Among the curious carnivorous plants visitors encounter in the Rose Hills Conservatory are American Pitcher plants, the Sarracenias. We grow them inside because their native habitats are swamps and bogs, where the humidity is constantly high, a climate we best maintain in a greenhouse. Interpretive displays in The Huntington’s Rose Hills Conservatory show how the …
Author Archives: jamesfolsom
A Twist on Passion
Wending through shrubberies and edges in all areas of Los Angeles County, you’ll discover a somewhat unwelcome beauty, a blue passionflower (Passiflora caerulea) that has found its way into the landscape, probably escaping from cultivation. It’s easy to see why someone would have brought the South American native into their garden; it’s a vigorous plant …
True Toppers
The “eu” of Eucalyptus tells us something is true, real. The “calyptus” part (from Greek kalyptos) suggests there is a lid, or a cap, involved. And indeed there is. Each bud of a Eucalyptus flower is capped with a Hershey Kisses-looking topper that breaks away around its rim (a kind of opening we call “circumcisal …
Plainly Beautiful Anthers
Many plant genera have beautiful anthers, so conspicuous and handsome as to be the showiest aspect of the flowers. In two notable cases, botanists were compelled to make the point in writing. Both are genera that start with “calli” – which tells you something about these plants will be beautiful. One genus is Calliandra, …
An Island Belle
Fairly recently, in 1976, a team of collectors discovered a previously undescribed plant in the Campanula family, on the island of Mauritius. One of the team, Ian Richardson, named it as Wahlenbergia mauritiana in 1979. But another team member, Mats Thulin concluded the species is sufficiently distinct to merit its own genus, for which he …
Gebonias
Students don’t have to travel far to find exotic plants for study. Common garden plants showcase wonderful specializations that students can enjoy discovering. Ask them to examine pots of Begonias (which, as children, we called Gebonias), common in gardens and readily available at most garden centers. When they do closely examine Begonias, students will …
Super Suber
Most trees make cork; it’s a dead tissue in the bark, a tissue called phellem in Greek and suber in Latin. Botanists still use the words phellem and suber to describe barks, but in English we just say cork, a term that likely derives from quercus, which is the Latin word for oak trees. Of …
Scandalous Connections….
Plants gain their names in curious ways. To gardeners, Grevillea is a wonderful group of shrubby Protea relatives (mostly from Australia). The brilliant botanist Robert Brown, having studied the Protea family, determined this particular cadre of species should be recognized as the separate genus Grevillea, one of several new names he proposed in 1809 during …
A Tree to Conquer Passion
A Tree to Conquer Passion Pliny is a notorious historian, Chaucer a fabled story-teller. The writings of both authors constitute some of the most precious books among more than 9 million special collections conserved and studied in the Huntington Library. Writings of both men tell us about real and mythical lifestyles, and each author makes …
A Great Name
California’s only native palm was long thought to be a Brahea, or even a Pritchardia. But in 1879 German Botanist Hermann von Wendland noted significant distinguishing characteristics and published a new name, Washingtonia filifera, creating a combination (the genus and specific epithet that make up a scientific name) to identify the plant. Many people …