![fieldmuseumphotoarchives:
Today’s photo is of a Vanilla plant model being constructed.
© The Field Museum, CSB36789, Photographer Charles Carpenter.
Milton Copulos, standing near a window, trimming Vanilla model. Stanley Field Plant Reproduction laboratory [Botany]. Field Columbian Museum
5x7 glass negative
1913
The vanilla pod is actually the fruit of the tropical orchid, Vanilla planifolia. It is the only orchid cultivated en masse for industrial purposes. ~AR](http://25.media.tumblr.com/4de7dd8c12e7ed0b8cca49c230bd1280/tumblr_mmufp13NSi1s5mxl9o1_1280.jpg)
Today’s photo is of a Vanilla plant model being constructed.
© The Field Museum, CSB36789, Photographer Charles Carpenter.
Milton Copulos, standing near a window, trimming Vanilla model. Stanley Field Plant Reproduction laboratory [Botany]. Field Columbian Museum
5x7 glass negative
1913
The vanilla pod is actually the fruit of the tropical orchid, Vanilla planifolia. It is the only orchid cultivated en masse for industrial purposes. ~AR
-My Nerdy Nerdiness expresses itself :)
As a chemist, this makes me smile!
Huh, kinda interesting in a “I have no idea what this means” sort of way.
I will admit to having looked a few of these up to be sure I was interpreting them correctly. What you see are the chemical formulas of various substances used to mimic plant-based aromas and flavors. Pretty, and pretty neat. ~AR
(Source: kilikilipowers)
The findings suggest junk DNA really isn’t needed for healthy plants — and that may also hold for other organisms.
Sometimes junk really is just junk. For years, geneticists have tried to determine whether the vast majority of an organism’s DNA—an assortment of so-called junk DNA that seems to serve no purpose—does indeed serve a purpose. Now, thanks to a study published in the journal Nature analyzing the genome of the carnivorous bladderwort, Utricularia gibba, researchers look set to declare the adage true. Far from playing some crucial and mysterious role in the well-being of the plant, it looks like junk DNA really is just junk.
The mystery remains however as to why some organisms have fairly bloated genomes while others have svelte, relatively junk-free ones. Research is, much like a bladderwort, a living process, so it’s entirely possible that new studies will reverse this one in due time. It’s one of the things that makes science exciting, isn’t it? ~AR
So the headline on this story is indulging in a wee bit of hyperbole. Valley Fever, an illness caused by the fungus coccidioidomycosis, isn’t quite ravaging the ranks of Major League Baseball yet (only two players have come down with it), but there is always the possibility that one day it can.
Valley Fever is caused when people breathe in the spores of this fungus which thrives in hot, dry areas like the areas in Arizona where many MLB teams have spring training camps. And there’s been a real uptick in cases recently. On the surface it would seem that climate change would be the most obvious reason behind it’s uptick, but some experts think a more likely cause is the Sun Belt’s economic growth. As populations grow and development and building increase, so too does disruption to the ecosystem. ~AR
(via Valley Fever Throws Baseball a Curve: Scientific American)
Flowers and plants have long been used as medicine, a topic we are covering in our newest exhibition, Wild Medicine: Healing Plants From Around the World. But, it looks like plants can sometimes use a little medicine themselves. In fact some enterprising researcher out there has determined that cut flowers can benefit from the same drug—and achieve similar results—as a popular little blue pill for men.
I’d love to know the story behind the origin for this study. If anyone knows, please, let us know! ~AR
(via Viagra helps flowers last twice as long, study says - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com)
— Amazon plant discovery could yield green cash crop : Nature News & Comment
Jessica M. Clarke is the Garden’s Associate Curator of Glasshouse Collections. She’s also a woman that knows how to coordinate her nails with truly cool orchid species. She recently sent me these photos of an African miniature orchid on display in the orchid display case in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory’s Cloud Forest house. Aside from looking cool Bulbophyllum falcatum is “interesting because it’s rachis is very wide as compared to the size of its’ flowers … it appears as though the flowers are emerging from a paddle-shaped leaf.” And there’s your useless piece of trivia for the next boring cocktail party you find yourself at! ~AR
Did you catch the Garden, last year’s summer exhibition Monet’s Garden, and NYBG scientist Amy Litt this on CBS News Sunday Morning talking about flower power and the amazing science of plant “feelings”? No? Well that’s okay, because you can watch it now and learn all about how plants know that their neighbors are hurt, how flowers know when to open, and how venus flytraps know when to snap shut. But don’t worry vegetarians, you don’t have to worry about eating plants now, too. It turns out they can’t feel that much! ~AR
This interview from Time for Kids with the maker of a new documentary about flowers and pollinators called Wings of Life is awesome. Louie Schwartzberg is obviously a man who loves his subject, his medium, and the audience he is speaking to.
