and studies on plants at the University

of Miami), prepared a list of honeybee plants in the mid-1960s at the request of beekeepers. Below are some of the fall and winter plants she included, as well as plants listed at the South Florida Bee College in August by Claudia Silveira, a Florida licensed beekeeper and certified arborist.

• Necklace pod, Sophora tomentosa: a native shrub, provides nectar from August to November• West Indian lilac, Tetrazygia bicolor: ends its summer run of white flowers with yellow stamens in October• Saltbush, Baccharis halimifolia: a shrub with white flowers which is a good source of nectar• Wax myrtle, Myrica cerifera: provides nectar in winter and spring• Hemp vine, Mikania cordifolia: gives nectar at various times from May through December• Sisal-hemp, Agave sisalana: abundant nectar in October and May• Painted leaf, wild poinsettia, Euphorbia heterophylla: in August and September, provides some pollen, abundant nectar; appears as a roadside and lawn weed• Blazing star, Liatris spicata: a fall source of nectar on upright stalks of purple/lavender flowers• Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirta: from June to October, a source of nectar• Pine-barren goldenrod, Solidago fistulosa: late summer and fall, a source of nectar• Tickseed, Coreopis leavenworthii: the state wildflower, blooms all year and is a nectar source• Blue porterweed, Strachytarpheta jamaicensis: from June to October or later, provides nectar• Sunflower, Helianthus annuus: pollen is abundant October to April, and a source of nectar; many sunflowers can be planted year-round

• Bush beans, Phaseolus vulgaris: in winter, has abundant nectar in some years• Carambola, Averrhoa carambola: December to February and at other times has nectar in small pink and white flowers• Mango, Mangifera indica: from November to April, pollen and nectar in the morning; reduced by cold and drought• Chayote, Sechium edule: during late summer and late winter, nectar in small yellowish flowers• Pongam, Pongamia pinnata: in September and October, this tree provides both pollen and nectar• Yellow elder, Stenolobium stans: in October and November (and again in spring), nectar in yellow flowers on this sprawling tree• Dombeya, Dombeya wallichii: in fall and winter, abundant pollen and nectar in clusters of pink flowers• Texas sage, Leucophyllum frutescens: during late fall, abundant pollen and nectar on a shrub with silver leaves• Sour orange, sweet orange and grapefruit, Citrus spp: provide nectar• Coastal plain willow, Salix caroliniana: blooms February to March and is a nectar source• Mexican clover, Richardia scabra: May to December, nectar source; a lawn weed with light pink flowers• Red maple, Acer rubrum: during January and February, provides nectar and pollen• Spanish needles, Bidens pilosa: provides nectar and pollen year-round• Pentas, Pentas lanceolata: flowers all year, nectar source; bees love the white blossoms• Firebush, Hamelia patens: flowers year-round, nectar in tubular orange/red flowers that bees lap from the edges• Yellowtop, Flaveria linearis: year-round, nectar source

Bees love flowers that are white, yellow, blue and purple. They also need a supply of water.

• b

T

BUG BEAT

A Gentler Way to Treat PestsBy Georgia Tasker

�e decline of honeybees and other insect pollinators is a cautionary tale about reaching for a chemical quick �x when it comes to insects and diseases in our landscapes. �ere are remedies less damaging, and home gardeners—who use chemicals at many times the rate allowed for agriculture—can help make the environment less toxic by using them.

Readjust ExpectationsThe first remedy is an internal readjustment on the part of those of us who call ourselves gardeners. Tattered leaves are OK. A few insects are OK. If you hike through a rainforest, you see plenty of ratty, holey leaves, anthills, termite mounds, broken stems, mushrooms, mold, insects galore and evidence of competition for life. Those same clashes go on in our gardens, but for some reason we think leaves must be blemish-free.

Allow Bene�cialInsects to HelpThe next step is to allow beneficial insects to be beneficial. Ladybugs, lacewings, parasitic wasps, certain nematodes, syrphid or hover flies, spiders, dragonflies, bats, purple martins … these are on your side and perfectly willing to pitch in and gobble up pests such as aphids, thrips, mealybugs and whiteflies.

Where will you find these beneficial insects? Not on perfectly manicured St. Augustine grass, but in fennel and the sweet alyssum, parsley, cosmos and mint. Crape myrtles are host to several beneficial insects, according to University of Florida entomologist Dr. Russ F. Mizelle. “Plants that Attract Beneficial Insects” is a factsheet produced by UF’s Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences, which is available online. Beneficial seed blends also are sold online, but wildflowers help, too. Herbs that are allowed to flower usually have tiny flowers, and accommodate the needs of tiny beneficial bugs.

Enlist Oils the Right WayEnlist the oils for help as well: cinnamon oil, mint and peppermint oil, clove oil, sesame oil, corn oil, rosemary, cottonseed oil, lemongrass oil, thyme and thyme oil, and even castor oil are listed as “minimum risk pesticides” by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Neem and horticultural oils are good insecticides, but as with any oil, they should not be used when the temperature exceeds 80 degrees. Make your own oil by blending two tablespoons of vegetable oil and two tablespoons of Ivory or Palmolive dish soap in a gallon of water. Or, try a 1% soap solution using 2 ½ tablespoons of liquid soap to a gallon of water. A 2% soap solution can be made by adding five tablespoons of liquid soap to a gallon of water (or four teaspoons to a quart).

When using oils and insecticidal soaps, apply them early or late in the day and make sure plants are healthy and growing well. Avoid using oils on plants stressed by drought or when they are in flower. Insecticidal soaps will not affect insects with hard outer shells, such as certain scales. Real soaps, such as Fels Naptha and Dr. Bonner’s Pure Castile, are fatty acids. Oils and soaps are contact insecticides: they must cover the insect and they have no residual action. You may have to apply every three days in severe infestations.

Another option is Organocide, which is 95% fish oil and 5% sesame oil. I have used it successfully against croton scale, which is a soft scale, instead of treating with a neonicotinoid pesticide, suchas Merit.

In order to reduce bee and other pollinator mortality, sprays are best applied late in the afternoon or early evening hours when bees are not active.

tt

FALL 2013 47

Because they are such diverse and fascinating plants, philodendrons, anthuriums and Colocasia—

or “aroids” as they are commonly called—can become an addicting habit. Many, but not all, aroids grow attached to trees, as epiphytes. To grow these plants well in a container, it is important to keep your potting mix chunky so that water drains quickly and air can get to the roots. Every grower has preferred ingredients and proportions, but most achieve the right consistency by mixing various amounts of orchid bark, long fiber sphagnum moss and perlite with potting soil.

Many people collect, grow and study them and enjoy interacting with other aroid enthusiasts to celebrate them. So many folks share this mutual love and passion for aroids that in 1977 the International Aroid Society IAS) was formed. Currently about 400 members from 37 countries make up the IAS. The Society is headquartered at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. To learn more about aroids, the IAS Show and Sale or becoming an IAS member, please visit: www.aroid.org.

What is the International Aroid Society?By Zach DuFran

plant societies

B

AlocasiasAlocasias and and ColocasiasColocasias and and Colocasias and and Text and photos by Georgia TaskerText and photos by Georgia Tasker

AlocasiaBoth Alocasia and Colocasia have a natural range from tropical Asia through Oceania. Alocasias actually come in an array of sizes and textures, from charming dwarf forms to outlandish giants. They usually have long petioles and grow on rhizomes or tubers. Alocasia petioles often are peltate—attached at the center of the leaf, not where the lobes come together at the top. They tend to hold their leaves pointing up and their berries are either red or orange. But, says longtime aroid hybridizer LariAnn Garner of Florida City, for each tendency, there are exceptions. One trait occurs without exception in all alocasias: the inflorescences occur in pairs.

As with most aroids, Alocasia leaves are variable. The plants are cold-sensitive, so when we have a cool winter, some go into dormancy if temperatures drop into the mid-40s. Others go dormant for the thrill of it. They like high humidity and 70% to 80% shade.

There’s a group of alocasias that exhibits green leaves marked by silver to white veins. Once thought to be separate species, today they are lumped together into the species Alocasia longiloba. Some have deep green blades, others have gray-green blades, but all have light veins and maroon backs.

One of the really stunning plants in the complex species is Alocasia longiloba ‘Watsoniana.’ It has big oval leaves that are about two feet long and half that wide. The secondary veins also are silver, and the leaf is lightly puckered. I find this easiest to grow in a container in fairly deep shade. In the ground, it’s liable to succumb to rot.Alocasia sanderiana, a species from the Philippines, is a smaller plant with amazingly deep lobes and narrow leaves. As Deni Bown writes in Aroids, Plants of the Arum Family: “It looks more like a creation of Art Nouveau than of Mother Nature.” A. longiloba and A. sanderiana come together in the hybrid Alocasia X amazonica, which displays leaves that are dark green with silver veins and scalloped edges. You may wonder how this hybrid from an Asian genera got the name “amazonica.” John Banta, a longtime tropical plant collector and hybridizer who lives in Alva, Fla., tells this story: Sam Morrow, a mailman in Miami, used to grow and sell plants from his Amazon Nursery. He made the Alocasia cross, and named it for his nursery—not for the habitat from which it came.

Wholesale nursery owner Denis Rotolante discovered an amazonica-like plant in one of his greenhouses some years ago and called it Alocasia ‘Polly.’ It’s a popular and hearty local landscape plant: Even if you think you’ve lost it, it comes back. When Rotolante initially discovered the plant, he believed it was a polyploid—that is, having more than the normal number of chromosomes. Originally, he called it Alocasia ‘Poly’—but no one ever used that name, so even he now calls it ‘Polly.’

Alocasia lauterbachiana is an elegant, narrow-leafed dark plant that holds its serrated leaves upright. It, and some of the other smaller Alocasias, like to dry between waterings—or at least not be subjected to overwatering.

�e Alocasia GiantsIf big leaves are what you want, Alocasias have them in spades. Perhaps the granddaddy of these types is Alocasia macrorrhiza, and several cultivars have cropped up from this wonderful plant. It is now considered so widely grown it is called pan-tropical. A. macrorrhiza grows on a thick rhizome that eventually stands up, tree-like, and holds out huge green leaves on succulent petioles that tend to point upward.

�ere’s something captivating, even magical, about large tropical leaves. �ey are like elephants and whales, earning your admiration and even your a�ection for their great size. �ree genera of aroids—Alocasia, Colocasia and Xanthosoma—have even been grouped together under the catchall description of “elephant ears.” A. longiloba

‘Watsoniana’

A. macrorrhiza ‘Borneo Giant’


A. odora x reginula A. ‘Imperial Dark’A. nycteris, batwing

A. portei

The cultivar Alocasia macrorrhiza ‘Borneo Giant’ is probably the best known in South Florida, with its fast growth, enormous three-foot long to four-foot-long leaves and pairs of inflorescences. As the plant grows taller, its leaves get smaller. Since hurricanes can knock them over and cold winter winds make mincemeat of the big leaves—and since they’re usually too tall for a normal garden—it’s wise to cut down the giant when leaves begin to shrink. This will allow new suckers to arise.

Another cultivar, A. macrorrhiza ‘Lutea,’ has lemon-yellow petioles and veins, and is a spectacular landscape plant. A. macrorrhiza ‘Variegata’ bears green and cream marbled leaves. There’s a red petiole version, and a beautiful plant with nearly black petioles called simply A. macrorrhiza black stem, which carries the deep maroon/black color from the petioles into the veins on the underside of its leaves.

Alocasia odora is a sweet-smelling plant that Bown calls “night scented lily.” It has fat sagittate (arrow shaped) leaves, sunken veins and scalloped edges. It, too, develops an upright rhizome. It displays more cold hardiness than many other Alocasias. Alocasia portei is unmistakable: Its six-foot-long, dark-green leaves have deeply cut lobes with ruffled edges. Many years ago, Garner, who began hybridizing Alocasias in 1980, made a cross of A. odora and A. portei, calling the hybrid Alocasia X ‘Portora.’ The cold hardiness of A. odora and the blade edges of A. portei have made the hybrid a popular plant for gardens, especially among plants in the 10-foot range.

Hurricane Andrew destroyed Garner’s Aroidia Research hybridizing work, and it was years before she would recreate crosses and continue plant breeding. Still, in recent years, she has created a long list of hybrids. She used A. odora as a parent with A. nycteris, the batwing alocasia, to create Alocasia X nyctedora. The same batwing alocasia has been crossed with A. macrorrhiza ‘Borneo Giant’ to create Alocasia ‘Manta Ray.’ A stupendous hybrid called A. ‘Imperial Giant’ is Garner’s cross of Borneo Giant and a rare hybrid called VangiGo. The petioles are mottled and the upright leaf blades are substantial. A. ‘Imperial Dark’ is an equally successful cross that resembles A. ‘Imperial Giant’ but with maroon/black petioles.

