Fetid Adder's Tongue, Yum!

It is with some guilt that I will continue to celebrate spring-flowering shrubs and bulbs, knowing that your ground may be not even be close to thawing. But during my stay in DC, I've been corresponding with colleagues in Portland, and was sent a pix of this intriguing native plant by Ed Guerrant, Conservation Director for the Berry Botanic Garden.

Meet Scoliopus bigelovii, an early-flowering member of the lily family that makes its home in northern California, where -- I'm happy to report -- it's too widespread to be classified as rare, sensitive or threatened. Yippee! For that, we might thank native slugs, who are reported to play a role in seed dispersal by eating pod walls.

photo credit: Ed Guerrant, Berry Botanic Garden

 

Ed, a terrific native plantsman, was featured in a seed bank story for NPR's Climate Connections series. I asked him to pen a few words on this cool California native.

A plant with flowers like these would be noticeable any time of year, but to find the flowers of this reportedly fungus gnat pollinated plant, it is necessary to wander either into its native habitat in Northern California, or make our February homage to a little patch that has been growing at the Berry Botanic Garden for as long as I can remember here at the Garden (1989). It is sort of our Punxsutawney Phil, but without the predictive powers. Nevertheless, Scoliopus in flower it is a harbinger of the spring to come.

So what's popping your wild or cultivated woods? Got winter aconites, snowdrops, crocus, daffs? How about some bold, blueaceous Chionodoxa? I saw one shimmering blue note of this Glory-in-the-Snow at Dumbarton Oaks yesterday, where the chionodoxa are naturalized in the lawn. If you're in or around DC, check back in two weeks for peak bloom.

10:25 AM ET | 02-24-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

Fried Bananas

Only once during my stay in Brazil did I eat bonafide fried bananas. They were fabulous, and in life bore no resemblance to my own, the foliage of which greeted me after my 20-hour plane trip home.

This humiliated specimen is right outside my living room window, begging me to cut it back to the ground.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Certainly this dried and dessicated visage is nothing new; it's what happens to banana foliage here in Z8 if you don't wrap it. They once offered a banana-wrapping class at Portland's Classical Chinese Garden (guess who didn't attend); when it's done well, it is indeed art.

I prefer au naturale, but only because I'm tres lazay.

So let's contrast and compare, shall we? Above, what I came home to, and below, what I left behind.

From the ground up (on an average, @90 feet), the Brazilian Amazon is simply, irrepressibly, green. It's also hell to photograph without filters.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I've got lots of stories and great shots I do intend to post, and soon -- any day now -- but I'm also trying to crank out the Morning Edition radio story from the Amazon, which cramps my blog time. Speaking of which, you guys have also been pretty quiet of late; is everyone en vacance?

8:52 PM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post

More from the Sinkhole

Here's the plant, here's the sinkhole, look inside and there's the people...

First up, let's take a look at Prichardia aylmer-robinsonii, a species of the lo'ulu palm that David and Lida Pigott Burney planted in "their" sinkhole. The plant is named after the family that currently owns the island of Ni'ihau, the only place this species is known to grow in the wild.

This baby has grown almost 30 ft in three years, happy to be home again after give or take a thousand years.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Alas, the palm is no "missing link" as one of our delightfully optimistic TP members suggested; at least no more a link than any other plant in the chain. But seeing it restored in the Makauwahi Cave sinkhole does feels like an Indiana Jones moment of discovery, particularly if you stumble across it as you're walking the landscape above. I mean suddenly YIKES! there's an eight-story drop into this promised land.

Here are the palms in context. I chose not to crop out the pots, etc., because this is a working conservation site, but once you're there, you'll have no trouble transporting yourself to a very pre-plastic (more like a Pleistocene) place and time. (Ahem, that's a joke; the sinkhole's only 10,000 yrs old).

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

11:57 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

For Love of a Sinkhole

Q: How many paleoecologists does it take to excavate a sinkhole, find seven previously undescribed bird species and reintroduce native plant species to a place they haven't grown in for a thousand years?

A: Depends on the paleoecologists.

