FIU-Fairchild Students Perform Research Field Work in Cuba

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Last August FIU-Fairchild graduate students Jonathan Flickinger and Nichole Tiernan traveled to Cuba to collect plants for their doctoral research on the systematics of Caribbean Myrtaceae and Plumeria, respectively.  Over the course of a two-week long field trip, they collected in the mountains and along the coast of eastern Cuba together with hosts Dr. Ramona Oviedo and Dr. Lisbet González, botanists at the Instituto de Ecología y Sistemática in Havana.  The students also visited the Jardín Botánico Nacional and the Jardín Botánico de Las Tunas to study their living and herbarium collections.  This work was supported by the Garden as well as the Tinker Foundation (through the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center of FIU), the International Center for Tropical Botany of FIU (Tiernan) and Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens (Flickinger)

From left to right: Dr. Lisbet González, Local Field Guide, Dr. Ramona Oviedo, Nichole Tiernan, and Jonathan Flickinger at Pico Mella, Sierra Maestra.