All of these giants will grow most successfully in a planting area that is protected from wind.

Alocasia rugosa,Jewel or dwarf alocasia

A. odora x reginula

Dwarf AlocasiasThe dwarf alocasias take skill and determination to try, try again when growing. They like much less water than other Alocasias, and they often prefer acid conditions and protection from rain as well as cold.

Alocasia reginula (once known as A. ‘Black Velvet’) has leaves with a dark gray-green or pewter color, white veins and highly textured finish to its thick veins. The specific name means “little queen.” Garner recommends a potting mix of acid-producing oak leaves blended with Perlite, pine bark and sand for drainage. Alocasia chaii is a similar looking plant with dark leaves.

Alocasia melo is another small plant that has a bullate or puckered texture. A. melo’s round leaves have a texture similar to cantaloupe melon, so the name means melon, Bown writes. She says this one is from Sabah, (Borneo) Malaysia and grows on rocky ground in the rainforest or on steep stream banks. This means it likes to drain quickly.

Alocasia cuprea is well known among aroid fanciers. It’s the plant with the copper sheen and the rippled texture, due to dark veins that sink into the leaf blade. Colors can be copper to almost purple to gray. Somewhat larger than the other dwarf Alocasias, it grows slowly, reaches about 18 inches in height and doesn’t like soggy soil. It also is finicky about heat, and may be difficult to find locally.

Alocasia clypeolata was known for years as Green Shield,’ or a green version of A. cuprea. It has the same peltate leaf with puckers and dark veins, but lacks a copper appearance. Alocasia infernalis is also a small maroon plant with a metallic sheen. Alocasia reginae has a similar gray cast with a matte finish. The cultivar ‘Elaine’ was named for South Florida aroid fancier Elaine Spear.

Allow the dwarf Alocasia plants to become nearly dry between watering.

blended with Perlite, pine bark and sand for

is another small plant that has round

melon, so the name means melon, Bown writes.

rainforest or on steep stream banks. This means

is well known among aroid t’s the plant with the copper sheen

and the rippled texture, due to dark veins that olors can be copper to

omewhat larger than the , it grows slowly, reaches

about 18 inches in height and doesn’t like soggy soil. It also is finicky about heat, and may be

A. cuprea. t has the same peltate leaf with puckers and

is also a small maroon plant has a

similar gray cast with a matte finish. The cultivar

C. esculenta, ‘Nancy’s Revenge’

Colocasia esculenta


ColocasiaThe other Asian “elephant ear” genera, Colocasia, includes taro—one of the oldest known cultivated crops. It is Colocasia esculenta, and in some areas, including South Florida, it is considered an invasive exotic. But its cultivars and hybrids are also widely grown as garden ornamentals. Colocasias put out suckering stems, and can form large clumps, which is why you want to keep yours under control. C. esculenta has many forms, including plants with black leaves (‘Black Magic’ ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Black Coral’), plants with red petioles (‘Violet Stem’), plants with green and black leaves (‘Mojito,’ ‘Illustris’) or green and white variegated leaves (C. esculenta albo variegata, ‘Elepaio’). All are the same plant. The Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, world checklist of plant families lists 14 synonyms for C. esculenta that have been tried over the years.

The International Aroid Society’s 2000 show saw the debut of the C. esculenta cultivar ‘Nancy’s Revenge.’ An instant hit, it had been created by a plant enthusiast in the Florida Keys. It has a bold white streak down its central vein, set against a green leaf blade. I found it hard to grow in the ground, so I put it in a woven basket on a shelf in the pond, and bingo! It grows so enthusiastically that it requires regular pruning. Two additional pond residents are C. Black Magic, with deep maroon leaves, and C. Illustris, which has black coloration between green veins.

International Aroid Society member Brian Williams has become hooked on creating new Colocasias, even though many go dormant during winter in his neck of the woods in Louisville, Ky. He has been breeding them for 15 years, along with Alocasias and Cannas. Colocasia leaves are heart-shaped and have a thin vein that runs around their outer edge of the leaf, he explains. Their inflorescences come in multiples.

Williams has patented some Alocasia hybrids, such as A. Mayan Mask and A. Zulu Mask, and has a series of colocasias he’s working to get patented as well. He is trying to breed hardiness into the plants for use in northern markets. At the September International Aroid Society show and sale, he explained that colocasias generally have a thinner leaf than alocasias. He calls his cool-hardy plants “Tropicools.” He has another series called the Gecko Series, in various shades of green or blue, and one with a red “eye” in the center of the leaf. He is especially fond of creating black leaves, such as one he calls Colocasia ‘Puckered Up’ which he describes as “super black.” Of the ‘Puckered Up,’ he explains with a grin, “Everyone says it will put me on the map.” He calls another hybrid Colocasia ‘Victoria’ because the edges curl up like the Victoria water lily.

“I imagine the plant I’m after and then breed for that,” he says. “I draw them first.” It is the same technique Garner began with many years ago.

For the healthiest colocasias, most of which can be grown aquatically, Williams has one piece of advice: “Feed them a lot.”

coloration between green veins.

Colocasia esculenta‘Illustris mutant’

Alocasia ‘Tea Cup’

Alocasia odora

FALL 2013 53

D.D.M. HORTICULTURE SERVICES, INC.A DESIGN, BUILD & MAINTENANCE COMPANY.

Telephone: (305) 663-0993 Field: (305) 710-8848Email: [email protected] DeMarco, B.S., Ornamental Horticulture

Diverse Garden Projects.New garden construction. Older plantings refurbished.We are the single source provider for entire project, including plantings, hardscape,irrigation, lighting, ponds, fountains and its follow up maintenance.

6790 SW 74 StreetSouth Miami, FL 33143

uring a series of recent plant-exploring trips to the Dominican Republic, I gathered information about cherry palms—the Caribbean genus Pseudophoenix. Three of its four species—P. ekmanii, P. lediniana and P. vinifera—are endemic to the island of Hispaniola, Greater Antilles. A fourth species—P.

sargentii—also occurs in other Caribbean islands, in South Florida and on the Yucatan peninsula. All four Pseudophoenix species are negatively influenced by human activities, such as urban development, removal of individuals for illegal horticultural trade and sap extraction (P. ekmanii and P. vinifera) to produce a non-alcoholic beverage known as “Mabí de Cacheo.” I hoped to learn more about their conservation status, as well as about the cherry palm populations themselves, by gathering DNA samples and data on the size, age class and reproductive health of the populations. I also planned to map the distribution of the genus in the Dominican Republic.