Fact is, some aren't mortal. In particular, keep an eye out for the pair shown below. They were recently featured in an NPR radio report that mistakenly assumed they were human, based on their oh! so convincing paleoecologist clothing.

Closer scrutiny has determined it simply isn't possible for this couple to do as much as they do in as many places as they do it and not be in league with He Who Cannot Be Named. Consequently, approach with extreme caution should the pair be spotted one fine Sunday morning within the nether reaches of Kauai's Makauwahi Cave.

Meet the happy sorcerers Lida Pigott and David A. Burney, whose life work in the field of paleoecology has culminated in a picturesque sinkhole where they're bringing an ancient piece of Hawaii back to life. While the couple may or may not be in league with the supernatural, they do have a lease on the cave property courtesy of Grove Farm.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

We'll post more photos shortly plus details as we gather them. Until then, be very afraid.

11:10 AM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

Rock Star Botany 202

Mahalo! It's another splendid day here on virtual Kaua'i ... of course I haven't been to the actual island in a while, but tuning in to the island's public radio station helps ...

First, allow me a moment of preemptive denial: I am not in the pocket of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (see? no hyperlink). The only reason my Morning Edition report and Talking Plants Kaua'i stories are filled with NTBG people is that the Hawaii-based botanists on my "Must Meet List" were already working for the Garden.

Can I help it if its staff rocks?

In fact, is was on the NTBG staff that I met my first so-called rock star botanist, Ken Wood, a self-effacing plantsman who, despite himself, does justice to the romantic term ... a term taught to me by future botanical rocker Clay Trauernicht, a field botanist tragically too cute for his own good.

(Yes, Clay, you are).

But enough flirting with jail bait, today's rock star botanist is Steve Perlman, who you might have heard hunting for the rare fringed orchid.

Posing just a wee bit self-consciously with one of his great plant finds, Steve Perlman shows off a blossom from Hibiscus kokio ssp. kokio, a plant he collected on the island of O'ahu. There was only kokio plant known from that island when he made the cutting and it wasn't a prolific bloomer. Baby, look at me now: hard to find in the wild but merrily flowering in cultivation.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Steve Perlman's daring hi-jinks to save Hawaii's native plants is now the stuff of legend among those in the know, as well as the subject of articles, books and an Imax film. He has risked his life so many times gaining access to endangered plants, he couldn't decide which story to tell me when I asked him to describe the scariest botanizing trip of them all.

But describe it he did.

"It's not thrill-seeking," says Perlman. "I'm there because the plants are there and I'm trying to get to them". His track record is astonishing; let's just say that if you were a betting plant lost in the wilderness, you'd be smart to put your money and your life on him. Not only will he get your seeds into cultivation, often — with the help of the world's best propagators — he'll see to it that your offspring make it into the nursery trade.

Brighamia insignis, shown here in her Mother Of All Plants pose, is a classic Dr. Seuss plant that comes in all sorts of rubbery shapes and breaks out into starry, fragrant flowers. Steve Perlman — along with Ken Wood — spent many years collecting the species, which has a penchant for growing on sea cliffs. "We've seen them all but die out in the wild," says Perlman. "But we got them into cultivation, and they're now being sold all over the world. That feels good."

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Perhaps the best-known story about Perlman (Ken Wood is often featured in this tale) is about the lengths he went to in order to collect Brighamia seed in the wild. I recommend you hear Perlman tell it himself, but here's the gist:

Because these plants prefer life on the edge — that is, on windswept cliffs facing out to sea — Perlman had to rappel down to the area where they often grew only to discover they hadn't set any seed. So he'd dangle around, hanging off the cliff, until he'd located a male plant and could collect its pollen. Then he'd dangle around some more until he'd located a female plant, and dabble on the goods.

Months later, he'd return to see if the pollinated female plant had set seed. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If not, he'd simply return again and again, as often as it took — rappelling off sea cliffs hundreds of feet above the ocean — to collect a few life-giving seeds.

A rare angle of repose for field botanist Steve Perlman, with his nose in Brighamia insignis, one of his greatest success stories.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Well, I don't know what you've been doing with your life, but something tells me I might yet consider doing something more significant with mine.

