The Brittons: Partners in Life and Botany
The establishment of The New York Botanical Garden was the result of…
The Cactaceae
The Cactaceae was a publication written by the founder of NYBG, Nathaniel Lord Britton…
The Calabash in Capoeira Music
The Berimbau is the musical instrument played in capoeira. It consists of a…
The Case for Coevolution
Focus on ScienceCabinet of Curiosities
Charles Darwin’s keen observations of the natural world famously yielded predictions about…
The Herbarium of Endangerment: A Digital Display of…
“Behind all scientific names are the stories of their objects, of the…
The Herbarium of Endangerment: Cycas riuminiana
Cycads carry significance as “living fossils,” existing in a way that is…
The Herbarium of Endangerment: Eugenia koolauensis
Many Latin plant names feature the intersection of imperial European botany and…
The Herbarium of Endangerment: Tahina spectabilis
This more “newly discovered” plant was given its Latin name in 2008,…
The Herbarium of Endangerment: Vanilla planifolia
One may be most familiar with vanilla’s taste and aroma. The fruit…
The Lackluster Major William Rich
Major William Rich was selected to be the botanist on the U. S.…
The Language of Flowers
Throughout time, people have assigned meaning to flowers, and many cultures have…
The Lemmons: Partners in Botany
Sara Plummer met John Gill Lemmon in 1876 when he came to…
The LGBTQ+ Legacy of NYBG: Out of the…
Herbarium specimens are kept in metal cabinets to protect them from damage.…
The Lilac Collection
The lilacs are blooming here at the Garden, gracing us with their…
The Many Colors of the Star Cloak Fern
While imaging herbarium specimens, I was struck by the unusual colors of…
The Nourishing Power of Dates
As the Islamic month of fasting – Ramadan – comes to a…
The Sacred Plant of Peru: The San Pedro…
For thousands of years, the indigenous people of Peruvian Amazon have used…
The Saguaro Cactus: Emblematic Plant of the American…
Specimen StoriesWhat's in a name?
With its tall, columnar shape and upward-bending branches, the cactus we know…
The Tecate Cypress: What a Tangled Web
While working as a digitization intern, one of the most pleasing features…
The Three Sisters
Companion planting is the technique of growing plants closely together for mutual…
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Cabinet of CuriositiesSpecimen Stories
The beloved children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar is turning 50! See many of…
Thomas Gaither - Activist and Biologist
Dr. Thomas Walter Gaither (1938 - ) was born in Great Falls, South…
Three Thousand Miles up the Amazon
At the age of 61, Ynés Mexía embarked on the adventure of…
Tomato Persona
Choose your tomato persona. While all the same species, Solanum lycopersicum, tomatoes…
Traditional Medicine: Momordica charantia
Momordica charantia L. is a plant species that is used in the…
Traveling Plants
While plants can’t walk, they can definitely travel. Plants have evolved a…
Traveling Plants: People lend a hand
Plants have lots of ways they can move and distribute their propagules…
Traveling Plants: Plants on the move
Plants might not be able to move the way animals do, but…
Treeline Expansion
The absence of trees at high-elevations both defines Alpine zones and is…
Truffle
Specimen StoriesFocus on Science
Truffles are fruiting bodies of Tuber fungi that grow underground. The fungi…
Trust in the Crust
earth /ˈərth/noun1) the planet on which we live; the world2) the substance…
Tumbleweeds
Tumbleweeds aren’t restricted to one species or plant family, but are an…
Typical: Astragalus cusickii var. packardiae
Covered in flower dissection illustrations by Rupert Barneby — we should all…
Typical: Ceratozamia euryphyllidia, the largest type?
Plant specimens come in all shapes and sizes, but they are usually…
Typical: Christmas in the clouds
Bassett Maguire (1904–1991), a botanist who spent the majority of his career…
Typical: Double type
A herbarium's version of a double rainbow — a double type specimen.…
Typical: Erythronium helenae
Specimen StoriesWhat's in a name?
One of the common names for the genus Erythronium is the dogtooth…
Typical: Gymnopilus pallidus
Some characters are altered in the drying process used to create herbarium specimens.…
Typical: Hibiscadelphus stellatus
This type specimen is like a postcard from Hawaii reading "Wish you…
Understanding Interactions: Taking Botany Out of Isolation
For centuries we have viewed plants and fungi in isolation. Tried to…
Vampires Among Us: The Ghost Pipe Plant
Did you know that some plants lack chlorophyll? Often confused for a…
Vanda
Vanda is a tropcial Asian and Australian orchid genus with 85 known…
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.…
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: Tulare Lake
The California Central Valley was once a matrix of riparian grasslands and…
Venus flytrap
Even though Venus Fly Traps are widely available as cultivated plants, they…
View of Sítio Burle Marx
This Calathea species was collected by botanist Helen Kennedy in Roberto Burle…
Views from a 1910 Botanical Expedition through Western…
New York Botanical Garden led around 136 botanical expeditions between 1898 and 1918.…
Violetta White
Violetta Susan Elizabeth White Delafield (1875–1949) was a promising young mycologist at the…
Virtual Road Trip: Southern Wildflowers
Many Americans are currently practicing social distancing and self-quarantine as a way…
W. A. Murrill
William Murrill became an assistant curator at NYBG in 1904, and was…
Weird & Wild Legumes
Cabinet of CuriositiesSpecimen Stories
Members of plant family Fabaceae (bean or legume family) produce a kind…
Western Road Trip
In the summer of 1952, recently retired Wabash College¹ botany professor Albert…
Western Road Trip: Crater Lake
It might be hard to believe the Bechtels could take their eyes…
Western Road Trip: Grant Grove
When visiting giant sequoia trees, you spend a lot of time looking…