In December 2012, with additional support from the Montgomery Botanical Center, I made initial surveys to determine the Pseudophoenix’s distribution range in the country. Through several additional field trips to the Dominican Republic between May 13 and 29, 2013, I gathered more information about these endemic palms. My trips were also supported by the Mohamed Bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund and The National Botanical Garden of the Dominican Republic. Altogether, I surveyed 12 wild populations of Pseudophoenix. My fieldwork primarily focused on P. vinifera and P. sargentii. The former has a relatively wide range in western Hispaniola, both in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In contrast, P. sargentii has a restricted distribution limited to the southeastern Dominican Republic. Prior to this field trip, this species was considered to be confined to Saona, a small island off the southeastern coast of Hispaniola. However, one of the main achievements of this expedition was to discover a large population with more than 100 individuals on the main island of Hispaniola. In addition to the large main island population of P. sargentii, I also found that the largest palm populations were restricted to areas with difficult access, such as rocky and slippery hills in dry and thorny forest. In contrast, populations located along lowland forests that were easy to reach had the fewest individuals; these populations have likely been decimated by human activities. In the northwest Dominican Republic, the survey illustrated some of the main palm management challenges faced by the country’s conservation biologists. Residents of a particular locality remember that in the past P. vinifera was very abundant, with hundreds of individuals growing in this area. However, during the last 50 years individual palms from this site have been sold to be planted in gardens. In addition, many individuals have had their sap tapped to prepare Mabí de Cacheo. The unsustainable harvesting of this palm in Los Derramaderos led to a major population collapse. Currently, only two individuals remain in this site.

More than 300 DNA samples were collected during this exploration trip, with the support of Fairchild, they will be used to examine genetic diversity and relatedness among the populations. I will use the collected demographic and geographic data in making conservation assessments.

SAMPLING CHERRYPALMS

in theDOMINICAN REPUBLIC

ByRosa Rodriguez, Fairchild Graduate Student

D

plant exploration

PINELAND PINELAND CROTON CROTON AND AND

SOUTH FLORIDA SOUTH FLORIDA SSIIMMPPERILED ERILED

BUTTERBUTTERFFLIELIESSBy Stephen R. Hodges and Emily Magnaghi

SOUTH FLORIDA SOUTH FLORIDA

airchild’s South Florida Conservation Team is helping the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) determine critical habitat for two imperiled South Florida-endemic butterflies. The Bartram’s scrub-hairstreak (Strymon acis bartrami) and the Florida leafwing (Anaea troglodyta

floridalis) once spread throughout pine rocklands in South Florida. But these two charismatic butterflies have become increasingly rare, leading to a proposal to protect them through the Endangered Species Act. Fairchild was contracted to help determine the distribution of their host plant, the pineland croton (Croton linearis). We focused on two core areas of Miami-Dade County pinelands: those surrounding Zoo Miami, known as the Richmond tract, and those near Navy Wells in Florida City. These natural areas form the two largest remaining pine rockland fragments outside of Everglades National Park.

We found pineland croton was abundant in both areas and mapped its distribution, which will support the USFWS effort to have these butterflies protected. We were excited and privileged to see the Bartram’s scrub-hairstreak on multiple occasions—even the small white caterpillars, which seem to enjoy munching on pineland croton flowers when given the chance. We observed Bartram’s scrub-hairstreak larvae present in recently burned pineland, where pineland croton flushes tender new growth. Because fire is necessary to help maintain pine rockland structure, it may be beneficial for our rare butterfly populations as well. Everglades National Park Botanist Jimi Sadle took Fairchild staff to see Florida leafwing caterpillars in Long Pine Key. This species has not been seen outside the park for a number of years, and we were lucky to see these rare larvae. This gave us a search image in case we happened to run into them during our surveys, which unfortunately we did not.

Hopefully our survey and mapping efforts will help the biologists at USFWS make their decisions about designating critical habitat and guide their restoration efforts in the future.

FF

PREVIOUS PAGETwo Bartram’s scrub-hairstreaks,

Strymon acis bartrami, feeding on Blodgett’s swallowwort, Cynanchum

blodgettii, at Navy Wells Pineland.Photo by Stephen Hodges

TOPFlorida Leafwing caterpillar in

Everglades National Park.Photo by Emily Magnaghi

ABOVE (L-R) Pineland croton, Croton linearis.

A Florida Leafwing butterfly,Anaea troglodyta floridalis.

Photo by Holly Salvato

FALL 2013 57

ORCHIDSin the wild

Text and photos by Georgia Tasker

uenca, Ecuador—Exploring the southern highlands for plants is far more fun and challenging than a classroom lecture could ever hope to be. When you take days to tromp through mountains and valleys, stomp through weeds and clamber up rocks, seeing nothing at all and then suddenly seeing it was there all along—these are the

pleasures of hiking-boot learning. Muddy, wet and happy, four of us gringos follow orchid expert Ivan Portilla through the back roads of his Ecuadorean childhood, discovering orchids as they are meant to be seen, chasing butterflies with cameras, watching leaf-cutter ants haul their cargo along chemical trails in the woods.

Ivan and his brother Pepe Portilla run the nursery business Ecuagenera, Orquideas del Ecuador, with three huge nursery sites and five flower stores and kiosks throughout the country. Nephew Alex Portilla joins the brothers in giving tours of the habitats in which the native species thrive, from lowland rainforests to cloud forests.

We began driving northeast from the steamy port city of Guayaquil, stopping above the tree line at 4,100 meters (just over 13,000 feet) in El Cajas National Park, with its 108 lakes. Just before reaching the treeless grassland called the páramo, we pass gnarly Polylepis trees that are dwarfed by the wind and harsh weather, but protected by their red flaking bark and succulent compound leaves. These trees grow at higher elevations than any others—up to 16,000 feet in Bolivia.

A hairy brown bromeliad, Puya clava-herculis, is flowering above 9,000 feet, its spike as big as a baseball bat. The quarter-sized flowers are turquoise with orange stamens, blue-green lights in wooly hidey-holes. The

big aster Espeletia pycnophylla has leaves that are silvery, densely covered with protective white hairs (pycno means dense), complemented by yellow flowers. Lupines and the yellow dandelion-like Hypochaeris sessiliflora keep their flowers close to the ground here in the highlands to stay out of the wind. My favorite site: yellow and orange flowers of a miniature gentian, Gentianella hirculus, that look like tiny hot air balloons about to take flight. An endemic, it is known from only 12 small populations here.

