The first week of May marked an important week for science at Denver Botanic Gardens. Both Sarada Krishnan, Director of Horticulture, and Melissa Islam, Associate Director of Research & Conservation, successfully defended their dissertations to earn their PhD.
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Dr. Krishnan in the village of Ambolotara in eastern Madagascar meets with one of the village chiefs
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Dr. Islam collects plants for herbarium specimens on the island of Grenada
Dr. Krishnan’s research focused on examining genetic diversity within Madagascan coffee species. Her study was undertaken using the collections maintained at the Kianjavato Coffee Research Station’s ex situ field genebank as well as wild populations. Overall she found high levels of diversity in Madagascan coffee species.
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Last week we were honored to co-host the Center for Plant Conservation Annual Meeting along with the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP) in Fort Collins. Conservation professionals from more than 20 botanic gardens, federal agencies, and organizations across the country gathered in Colorado for a four-day conference to celebrate our efforts to conserve our nation’s rarest plants.
The Center for Plant Conservation (CPC) is a consortium of botanic gardens dedicated to protecting our nation’s vanishing flora. Denver Botanic Gardens was one of the founding partners of the CPC 27 years ago (1984). We have been actively involved in seed collection and other conservation efforts in collaboration with the CPC ever since.
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Gardens Volunteer Rosa-Lee Brace identifies mushrooms at the NAMA 2010 foray.
This year has been a banner year for mushrooms. It seems that over the last several months mushrooms have been popping up everywhere. The moist spring combined with well-timed rains in July and August led to a great year. Well, it couldn’t have come at a better time for the North American Mycological Association’s annual foray.
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Have you ever wanted to go on a mushroom hunt? Your opportunity has arrived. Join the Colorado Mycological Society September 18-20 for the Rocky Mountain National Park Mycoblitz. The mycoblitz, an event where a group of people get together for a short period of time to identify mushrooms in a given area, will be the second to be held at Rocky Mountain National Park. The mycoblitz is a joint endeavour between the Colorado Mycological Society (CMS), Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) and Denver Botanic Gardens Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi.
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Do you miss the beautiful orchid displays from the Cloud Forest Tree? In order to satisfy your orchid fix before the new greenhouse complex is complete and the orchids return to display, come see many of them as preserved specimens in the Kathryn Kalmbach Herbarium.
Volunteer Eleanor Von Bargen has worked tirelessly over the last 2 years to carefully preserve over 560 specimens of our orchid collection. Each specimen is carefully chosen to capture optimal flowering by Von Bargen and curator Nick Snakenberg. Many of the orchids retain their original beauty in preserved form creating valuable scientific documentation of what the species look like in flower. These specimens add to the wealth of cultivated plants which have been added to our herbarium collection by volunteers in recent years.
Please visit the Kathryn Kalmbach Herbarium to see these beautiful orchid specimens in person.
