Missed it by 24 hours

Well the Corpse flower hadn't opened at the Huntington when we went to see it. However, the entire gardens were open and we spent the entire day looking at plants from all over the world. It was pretty amazing all around. Here are some pictures, although I'm sad I don't have pictures of it open!

It was in a hot, humid glass house filled with tropical plants. I can't imagine being in there when it smells like something's dead! They actually have 5 planted in there that were propogated by seed from the 1999 flowering. Imagine if all 5 bloomed at once in a hot, humid, enclosed space? Whew!!

The leaves were incredible! The Amorphophallus puts out one gigantic leaf. The petiole is the size of a person's arm!
We saw what looked like a reddish tinge inside and we thought, it's going to open any time now. We even considered sticking it in a paper bag with some bananas :) but of course that would not be allowed. :)

The Huntington was beautiful! Truly a treasure and actually a bargain even at $15. It absolutely delighted us at every turn, and at the end of the day, we were surprised to see that 6 hours had passed, and we had to leave.

Titan Arum! aka "The Son of Stinky"

I'm going to see the Titan Arum tomorrow, otherwise known as the corpse flower. It blooms only randomly and blooms are a media event. They last had a bloom at Huntington Gardens in 2002, when the parent plant of this one bloomed. Its 1999 bloom produced the seed for the current plant, the "Son of Stinky."

I'll be sure to take some pictures of it. I hope it's open by tomorrow!

L

Spirits arise in Phoenix

I took a walk amongst some amazing sculptures by Dale Chihuly at Scottsdale's Desert Botanic Garden. It was amazing to see forms of desert plants echoed by glass. It was his first desert botanic garden installation. I find that odd, as the glass seems to fit so well. You could almost just believe that the forms were alive.

As we walked along and looked at the many installations that were very skilfully placed, I realized that there was a wonderful feedback between the forms and the plants. Seeing the sculptures made the plants look more like artistic objects. The plants made the sculptures seem more playful, as if they were impish sprites that alighted next to the cacti and were imitating them.

Interestingly, the names of the art pieces indicated that they were not actually representing plant forms in most cases. Many were named for things like boats, scorpions, etc. The very skillful botanists and artists apparently got together and made the display based on not only convergence of form and essence, but with an eye to that sort of playful interaction.

What a wonderful exhibit. I will never look at plants in a botanic garden the same way.

Woes of the Iconic Megaflora

A new report out from (*gasp*) the White House (well, their climate change science program) details possible effects of climate change- on agriculture, and biodiversity. From a ScienceNow Daily news article (Climate Change is Bad News for U.S. Agriculture):
"'We risk losing iconic charismatic megaflora such as saguaro cactus and joshua trees,' co-author Steven Archer of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said at a press conference."

I do appreciate the upgrade of cacti to the ranks of such cliche charasmatic fuzzy icons as polar bears. (I wouldn't suggest hugging a cacti though, or a polar bear, for that matter). But such a "doomsday" lead is common in the media reporting of climate change, but the media could do better to explain these effects to the public, albeit about a psychologically taxing subject. I think I know why they predict the decline of desert species, but to the untrained reader, you'd think, well, why would desert species decline if it's going to get hotter? Why does that mean drier necessarily? In fact, these factors are important, but it may be the (unmentioned) carbon dioxide increase that actually matters most here.

This article is apropos today for me, since today is dedicated to studying up on arid-land-adapted grasses. These species have a special photosynthetic mechanism (the C4 photosynthesis pathway) that gives them a competitive advantage in drier areas (they can use water more efficiently than "normal" C3 species). Will this be the rise of C4 plants? I'm sure there are plenty of articles about this out there. Mean temperature during the growing season is highly correlated with their growth, and a higher summer temp should give these an advantage, as long as there is still summer rain to be had (otherwise, the summer rain growing season will be nill and the growing season will be in the winter, when other species have an edge).

However, cacti, like the saguaro also have a special photosynthetic mechanisms, Crassulacean Acid Metabolism, or CAM. Like C4 plants, they are able to save water by using a different pathway. Cacti open their stomata (pores) at night, taking up CO2 when it's cool, and closing them during the day to prevent water loss. The advantage for both of these species is that they are more effective in the uptake of C02 at higher temperatures.

We all know that climate change will have global effects, but it is important to remember that these effects are not linear increases and decreases in rainfall and temperature. Ecosystem feedbacks may cause differential regional effects. For these plants, if they become dominant, evapotranspiration will be less over large areas (they don't lose as much water to the air as others). Therefore, increasing temperature, which may shift the distribution and local floras, may feedback (or forward?) and cause a simultaneous decrease in rainfall due to less moisture coming up and out of the plants.

HOWEVER, the decline of saguaro cacti might actually happen do to a loss of its competitive -C02-capture -advantage. Higher carbon dioxide concentrations actually will favor the "normal" plants over these plants. I won't go into the details... (even I recognize there is a limit to the utility of a full explanation)

Not exactly first page material. But I am glad to have a new buzzword... iconic megaflora!