9:30 AM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

The Little Green Orchid That Could

On behalf of all your chlorophyllic friends here at Talking Plants, Happy New Year!

Now I don't mean to twist your arm, but what I'm going to tell you about field botanist Steve Perlman and his search for Platanthera holochila is likely to make a whole lot more sense if you listen to the Morning Edition feature.

It was a habitat kind of day when Steve Perlman led our merry band of plant hunters through the Alaka'i Swamp on Kaua'i, just a dozen miles from Mount Wai'ale'ale, the second wettest place on earth. Our quarry: the fringed orchid.

photo credit: David Bender, National Tropical Botanical Garden

 

It wasn't a very big plant, maybe 20 inches high. The chances of spotting it were absolutely nil. But Steve Perlman of the National Tropical Botanical Garden had seen this rare orchid years ago, before it was dwarfed by knee-high shrubs. So it wasn't entirely miraculous — but it was pretty damn impressive — when he found it growing the middle of a wind-swept, fogged-in swamp.

His timing was perfect; the orchid was ripe for picking. So he carefully removed a couple of pregnant pods for safekeeping, each filled with hundreds of dust-sized seeds.

An ancient plant finds its future in the hands of men like Steve Perlman, who is shown here collecting seed from the fringed orchid. The next day this vial was winging its way to Illinois College where the seeds would be propagated.

photo credit: David Bender, NTBG

 

This fringed orchid was the last of its kind on Kaua'i, and previous attempts to propagate it had failed. Since there could be no certainty that the orchid would live to see another September, the seeds Perlman was collecting this day were crucial to its survival.

One of the main reasons this particular orchid survived was because the enormous bog it was growing in was pig-proof. No lie. Hawaii's wild pigs are like living rototillers; one of the only effective defenses against them is some very serious fencing.

Not an ounce of mean in this man, honest. But a lot of talent. A debt of gratitude to botanist Dave Bender for his many great shots, including this seriously macho self-portrait with fern frond.

photo credit: David Bender, NTBG

 

The next day, Perlman shipped this vial of seed pods to orchid specialist Larry Zettler, professor of biology at Illinois College. (Think: Larry, Larry, he's our man, if he can't do it, NO ONE CAN).

And now, through the magic of radio, you can Be There! when he gets the package.

About six weeks after receiving the little guys, Zettler e-mailed Perlman with good news, saying, "in a nutshell, this has not been an easy orchid to work with, but I am much more optimistic." I wrote to Zettler just the other day. Here's his response:

Hi Ketzel. We sowed the seeds that Steve sent us and they are in incubation. At last check, the embryos appeared OK. Platanthera species in general take considerable time in vitro, especially without fungi, but I'm becoming more convinced that this should be our option with this extremely fastidious species ... I find it ironic that my research with fungi may be taking a back seat with this species in favor of the asymbiotic technique which I had little faith in for the terrestrials. But that's how science sometimes works.

In other words, after intensive work growing terrestrial (ground) orchids in different fungi typically associated with the plant in the wild, Zettler's coming to the conclusion that he might have better luck not using any fungi at all. His findings seem to be consistent with a recent breakthrough in orchid growing at the Atlanta Botanical Garden (beware annoying little "chirps" at this site!).

I have to admit that despite the looks of this, um, shall we say underwhelming orchid, finding the little sucker made for one of those all-time perfect days.

photo credit: David Bender, NTBG

 

So will the little green orchid that could ever grown on Kaua'i again? Chances are pretty damn good, given that there's not a more delicious spot in the world to set down roots if your idea of a very good time is relentless wet, muck and rain.

Yes, you're right, this job definitely has its perks.

photo credit: Clay Trauernicht

 

3:15 PM ET | 12-31-2007 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post

Most Forgettable Plants of the Year

Repeat after me: I will never use the following plants, and I will gently but decisively encourage friends and neighbors to follow my lead. Trust me, it's a resolution that takes pretty much NO effort, and is a small step towards creating a safer home and a better world.

OK, maybe not a better world. But it will certainly stop all of us from making it worse.

On second thought, perhaps this should be a group effort. I'll start the New Year's ball rolling, how 'bout you add on ...