With the American Orchid Society headquarters in residence at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, visitors and sta� have shown more interest than ever in orchids. Fairchild Garden Writer Georgia Tasker recently joined an orchid tour of southern Ecuador, where she got to see orchids in their natural habitat and marvel at the great wonder of biodiversity that is increasingly at risk, yet gloriously displayed.

C

Women in a local market in southern Ecuador wear

traditional clothing.

FALL 2013 59

Clumps of cushion plants form heat-trapping rosettes on these rocky soils. I have seen them in Tierra del Fuego as well as similar forms in the Arctic. Plants know when to keep their heads down.

As we drive, we discover that Pepe and his brother Mario learned to grow orchids from Angelo Andreetta. A young Italian living in Ecuador, in 1950 Andreetta became a priest and began missionary work among the nation’s indigenous Shuar people (who wore face paint and little else, remembers Ivan). Father Andreetta studied and collected orchids at the free school he started for the Shuar. He discovered several species, which were named for him. The Portilla family, with six boys and four girls, lived nearby in the Amazon. As the Portilla brothers learned about orchids from Andreetta, it became clear to them that a company was needed to preserve and market orchids, and eventually maintain Andreetta’s personal collection. (The priest died in 2011.) In 1993, two years after Pepe Portilla incorporated Ecuagenera, the nursery became the first in Ecuador to receive a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) permit to export plants.

Orchids, passionflowers and more at lower elevationsAfter a stop in Gualaceo (just outside Cuenca), a territory in Ecuador’s south-central region, we head to lower elevations. Ecuador is the center of diversity for the Pleurothallis genus, and it is here in abundance, as are Epidendrum species, Stelis, Masdevallia and Sobralia species. Sobralias flowers last only one day, but they produce them day after day. The large-flowered Sobralia rosea is the most common, with its fancy lavender-rose lip. But we also see the white Sobralia virginalis and the exquisite Sobralia fimbriata, a flower with a lip that is peachy-golden and fringed with hairs. It is flat-out gorgeous.

We do not overlook the rest of the floral contenders, stopping repeatedly with “ohhhs” and “ahhhhs.” This country is a virtual flower shop. There’s a species of fuzzy red-flowering Kohleria spicata, in the gesneriad family, and a Pitcairnia maidifolia bromeliad that sends out long, lazy, horizontally inclined flower spikes. An unusual Iochroma shrub has green flowers, rather than the usual blue or red ones. Glorious pink passionflowers (Passiflora cumbalensis), red Centropogon species, sweetly nodding violets, fuchsias and pink heliconias grab our attention

RIGHTElleanthus species bear many tubular flowers and may form

large colonies. This is probablyElleanthus robustus.

BELOWSobralia rosea, below, opens

flowers in succession.


as well. Erythrina trees are in full bloom, their tubular flowers held in terminal clusters. Erythrina smithiana is bold red, while Erythrina cf fusca is orange. Erythrina amazonica displays pinkish-red flowers with white tips. They enliven the forests, and glow from a distance.

We spot several species of the Elleanthus orchid, which has an inflorescence like an inverted ice cream cone of small flowers. Elleanthus myrosmatis has candy-corn flowers of orange and yellow and Elleanthus capitatus has rosy-lavender flowers with white tips. There are many species of these orchids, but all require cool to intermediate climates and are not for South Floridians.

We see an abundance of the Stelis genus of orchid here, and they produce scores of flowers—all about the size of a baby’s toenails. Mostly the flowers are cream or yellow. A single Maxillaria embreei astonishes us with several clusters of white flowers held up to expose brownish lips. And a Rodriguezia chasei—the only one I spy—is perfectly arranged on a small guava tree to hold out seven white flowers, each with a small spur.

Libby Besse of Sarasota discovered Phragmipedium besseae in Peru in 1981, although it was first seen in the 1960s by Father Andreetta, who thought it was a begonia. The bright scarlet flower is only two to three inches long, with a pointed pouch edged in yellow. The inflorescence may be 20 inches, and flowers open

sequentially. Small populations have been found in Ecuador, and our quest to photograph this slipper orchid in the wild is a highlight of the trip. It grows on wet granite outcrops, constantly moistened by seepage and trickles of water, rooting in moss and fallen leaves. Getting to the plants means clinging to not-so-reliable bamboo, trying to get footing on mossy tree roots and slick rocks, then focusing our cameras in dripping water. Here, and at a second location, we find discarded tree limbs and signs of illegal collecting. But we spot a few of the orchids nonetheless.

We spend a morning in Podocarpus National Park, southern Ecuador’s only protected area. It is not nearly enough time, but living within the constraints of this trip means adding it to a “must return to” list. One of the glories of the park, named for Ecuador’s only conifer, is the butterfauna. Butterflies are puddling, sipping, pas-de-deuxing all over the place: I photograph Actinote tenebrosa, black with three distinct orange marks; Papilio thoas, a swallowtail with a wide yellow band; and Mimoides xeniades. Other butterflies either move too quickly to capture or I cannot find names for them. An orange-banded metalmark, Crocozona coecias, poses

on an orange fuchsia that perfectly matches his banding. (A butterfly tour has just made my bucket list.)

Come November, the tall form of Cattleya maxima will burst into flower along the coast. With a characteristic yellow stripe down the lip, its lavender flowers will be easy to recognize. Just in case you should like to spend Thanksgiving in Ecuador.

Ecuagenera orchid tours include hotel, food, a car, guide and transfers to and from the airport in Guayaquil. For more information, go to www.ecuagenera.com or email [email protected].

Phragmipedium besseae is a tiny orchid that grows in

wet, rocky and hidden sites.