What I think struck me most is his belief that if you love flowers you will do things to help flowers. If you understand what a flower means to you, you will make better choices that will help both the flowers and you. That’s a powerful lesson to teach kids, and I sincerely hope that his new film helps do that. Oh, and it sure doesn’t hurt that the movie is chock-full of time lapse video and narrated by Meryl Streep to boot. ~AR
We love our tulip trees. They tower over either side of the Grand Allée, greening in spring and shading the paths that lead up to the Library Building. We consider them old by some standards—they were planted as young trees around 1911, and by none other than Nathaniel Lord Britton, at that. But scientists have discovered something far more ancient about these elegant giants: their genome.
This brief article might prove a bit heady for the non-science-geek, but it tackles a tree that, in some ways, has hardly changed since dinosaurs called the shots. Click through for more. —MN
Mining has always fallen within the purview of a bold set—grizzled prospectors hunting gold in California, conglomerates with heavy machinery digging coal in Pennsylvania. It’s a dirty, often dangerous, and certainly destructive business. Now scientists think that they can come up with a new, more passive means of attaining valuable earthen materials, even if only industrially.
Enter botanical science.
Like the pennycress plants mentioned in a previous post, “hyperaccumulators” have shown valuable potential for sucking up pollutants from toxic soil. The scope of their appetite can include metals like zinc, cadmium, and nickel. But what if we could use plants to net unseen particles of gold from ground soil? It’s called “phytomining,” and the idea is making the rounds.
The process isn’t as easy as it sounds; scientists have to essentially liquefy the gold using worrisome ground chemicals to make it happen (and probably nullifying many of the environmental benefits we’d see from getting gold particulate in this manner). But they argue that the benefits of using this on already-polluted mining sites could outweigh the negatives. And as explored curiosity goes, it’s at least an interesting concept. Click through for more. —MN
The stinging nettle has hollow stinging hairs called trichomes that, when broken, inject chemicals like histamine under the skin. Ironically, nettle leaf extract also has compounds that reduce TNF-α, an inflammation-promoting molecule.
Image by Marek Mis.
There’s a way to disable the trichomes on a stinging nettle with your bare hands, if you dare! ~AR
“Linnaeus, and the Flower Clock (Carl Linnaeus is considered the father of Modern Taxonomy.
Linnaeus observed over a number of years that certain plants constantly opened and closed their flowers at particular times of the day, these times varying from species to species. Hence one could deduce the approximate time of day according to which species had opened or closed their flowers. Arranged in sequence of flowering over the day they constituted a kind of floral clock or horologium florae, as Linnaeus called it in his Philosophia Botanica (1751, pages 274-276). A detailed and extended account of this in English will be found in F.W.Oliver’s translation of Anton Kerner’s The Natural History of Plants, 1895, vol.2, pages 215-218. As many of the indicator plants are wildflowers and the opening/closing times depend on latitude, the complexities of planting a floral clock make it an impractical proposition.”
(via Linnaeus, and the Flower Clock | The Whispering Crane Institute)
Okay, so it wasn’t Linnaeus’ greatest idea—planting a garden that would tell you the time of day whenever you happened to be in it. It’s not even a sure thing that the proposal went beyond the concept stage. But who could deny its madcap ambition?
If it weren’t for the fact that flowers are subject to the vagaries of locale, weather, and the qualities of their growing environments (among a million other variables), it might just have worked. —MN
Oh trichomes, you are so amazing! Women in the Balkans have been using these morphological structures on bean leaves to battle bloodsucking bedbugs for centuries. Think of the bean leaves as a little bit like bedbug velcro, and you’re on the right track. I think my favorite quote of this story comes from a scientist at the University of California, Irvine, “If someone had suggested to me that impaling insects with little tiny hooks would be a valid form of pest control, I wouldn’t have given it credence.” And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why funding scientific research (no matter how silly it may sound) is important and vital to humanity’s future in this rapidly changing world of ours. ~AR
(via How a Leafy Folk Remedy Stopped Bedbugs in Their Tracks - NYTimes.com)
Rosemary (in NYBG pot) and friend
Love you, Mom <3
Happy National Public Gardens Day! A female carpenter bee visiting the pea vines yesterday. She’s California’s largest bee.
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
This Mother’s Day don’t just go local—go native: Fill your weekend with flowers and garden parties at the city’s botanical...
Be the change you want to see in the world.
-Gandhi
Lovely tree peonies at the NY Botanical Garden
