The World is Our Garden Blog

Rainclouds over Jamaica's Cockpit Country

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:17:59 GMT

Rain rain go away JAMAICA. Gray clouds met us at our field locale in the mountains this morning. Rain is not typical this time of year, but there are some southerly winds blowing through and bringing some precipitation with them. For the local farmers, the untimely rain may be a blessing for their crops - especially the unique varieties of local yam they're famous for- but for fieldwork in steep mountain terrain the rain is less than desirable. Despite being keen to get out into the mountains...

Our 5000K marathon

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:16:38 GMT

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO. Dr. Larry Noblick sits and carefully cleans precious palm seeds collected during the day's fieldwork. We'll continue our own version of this botanical 5000K marathon as we continue processing specimens and seeds late into the night - this is typically how we spend our evenings after each day of fieldwork. So far, we have searched for, collected, and processed over six thousand seeds!...

Boogaloo, where are you?

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:16:53 GMT

Searching for Trinidad's rarest palm TRINIDAD & TOBAGO. After bidding Juan a warm farewell this morning, as he set off to carry out a final meeting and prepare our precious plant cargo for departure back to Miami, we made our way several hours south into a forestry site. We were intent on following up on information from our colleagues at the National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago regarding the island's rarest palm, Astrocaryum aculeatum - also known as the "banga" or "boogaloo" palm. As a...

From mountaintops to the lowlands

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 04:56:30 GMT

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO. Greetings from Trinidad! The last few days have been completely encompassed by fieldwork and processing of our plant specimens. I hope you enjoy perusing a few images from the field... Ms. Abdo and Mr. Rivera of Fairchild take a momentary break beneath a gigantic tree found along a mountain ridge top in the northern range of the island. A stately Mauritia palm is one of only two in its genus. This ancient palm reaches its northernmost native extent in Trinidad, and extends...

Side by side we stand

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:27:28 GMT

Trinidad... since our arrival in Port of Spain on this neotropical island we've been fortunate to have been afforded pleasant weather, exceptional colleagues, fertile verdure, and Caribbean color at every turn. It is a grand pleasure to undertake this joint expedition between Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and Montgomery Botanical Center (MBC) in close collaboration with our long-term collaborators and colleagues from the University of the West Indies (UWI) National Herbarium. The...

If these mountains could talk...

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:16:54 GMT

JAMAICA. An inspiring day it was - to say the least. We were really far off the beaten track, way past the "end of the road." The "road" in this case was an old bridle road that had been completely overgrown and was now dominated by full-grown trees and shrubs. Odontocline sp. was frequently encountered climbing all over the plants around us, bringing sunny bursts of its bright yellow flower clusters into view all around. Botanist and plant lover that I am, I must...