FALL 2013 61

Friday, Saturday and SundayNovember 15, 16 and 17, 2013

9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

OrchidFestivalFall

AT FAIRCHILD

In partnership with:In partnership with:

FOR OUR HORTICULTURE OPERATION• 2 Tablet Notebooks, $1,500• 12 Golf Cart Batteries, $1,200• Walk-Behind Aerator, $1,500• Hardware for Accession Tag Embossing Machine, $2,000• Plant Transport Van, $20,000

FOR CONSERVATION, RESEARCH AND THE ONLINE HERBARIUM• Extra-Tall Tripod, $150• Macro Zoom Lens for Sony SLR Camera, $800• Laptop Computer, $2,000• New Display Giclee Prints on Canvas for Public Events, $2,000 • Plant Canopy Imager, $6,000• Seed Germination Chamber, $8,500• Mid-Size Pickup Truck, $26,400

FOR THE RESEARCH LIBRARY• World Checklists for: Araliaceae, Conifers, and Fagales, $300

FOR THE FAIRCHILD FARM• Golf Cart, $7,000

FOR THE VISITOR EXPERIENCE OPERATION• iPad, $500• Digital SLR Camera, $500

FOR SPECIAL EVENTS• Fully-equipped Commercial Kitchen for Visitor Center

FOR MEMBER AND DONOR SERVICES• Laptop Computer/LCD Projector, $2,000• Digital SLR Camera, $1,000

FOR OUR STUDENTS• New Vehicle for PlantMobile Outreach Program, $25,000• Solar Conversion Kits for Education Golf Carts, $4,000• iPads for Explorer Field Studies Program, $2,500• Laptop Computer for Lifelong Learning, $600• SMART Board for the Corbin Classroom, $2,000• Table-Top Easels, $125• Art Display Panels, $1,000• Dark Field Microscope, $600• Cannon Double-Sided Feed Scanner, $3,000

FOR OUR VISITORS• Golf Cart, $7,000

FOR LIFELONG LEARNING PROGRAM• Laptop and LCD, $1,200

To fully fund a wish, donate a portion of the cost or donate the actual item, please contact Leslie Bowe at 305.667.1651, ext. 3338, [email protected] or please visit www.fairchildgarden.org/Donate

Fairchild has a wish list of items that will enhance our programs, but we need Wish Makers. We hope you see an item that you can help fulfill.

gifts and donors

To support Fairchild, please visit www.fairchildgarden.org/Donate

MAJOR GIFTSThe Fairchild ChallengeThe Batchelor Foundation

The Prof. Raymond F. Baddour, Sc.D. DNA LaboratoryThe Baddour Family Foundation Ocean Boulevard PropertiesInternship Program in 2013Mr. Daniel M. ZiffMr. Dirk ZiffMr. Robert Ziff

Whitman Tropical Fruit Collection FundMrs. Angela W. Whitman

Orchid Re-Introduction ProjectMr. Bruce C. MathesonMrs. Martha Rogers Haas

FAIRCHILD GIFTSThe following list combines membership and gifts to Fairchild at the $1,000 level and above.

Platinum FellowDr. and Mrs. T. Hunter PryorMr. Bruce W. Greer and Ms. Evelyn Langlieb GreerMs. Marianne H. Luedeking

Silver FellowMrs. Selma AlexanderMr. Leslie A. BoweThe Chanticleer FoundationNordstromPublix Super Markets Charities Inc.SunTrust Foundation

FellowMr. Armando AlvarezMr. and Mrs. Alain ArroyoArt Basel Miami BeachMr. Carl BauerMr. and Mrs. James T. BernhardtMr. and Mrs. Irving Bolotin

Dr. and Mrs. S. Allen BradfordMs. Teresa BuonicontiMs. Constance CollinsMrs. Gunda DorranceMr. Joseph Z. Duke and Mrs. Jennifer U. JohnsonMr. and Mrs. Ronald EssermanMr. and Mrs. Richard D. FainMr. and Mrs. Jose R. GarrigóMs. Jenny C. GraggMr. and Mrs. Ronald E. HerzogDr. and Mrs. Steven M. HolmesMr. and Mrs. Ethan W. JohnsonMs. Cynthia KnightMr. and Mrs. John M. MalloyMr. Martin MarguliesMr. and Mrs. James MitchellMrs. Ruth H. MitchellMrs. Marianne MontoroMr. and Mrs. Michael MullenDr. and Mrs. William P. Murphy Jr.Ms. Beverly J. RadellDr. Audrey H. Ross and Mr. H. Jackson RossMs. Jolyn H. SellersMs. Jacqueline SimkinMr. and Mrs. Philip W. SkoveMr. and Mrs. Donald D. Slesnick IITeam Enterprises/ Sparkling IceMr. and Mrs. Ed Williamson

TRIBUTE PROGRAMCommemorative GiftsIn Memory of Robert Altemus Bank of Coral Gables Mr. and Mrs. James Greene Mr. and Mrs. Ray W. Hayes Ms. Theresa A. Mandell Mr. and Mrs. David L. Marcus

Dr. and Mrs. Robert T. Pane South Miami Office of Great American Insurance Company– Ocean Marine Division Mr. and Mrs. Samuel M. WaksmanIn Memory of Steven Cooke-Yarborough Mr. and Mrs. Norman Boone Ms. Linda Lubitz Boone and the Team at The Lubitz Financial GroupIn Honor of Jeff Kaplan Mrs. Josephine N. StoryIn Memory of Guillermo “Willy” Menendez Mrs. Katherine Almendarez-PadillaIn Honor of David Moore Ms. Victoria Castro Tribute BricksIn Memory of Humberto and Laura Gomez Mr. Humberto I. GomezIn Memory of Lynne Kline Ms. Marie B. Wilson

Tribute BenchesIn Memory of Ann M. Gerard Mrs. Tracy Cruz Tribute TreesIn Memory of Dr. Nynoska Perez Viloria Mr. Brett A. UryFrances GreerMemorial FundMr. and Mrs. Vincent A. Tria Jr.

The following gifts were made between June 1, 2013 and August 15, 2013. Please notify the Member Services and Donor Relations Office at 305.667.1651, ext. 3310 if your information is incorrect. We apologize in advance for any errors or omissions.

OR OUR HORTICULTURE OPERATION• 2 Tablet Notebooks, $1,500• 12 Golf Cart Batteries, $1,200• Walk-Behind Aerator, $1,500• Hardware for Accession Tag

Embossing Machine, $2,000• Plant Transport Van, $20,000

OR CONSERVATION, RESEARCH AND HE ONLINE HERBARIUM

• Extra-Tall Tripod, $150• Macro Zoom Lens for Sony SLR

Camera, $800• Laptop Computer, $2,000• New Display Giclee Prints on Canvas for Public Events, $2,000 • Plant Canopy Imager, $6,000• Seed Germination Chamber, $8,500• Mid-Size Pickup Truck, $26,400

OR THE RESEARCH LIBRARY• World Checklists for: Araliaceae, Conifers, and Fagales, $300

Fairchild has a wish list of items that will enhance our programs, but we need Wish Makers. We hope you see an item that you can help fulfill.

wish list

You’ve built your sanctuary. Now find your peace.