FORGETTABLE PLANTS:

Castor Bean Plants (Ricinus communis) with looks that kill

English Ivy (Hedera helix), invasive, unimaginative, overused and — oh yeah! — sometimes toxic

Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), perhaps the most Orwellian-named plant on the planet

Junipers, first and foremost, because life is too short.

Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), wanted dead or alive across North America ... and beyond ...

Your turn!

11:46 AM ET | 12-28-2007 | permalink | comments (11) | e-mail post

Hawaii's Prettiest Pests

OK all you botanical xenophobes (and I mean that in the nicest possible way)...

As a preview to a Morning Edition series coming to a public radio station hear you, Talking Plants is taking a sneak peek at the plant pests of HAWAI'I. I figure some of you are headed there in the next few months, so this may be my best chance to pack another agenda into your luggage.

One of the prettiest pests on Kaua'i is the so-called lady's eardrops, Fuchsia boliviana, which started showing up in the 1960's and has now made it onto Hawaii's list of Most Invasive Horticultural Plants. Given that it likes life in moist forests, I'd say it's found its niche.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine

 

Folks who visit Hawai'i (and we are many in the Pacific NW) often come back raving about the state's incredible flora. And sure, it's pretty. But most of what people rave about are introduced invasives that have gone hog wild.

When I first looked up into a lush, green Kaua'i hillside, I was overwhelmed by the plant with the large, glossy leaves. Overwhelmed turns out to be how I'd now describe what schefflera has done to scads of the islands.

photo credit:Scott Kinmartin

 

An appropriately unflattering pix of the banana poka, a variety of passion vine, that has become Hawaii's answer to kudzu.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

Many of the "Hawaiian" plants that turn heads -- the bold yellow ginger, the crimson African tulip trees, the multi-colored lantana -- are not merely non-native, they are trouble. And that includes everyone's favorite houseplant, the schefflera, a greedy plant also known as the octopus tree that has undoubtedly snatched a few extra acres of Kaua'i since you first started reading this post.

Other smothering lovers include the shrubby princess flower (anyone from the Bay Area knows that purple-flowered Brazilian beautygirl, Tibouchina urvilleana)...and the bad bad bad, die! die! die! banana poka (link has video), alias Passiflora mollisssima, a rapacious passion fruit vine (yes, that's redundant).

"So what's an apolitical fun-loving tourist supposed to do about all this?" you may ask. Support thems that give a damn, I answer. Dig deep when you visit Hawaii's botanic gardens and arboreta and leave a generous donation, 'cause it ain't cheap to keep paradise under control.

Behold the old axiom, beauty's in the eye of the beholder. What does it do to your perception of the Kaua'i coastline once I tell you this lush green foliage is all invasive flora?

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

3:16 PM ET | 12- 9-2007 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post

Rock Star Botanists

As promised, you're about to meet Ken Wood. He's one of the so-called "rock star botanists" on the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i, associated with the National Tropical Botanical Garden.

Why rock star? Most likely because his exploits have become the stuff of legend, his relentless, daring feet (insert wink) in the wild decade after decade, in search of endangered Hawaiian and Pacific Islands plants.

If you've got a hankering to find research biologist Ken Wood, you could do worse than scout for him around the Kalalau Valley on the island of Kaua'i, one of his favorite botanic haunts.

photo credit: courtesy National Tropical Botanic Garden

 

Yet for all the risks he takes on his seemingly death-defying plant expeditions, Ken Wood is no pumped-up Indiana Jones. Consider his modest comments from the talk we had while hiking a ridge overlooking his beloved Kalalau Valley.

All through time, there've been very interesting field biologists, many out here in the Hawaiian Islands, and these naturalists, botanists and biologists were incredibly adventurous; the rigors and difficulties they encountered were intense and amazing. So I think we've a similar mindset.

As for describing that mindset, how's this for a swashbuckling answer:

It's often said, "Who am I, Where do I come from, Where am I going to." Well, the "who am I" part is not just my physical form but what I'm a part of. So that curiousity we have, that interest in understanding our relationship with earth and/or the universe, I think that's in us all. And once we start to tap into it and learn a little bit and open the first few pages of this incredible story, we're locked in there. And if you can make a living at it, then you're in for a really cool ride.

