Human Flower Project
Travel
Santiago, MEXICO
Cairo, EGYPT
Austin, Texas USA
Sunday, August 22, 2010
When Did You Last Go Wild?
Roads and human egos have depleted the U.S. wilderness. The EarthScholars coax us back out of doors, to consider the plants, animals and perspective living there. Thank you, Jim and Renee.
Fireweed growing in Maroon Bells Wilderness Area, Colorado
Photo: snrephotos
By James H. Wandersee and Renee M. Clary
EarthScholars™ Research Group
The earth’s vegetation is part of a web of life in which there are intimate and essential relations between plants and the Earth, between plants and other plants, between plants and animals.—Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Wilderness areas provide plant enthusiasts – and anyone else with eyes to see and a mind to wonder— with occupations for a lifetime. In the wild, we may witness, explore, photograph, and write about the natural beauty of plants, their botanical diversity, visual complexity, fascinating life cycles, and valuable ecological roles—all within the thought-provoking and memorable settings of adventure and solitude. Encounters with nature and wilderness can reawaken our sense of awe and fascination. Such experiences help recalibrate our inflated estimates of 21st-century humans’ importance and degree of control over nature.
Culture & Society • Ecology • Travel • (2) Comments • Permalink
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Hawaii’s Delegation to Selma
A feminist and psychologist in London amplifies our story of how leis joined the March from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and others wore leis as they marched from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965.
Photo: WFA/Associated Press, via the Guardian
Many thanks to Nona Ferdon for filling in some of the gaps in our story of flowers in the history-making March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in March 1965. We noted that several of the Civil Rights marchers, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wore leis.
“You wondered how they got there,” Nona writes of the floral garlands. “We took them. There were five of us representing Hawaii on the march.“
In our earlier story we had credited the pastor of Honolulu’s Kawaiahao Church, Rev. Abraham Akaka, who had befriended Dr. King the previous year, with sending the leis. He, in fact, may have been behind this effort in some way, but Nona, who delivered the flowers, doesn’t recall ever meeting Rev. Akaka or hearing of his involvement in this gesture. “I don’t know who organized on the leis,” she writes. “It was all on short notice and we showed up at the airport around 5 in the afternoon. There was no publicity or anything like that, we just said goodbye to some friends and left. Taking leis was just something that anyone from Hawaii would do almost automatically.” Only after the march, when the leis had made their glorious statement, did the flowers inspire curiosity. Floral garlands around the neck weren’t, and still aren’t, a common sight in the Deep South.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
The Botanist Gene
Is there a plant scientist among the limbs of your family tree? What kinds of fruit do botanists bear?
Tweedy’s Willow (Salix tweedyi): Thanks, Uncle Frank!
Image: State of Washington
Is there a gene for botanical talent? John Bartram seems to have passed it on to son William. There were the famous Hookers, father William and son Joseph, who both directed the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. And the Millers: Philip of the Chelsea Physic Garden and his son Charles, who became first Curator of the Cambridge Botanic Garden (1762).
On the eve the Tweedy family reunion out in Knickerbocker, Texas, this weekend, we are elated to have found a botanist-ancestor to call our own: Frank Tweedy (1854-1937). He worked for the U.S. Geological Survey in the late 19th century, exploring and collecting mainly around Yellowstone National Park, and several species from Washington State and the Rockies bear proof.
Cisanthe tweedyi (formerly known as Lewisia tweedyi) is all anyone could want for bragging rights. This beauty, native to Washington’s Cascades, is “valued by many experts as the world’s premier rock garden plant.” (Sounds like something alpine gardeners could debate long into the night.) Marc Dilley writes:
“It was named after Frank Tweedy, a U.S. Geological Survey botanical collector who made the first ascent of Mt. Stuart on August 5, 1883. Much of L. tweedyi’s renown is due to its extravagant bloom.”
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Iris stocksii: Your Day Is Coming
Alpine horticulturists around the world, including Allen Bush, wait with excitement as cultivation of a rare Juno iris, collected in Afghanistan, begins.
Tony Hall working on a frame of Juno Iris
Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, 2009
Photo: Jim Almond
By Allen Bush
I spent one sleepless hour after another on my London flight in late May walking the aisle while staring at an unconscious planeload. I tried to play catch-up. Two glasses of airline wine and an Ambien didn’t do a bit of good. A day later I came calling on Tony Hall cross-eyed with jet lag. Sleep walking for a couple of hours around the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew seems now like a dream—full of memories of a friend.
I tumbled out of the car on Kew Road at Primrose House and graciously agreed to be picked-up sooner or later. Later preferred. I feared sooner since neither Kew Gardens nor precious time with Tony Hall should be done on the fly. Hall has retired – sort of. He was for nearly thirty years the Manager of Kew’s Alpine Unit, caring the alpine plants and bulbs and overseeing the Alpine House and Woodland Garden. Hall, renowned for his knowledge of Iris, is the leading authority on Juno Iris and working toward a botanic monograph. Kew continues to provide facilities for Hall’s Juno Project.
Tony buzzed me in and was eager to get moving. A special package had just arrived: four bulbs and nearly fifty seeds of the very rare Iris stocksii.