DIRECTIONSFrom FL Turnpike Homestead Extension: Exit 6 - Tallahassee Rd. (SW 137th Ave./Speedway Blvd.); Turn right onto SW 137th Ave.; Left on SW 264th St.; Right on SW 162nd Ave.; Left on SW 256th St. We’re at the end on the right.

From Krome Ave.: East onto 248th St.; Right onto 162nd Ave.; Right onto SW 256th St. We’re at the end on the right.

Fancy Japanese Koi Fancy Japanese Koi

Duboisi

Pumps & Filters

Shipping Fish And Products Daily Across The United States And Around The World.

Yellow Labidochromis Electric Blue

Fancy Butterfly Koi

Tetra ProductsHikari Foods

NIELUBOWICZ & ASSOCIATES, INC. • 941-924-5077 • FAX 941-923-3204

JOB #: AH-2505 SIZE: 7.375” x 9.875” CREATED: 4/29/13PUBLICATION: Fairchild (Tropical Garden Mag.) SPECS: 4 Color REV. DATE: RUN DATE: Fall - 2013 COST: CRA: 7/15/13IMPORTANT: Please review carefully. By signing and dating this authorization, the client is approving ad content and run date(s) as shown above.E-mail approval: Paul Radice - [email protected]/305-248-7777 Media Rep.: Mr. Leslie A. Bowe - [email protected] - 305-667-1651 x3338 - Direct 305-663-8067

APPROVED BY: ________________________________________________ DATE: __________________

Phone: 305.248.7777 | www.AngelsHatchery.com16375 SW 256th St., Homestead, FL 33031 | Fax: 305.246.7779

AH-2505

Fancy Butterfly Koi

We have the answers for algae control, mosquito control and the control of frog eggs and tadpoles.

Plecostomus

garden views

The 21st Annual International Mango FestivalMore than 9,000 visitors spent a sweet and savory Saturday and Sunday at the “Mangos of Mexico”-themed International Mango Festival in July. The weekend celebrated the aptly named “king of fruits” with cooking demos, lectures, a mango-themed brunch and the world’s only mango auction. Mango growers from all over the world spoke at the Mango Grower’s Summit, which included presentations by members of the Myanmar Fruit, Flower & Vegetable Producer and Exporter Association, who traveled all the way from Southeast Asia.

‘�e Fruit Hunters’Film PremierThe documentary film “The Fruit Hunters” held its sold-out Florida premiere at Fairchild on July 12. Filmmaker Yung Chang and actor Bill Pullman joined co-stars Richard Campbell and Noris Ledesma, Fairchild’s curators of tropical fruit, for a special intro and post-film Q&A. The night wouldn’t have been complete without a tropical fruit tasting featuring jackfruit, mamey sapote, dragon fruit and—of course—mangos.

FALL 2013 65

4th of July at the Wing of the TropicsVolunteers Joe Hoyt and Alyssa Crittenden celebrated the 4th of July by creating an all-American treat for our fruit-eating butterflies in the Wings of The Tropics exhibit. Each day, fruit is set out for butterflies to feast on, but on July 4th even the visitors got a feast for their eyes when they saw the tasteful arrangements created by these talented volunteers!

�anking Wings of the Tropics Student VolunteersWings of the Tropics StudentVolunteers LuncheonHigh school and college students who volunteered in The Clinton Family Conservatory Wings of the Tropics exhibit worked more than 1,000 volunteer hours this summer. Before their return to school, Fairchild staff hosted a luncheon to thank them for their excellent service. The studentsall reported enjoying their volunteer experience and one said, “I have gotten the opportunity to interact with people from around the world, make new friends and learn more about butterflies than I thought possible!”

Celebrating NationalHoneybee DayIn August, a nationwide celebration of National Honeybee Day aimed to raise awareness about the decline of the honeybee population around the globe. These insects represent a vital aid to agriculture and are responsible for the production of one third of the foods we eat. Yet they are threatened by such issues as Colony Collapse Disorder and habitat changes. It is crucial that we all understand the consequences of these threats to honeybees. At Fairchild’s Incredible Edible Garden Festival, coming up October 26-27, you can learn more about how your everyday choices can impact this global issue.

(L-R) David Hardy (staff), Brooke Still, Taylor Ward, Cynthia Rocha, Camila Duque, Danielle Coogan, Amanda Gonzalez, Gaby Orihuela (staff), Michael Newman, Stephanie Bott (staff),Ana Vidal, Dimmitri Mungary, Yadira Capaz, Martin Feather (staff), Lorraine Cruz,Stephanie Cornejo (staff) and Daniel Morrison.

There is no better spot to celebrate than among the fluttering colors of Fairchild’s Wings of the Tropics exhibit! Discover thousands of tropical butterflies, participate in a butterfly release and get an up-close look at these winged wonders. More themes available, including: Painter Paradise, Enchanted Explorers, Garden Tea and Fun at Fairchild.

For more information or to book a birthday party, contact Ashley Amarante at 305.663.8044 or aamarante fairchildgarden.org.

Book your child's next

birthday at fairchild!


SHOP-O-HOLLYat the Village of Merrick Park

Saturday, November 16, 2013Participating stores will support

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardenby donating a percentage of their sales

on that day to the Garden or byoffering a gift with purchase.

For more information, contact Mr. Leslie Bowe at 305.663.8067 or email [email protected]


from the archives

Two Christian Brother Botanists in CubaBy Janet Mosely

avid Fairchild traveled to Cuba at least three times: in 1933, 1935 and 1939. The Fairchild Archives contains 165 photos from these

trips, which have been scanned and indexed. Of these, 78 were taken during a February 1939 trip to visit the Harvard Botanical Garden at Soledad (about 45 minutes outside the city of Cienfuegos) and the Isle of Pines (now known as Isla de la Juventud). Marian Fairchild and Anne Archbold accompanied Fairchild. Dr. Thomas Barbour, his longtime colleague and the custodian of Soledad Garden (as the Harvard Garden was known), hosted them. From the photo indexing, it appears that botanists Dr. Elmer D. Merrill and Dr. Francis E. Lloyd accompanied them.