Don't worry, he isn't hooved. These are Wood's spiked tabis.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

It occurs to me that reading Ken Wood is no substitute for hearing him. So much is in his delivery. As he talks about hand-pollinating plants to get them to set seed -- we're talking very rare plants now, often the last of their species, clinging to rock cliffs 3,000 feet high -- his slow, seductive way of explaining things makes the act itself sound like soft porn. So if you haven't already, give a listen to the audio clip up top.

Ready to rock? Cool. How 'bout starting with an overview of the endangered plant crisis in Hawaii. Two good articles that feature Wood are Hanging by a Thread from Discover Magazine, and Paradise Lost? from Plant Talk.

And for you plant geeks, here's the blow-by-blow list of Hawaii's threatened and endangered plants, as well as an awesome overview of Hawaii's native flora.

A flora, I might add, all the richer because of guys like Ken Wood (I can already hear him protesting that he's just one piece of the conservation puzzle. Agreed). Not only has he kept countless plants from extinction, he is the decidedly bashful papa of a previously undescribed species. Get a look at this exquisite yellow Hibiscadelphus woodii.

Pretty, isn't she? You can thank Ken Wood for getting her on the list of Hawaiian native flora.

photo credit: Ken Wood

 

Stay tuned for more adventures from Kaua'i...

9:03 PM ET | 10- 2-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

Botanizing in Hawaii

It's all-Kauai all week on Talking Plants where the subject is Hawaiian native plants. So get comfy and start streaming Kaua'i Community Radio (it plays Hawaiian music all morning, though some dj's are decidedly better than others) and let me say, Mahalo! for listening.

I'm just back from a week botanizing on Kaua'i with a pretty remarkable cast of characters, whose stories I'll be telling later this year on Morning Edition. No reason for you guys to wait, though, since these are plant people you're gonna want to meet.

First up, the guy below in the orange cap, Ken Wood, who climbs mountains, jumps from helicoptors and dangles thousands of feet in the air to save plants from extinction. His story, tomorrow.

You'll have to hustle to keep pace with him, but you'd be hard-pressed to hike with a better Kauai field guide than Ken Wood, research biologist with the National Tropical Botanical Garden.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

3:05 PM ET | 10- 1-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

A Case of the Hebe Jeebies

No sooner did they hit the PLAY button on my Hebe piece that aired on Morning Edition today, that it hit me, Uh oh! I'm a sitting duck for the Native Plant Police, or NPP (not to be confused with that triumverate of nutrients, NPK).

Introducing the genus Hebe, a New Zealand shrub that comes in tons of delicious foliage and flower choices but resents humidity and low temperatures. Sorry to wet/whet/worry your whistle if it's out of your hardiness zone!

photo by KL

 

If you're unfamiliar with this family feud concerning native vs. non-native plants, you'll be surprised to learn it bears a slight but sordid resemblance to the current controversy over immigration issues right here at home.

The botanical argument goes that non-native plants have done irreparable harm to our environment. (Take a look at what kudzu, ivy and other non-delectables have done in the U.S. and you'll see the picture.) They overwhelm native plants, deprive them of their habitat, and wreak havoc with the ecosystem in countless ways.

The solution, some argue, is to banish non-native plants from the garden in an attempt to restore a very delicate balance and celebrate the inherent birthright of North American plants.

But not all non-native (aka exotic) plants are invasive. Far from it; they're some of the most sublime and well-behaved plants one could have. We'd be bereft of enormous beauty, joy and genes if we were forced to garden only with plants that were native before the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and of course English arrived.

So why do I feel like a sitting duck? Because my feature about the hebe - a wonderful New Zealand shrub - celebrates all kinds of exotics. So in an attempt to ward off any tedious mail about my non-ecological sympathies, I refer any naysayers to my last story about conserving native seed.

Alternatively, if I was defensive (I am NOT! I am NOT!), I could suggest that those gunning for me take a cold jump in a duckweed-covered lake.

I'll be the one wearing flippers...

4:45 AM ET | 06-28-2007 | permalink | comments (28) | e-mail post