Curtis’s Botanical Magazine is an illustrated publication that began in 1787 and is still published today. The Magazine is published by Kew Gardens and is the oldest and most widely cited work of its kind. Plumeria first appeared in the Magazine in 1794 by William Curtis and three more taxa appeared in the 19th century. The first Caribbean endemic species of Plumeria to be featured in the Magazine is Plumeria filifolia, a thin-leaved species from Cuba.
Read MoreLearning outside the classroom is something we’re all growing more accustomed to at the moment. The coronavirus crisis has plunged us all into a new world where we are adapting, ready or not. I am inspired by new initiatives for informal education and reflecting on my own non-traditional learning environments. I am also grieving the missed opportunity to return to my favorite field-based classroom, Costa Rica. In June of 2016 I was accepted into the Organization of Tropical Studies (OTS) graduate Tropical Plant Systematics Course in Costa Rica, a research-based field program. This summer, I was invited back as a Teaching Assistant, but alas, the course has been cancelled. Since I can’t be there this summer I’m just going to dream of being back there.
Read MoreBotanical gardens are urban havens and not only pillars for conservation, education, and research but also for exploration. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (FTBG) was founded in 1938 and named after famous plant explorer, Dr. David Fairchild. Fairchild was a meticulous record keeper and the Fairchild Archives hold many historical documents and photos related to his travels. I was curious if there were any photographs or records of Fairchild collecting wild Plumeria, commonly known as frangipani, in any of his travels, so several students who have been working with my advisor in the archives agreed to see what they could find.
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Yesterday was International Mountain Day, as observed by the United Nations. I love this year’s theme: Mountains Matter for Youth. Our youth are the future leaders of tomorrow. Education, not only on the importance of mountains, but on all natural ecosystems and the biodiversity that they contain has been a large part of my daily inspiration. When I first saw that mountains were being celebrated, I thought of all of the mountainsides where I have looked for wild growing Plumeria, particularly in Haiti.
Read MoreBrittany Harris is a fellow Ph.D. candidate at Florida International University in the Biology department and a good friend of mine. There has been a lot of concern lately with all of the fires making headlines. Since Brittany studies and works in a fire-dependent ecosystem, who better to sit down with and chat about them? She studies the effects of disturbances on pollination systems in islands. Disturbances—including natural (fire and hurricanes) and human-caused ones (mosquito spray). Moral of the story: We need to re-shape Smokey, starting fires is not good, but not all fires are bad. In order to maintain biodiversity and to prevent bigger fires later, we have to let some fires happen, we can’t control nature.
Read MoreTo scientists, plants are known by their scientific name; to everyone else, they are usually known by a common name. Charles Plumier likely discovered the first Plumeria plant and it wasn’t officially described to science until Linnaeus in 1753. Since then, it has been an icon in tropical gardens around the world. Commonly known as Frangipani, a name that has an unusual story that started in London. You might be surprised to learn that both names have an interesting origin.
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An article was posted this week on NPR blaming seasonal allergies on botanical sexism, a term coined by Tom Ogren, horticulturalist and author. He attributes America’s love for male trees to ‘exacerbated allergies’. The article claims that urban forestry is biased towards dioecious male trees. It’s an interesting theory, that cleaning up pollen was thought to be an easier and a fix-all for messy fruits. On the flip-side, if all female plants had been planted instead, there would be no fruits OR pollen. Female flowers can’t set fruits without pollen.
Read MoreAfter working with the Fairchild Challenge and having had a very non-linear path towards science, I saw a unique opportunity to connect high school students with current graduate students. My experience as someone with a desire to pursue a career in science while not necessarily knowing how to go about it prompted me to create and host the Lightning Talks and Evening Walk student workshop. Last week was Fairchild’s second annual event where 30 high school students had the opportunity to hear from six graduate students from FIU and UM about their path to science.
Read MoreI love living in Miami. Tropical climate not only means year-round beach days, it also means really cool plants grow here. Here’s a slide show of what’s been blooming around here lately!
Read More2018 has been a very busy and productive year. It was probably the hardest year since I started graduate school so I think it’s appropriate to start the New Year admiring some accomplishments with gratitude.
Read MoreThere was a time when many Americans didn’t know what a soybean or a zucchini looked like. Dinner plates were filled with corn, potatoes, cheese, grains and meat—pretty drab. The rainbow of foods that we eat now can be traced back to the self-deemed ‘agricultural explorer’ David Fairchild. David Stone’s book “The Food Explorer” eloquently details the life and travels of Fairchild as he brought many of the plants that are common to our diets today. The book is a colorful and fascinating narrative of the life of a man who lived in an age where Americans were eating purely for subsistence, who traveled the world to bring flavor and spice and diversity into our diets.
Read MoreI met Haydee Borrero when I came to visit Miami in 2014. She asked me if I had ever been to the Everglades and when I said no she said “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at 5am”. It was a magical morning. I am happy to call her my friend to this day. This past year we traveled to Cuba together twice since our field sites overlapped. Haydee has had an interesting path is now doing some really cool work as part of her PhD.
Read MoreI am happy to announce that a paper that I have been working on for many years has finally been published in Brittonia this past week! The paper focuses on ten species in the genus Miconia (Melastomataceae), the largest genus in the family. These ten species all occur in the northern Andes in Colombia and Venezuela and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Coastal Cordillera of Venezuela, with one species endemic to Jamaica. This study illustrates the importance of field and herbarium collections. Herbaria document the world’s flora and provide a permanent record of botanical diversity. This is particularly important for endangered and threatened species such as those in the Miconia ulmarioides complex.
Read MoreTwo interns were selected from a pool of applicants to work along side me and learn the molecular techniques that have been the basis of my Ph.D. research. They learned how to extract plant DNA from leaves, use PCR to target specific gene regions, Cycle Sequencing to get the DNA sequence of the targeted gene region and were introduced to next-generation sequencing.
Read MoreFor the last two weeks, we have had a very special visitor at FIU and FTBG, Tracy Commock, Director of the Natural History Museum of Jamaica. I met Tracy, a fellow botanist, in 2014 and she has since become a great colleague and friend. Tracy has been paramount in developing a collaboration between UWI and FIU through an inter-institutional official agreement already in place between these two universities. I took her out for ice cream and we chatted about life as a botanist in Jamaica.
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