TOPBrother Léon (standing on the left with hat in hand) and others in front of the Harvard House at Soledad

Garden. Harvard House was built in 1924 to serve as a headquarters, laboratory and herbarium for visiting

scientists. February, 1939. Photo by Brother Marie-Victorin,

David Fairchild Collection, FTBG/Archives.

RIGHT (T-B)Seedlings arranged on Brother Marie-Victorin’s

specimen case. Notes on the original photo indicate these are a group of xerophytes—plants resistant to drought—collected on the Isle of Pines and include

Zamia silicea. February 1939. Photo by Brother Marie-Victorin,


A water trough made from a hollowed trunk of a Colpothrinax wrightii on the Isle of Pines.

February 1939.Photo by Brother Marie-Victorin,


D


That trip coincided with the first of seven expeditions to study Cuban flora undertaken by famed botanists Brother Marie-Victorin and Brother Léon. Brother Léon (1871-1955) was a French botanist specializing in the flora of Cuba. Shortly before the 1939 trip, Harvard appointed León and his assistant José Perez Carabia as official collaborators of the Soledad Garden. Brother Marie-Victorin (1855-1944) was a professor of botany at the University of Montreal and is known as the father of the Montreal Botanical Garden. Both men were members of the LaSallian order of Frères des écoles chrétiennes or Brothers of the Christian Schools. They had been corresponding for 30 years when Léon was able to convince Marie-Victorin to visit Cuba. From then on, every winter from 1938 to 1944, Léon and Marie-Victorin explored almost the entirety of the island nation.

Marie-Victorin’s death in an automobile accident in 1944 brought an end to their collaboration on Cuba’s flora. Using the results of their extensive fieldwork and building on the work of earlier botanists, Léon went on to publish two volumes of a Flora of Cuba in 1947 and 1951.

An accomplished photographer, Marie-Victorin has 26 photos in the archive’s David Fairchild Collection, some of which are included here. In 2008-2011, the Montreal Botanic Garden created a virtual exhibit entitled “Under the Cuban Sun with Marie-Victorin” and included photos from the Fairchild Archive.

TOPA stand of Colpothrinax palms on theIsle of Pines. February, 1939.Photo by Brother Marie-Victorin,David Fairchild Collection, FTBG/Archives.

ABOVE (L-R)The man on the left with the tree fern is believed to be José Perez Carabia. Isle of Pines. February, 1939. Photo by Brother Marie-Victorin,David Fairchild Collection, FTBG/Archives.

Young girl posing with Aechmea nudicaulis at San Miguel de los Bános, a seaside resort on the Isle of Pines. Brother Marie-Victorin wrote that this was one of the most remarkable terrestrial bromeliads in Cuba.Photo by Brother Marie-Victorin,David Fairchild Collection, FTBG/Archives.

LEFTDr. Francis E. Lloyd (1868-1947) was an American botanist and cytologist who taught at several universities including McGill in Montreal, Harvard and Teachers College at Columbia University. Photo by Brother Marie-Victorin,David Fairchild Collection, FTBG/Archives.

FALL 2013 69

connect with fairchild

VISIT USFairchild Tropical Botanic Garden10901 Old Cutler Road, Coral Gables FL 33156T: 305.667.1651 F: 305.661.8953 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Everyday (except December 25)

Admission: Free for Fairchild Members and children 5 and under. Non-members: $25 for adults, $18 for seniors 65 and up and $12 for children 6-17.

Eco-discount: If you walk, ride your bike or take public transportation to Fairchild, receive $5 off admission for adults and $2 off admission for children. Members, remember to bring your Rewards Card to earn your gift passes!

Military Discount: We are pleased to offer active military personnel free admission. Please present Military IDs

FAIRCHILD BLOGSGardening with GeorgiaPlant writer extraordinaire Georgia Tasker writes about plants and everything Fairchild. www.fairchildgarden.org/GeorgiaTasker

Musings with MaryFairchild Senior Horticulturist Mary Collins writes about horticulture in the garden and around South Florida. www.fairchildgarden.org/Horticulture

For the Love of MangosFairchild Tropical Fruit Curators Dr. Richard J. Campbell and Noris Ledesma write about traveling the globe in search of the world’s most delicious fruit. www.fairchildgarden.org/LoveMangos

The Cheng Ho BlogSeventy years after David Fairchild’s famous Cheng Ho expedition, you can follow the ship’s journey with daily journal entries posted in this historical blog. www.fairchildgarden.org/ChengHo

GIFTS THAT GIVE BACKGive the gift of Fairchild Inquiries: 305.667.1651, ext. [email protected]. www.fairchildgarden.org/GiftIdeas

GET INVOLVEDBecome a MemberBecome a member and enjoy Garden benefits all year long.Inquiries: 305.667.1651, ext. 3301 or [email protected]/Membership

VolunteerBecome a volunteer and help the Garden grow.Inquiries: 305.667.1651, ext. [email protected]/Volunteer

GiveDonate to the Garden and help support Fairchild’s programs.Inquiries: 305.667.1651, ext. [email protected]/DonateNow

EVENTS AND PRIVATE RENTALSInformation about events can be found on Fairchild’s website. Tickets for certain events maybe be purchased online. Interested in having your event at Fairchild? Please call us or visit our website. Inquiries: 305.667.1651, ext. [email protected]/Events

SHOP AT FAIRCHILDVisit The Shop at Fairchild for a large selection of gardening and culinary books, home decor items and unique gifts.Inquiries: 305.667.1651, ext. [email protected]. store.fairchildonline.com

GET YOUR BINOCULARSYou may borrow a pair of binoculars to get a closer look at Fairchild’s wildlife. Please ask at the Visitor Center’s information desk.

FOLLOW US www.fairchildgarden.orgFairchildGarden

FairchildGarden FairchildGarden

FairchildGarden

FairchildGarden


Friday - Sunday, November 8 - 10, 20139:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

www.fairchildgarden.org

3 rd

3 rd

3 rd

3 rd

Non-ProfitOrganizationU. S. Postage

PAIDMiami, FloridaPermit No. 155

Printed on recycled paper that contains10% post-consumer waste and is FSC®

Certified using vegetable-based ink. When you are finished enjoying this magazine,

please recycle it by sharing it with a friend.

Saturday and Sunday October 26 and 27

9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.www.fairchildgarden.org

Sponsored by

fall colors in the tropics recent years, my own research has brought me back to explore southeast...

Documents