The Case for Coevolution
Focus on ScienceCabinet of Curiosities
Charles Darwin’s keen observations of the natural world famously yielded predictions about…
Cultivation and Ecology of Dates
The date palm requires ample sunlight, high temperatures (though it can survive…
NYBG 2023 New Species Review!
Every year, botanists describe hundreds of new plants, algae, fungi, and lichens…
Vanishing Lakes: Tulare Lake
The California Central Valley was once a matrix of riparian grasslands and…
Vanishing Lakes: Owens Lake
The drying of Owens Lake is a human-made catastrophe. In 1913, the…
Vanishing Lakes: Salton Sea
Ingloriously described as “the biggest environmental disaster in California history,” and a…
Vanishing Lakes: Great Salt Lake
Great Salt Lake is a shallow, highly saline, terminal lake situated in northern…
Vanishing Lakes: Lake Poopó
Lake Poopó is a saline lake in the Altiplano Mountains of Bolivia.…
NYBG 2022 New Species Review!
Every year, botanists describe hundreds of new plant, algal, fungal, and lichen…
Lichenicolous Fungi
Composed of different species each playing a different role, a lichen can…
Ethel Zoe Bailey
Women in ScienceFocus on Science
Ethel Zoe Bailey (1889–1983), was the first curator of the Bailey Hortorium…
A Botanical Tour of Harlem
The New York City neighborhood of Harlem is a center for Black…
NYBG 2021 New Species Review!
Every year, botanists describe hundreds of new plant, fungal, and lichen species from…
El Yunque
Set foot in El Yunque, the beautiful tropical rain forest in eastern Puerto…
Meet Spiranthes bightensis: A New Orchid in Our…
Focus on ScienceSpecimen Stories
Botanists have probably described and named 99% of the plants native to…
Mystery Tree of Rondônia
In September 2019 I went to Rondônia state in Brazil in the…
Sticky Rice
Focus on ScienceWhat's in a name?
A couple of years ago I was asked by Michael Purugganan (Dean…
Exploring the Conservation Status of Jamaican Root Tonic…
Jamaican root tonics are fermented beverages composed of roots, bark, and other…
Plant Inspired Innovations: Nepenthes and Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous…
Most plants absorb nutrients from the soil through their roots. Carnivorous plants…
Wild Cinnamon
Although not related to true cinnamon, Cinnamodendron corticosum is a similar spice tree.…
Understanding Interactions: Taking Botany Out of Isolation
For centuries we have viewed plants and fungi in isolation. Tried to…
Old Man's Beard: A Medicinal Lichen
Usnea is a genus of lichen, commonly known as Old Man’s Beard. …
Myanmar Mystery Solved
Working in a Herbarium sometimes requires detective work. This Myanmar mystery started…
Botanical Lessons
Botany students must learn the structures of flowers in all their intricate variety.…
"Citizen Scientists" Support Alpine Research!
Increases in temperature and changes to the availability of moisture and snow…
Herbarium Specimens Show Changes in Carbon Dioxide Levels
It has been documented that since the industrial revolution there has been an…
Herbarium Specimens Show Changes in the Landscape
Changing climate means changing landscapes. Herbarium specimens document what plants are growing in…
Phenology and Herbarium Specimens
As habitats get warmer, a plant's life cycle can change. For example, when spring…
Climate Research and Herbarium Specimens
Climate research requires lots of data. Data about the conditions on earth now,…
Studying the DNA of Herbarium Specimens
Molecular biologists study the DNA of plants. They use this data to identify…
Learning from Extinct Plants
Specimen StoriesFocus on Science
From the woolly mammoth to the passenger pigeon, many extinct species owe…
Ghost Forests of the Mid-Atlantic
One of the most visually apparent impacts of climate change are the emerging…
Catnip: A Felicitous Herb
Focus on ScienceWhat's in a name?
Calling all cat lovers! As I was digitizing plants for the Southern…
From 1920’s adventure narrative to new species –…
Focus on ScienceWhat's in a name?
The amount of time between when a species is first collected and…
Beware! Stranglers on the Loose!
Focus on ScienceCabinet of Curiosities
Meet the genus Cuscuta, or as I like to refer to them,…
Being Loved To Death – A Third of…
As the many plants to be digitized in the Endless Forms project,…
Granite outcrop specialists
Plants are amazing and can adapt to live in the most unlikely…
Chock-full of chromosomes
Cabinet of CuriositiesFocus on Science
Behold this fern which has the highest recorded chromosome number of any living…
NY's Missing Species
When you think of a rare, endangered species, you may think of far-off…
Carnivorous plants
Cabinet of CuriositiesFocus on Science
Watch out, these plants are hungry! Most carnivorous plants grow in bogs…
Ancient plant DNA
Using a NYBG herbarium specimen, PhD grad student Lizzie Joyce turned back…
Pitcher Plants
Pitcher Plants sometimes attract insects to their specialized leaves with nectar or…
Sundews
Sundews. Drosera is the largest genus of carniverous plants, with almost 200…
Venus flytrap
Even though Venus Fly Traps are widely available as cultivated plants, they…
Air plants
Specimen StoriesFocus on Science
The little air plant in your house that you mist every day could…
Skunk Cabbage
Specimen StoriesFocus on Science
A locally occuring arum in the northeast U.S., skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus…