The ineluctable appeal of women botanists

 I have read biographies of Linnaeus, of Asa Gray, Thomas Nuttall, of Aven Nelson..and come to think of it quite a few other such gentlemen over the decades. They were all good reads. 

Why is it I find biographies of women botanists so much more interesting? Alice Eastwood's Wonderland: The Adventures of a Botanist, by Carol Green Wilson had me spellbound from start to finish. Her rescue of type specimens from the Academy of Science in San Francisco was of course practically Indiana Jones in its excitement--but there is something more to her story than what men had to put up with.

I picked up a copy of The Forgotten Botanist on my last visit to Tucson (where the mountain looking down on the city is named for her--and where she has not been forgotten). Again it is a page turner, and of course her husband kept getting credit for her work. 

This last weekend we'd just seen Lucy Braun's (and her sister Annette's) graves at Spring Grove cemetery. I'd actually seen them a half dozen year's earlier one August--but this time I managed to take a picture the graves as well as of the enormous white oak which towered here long before European settlement of this area.

Our Cincinnati host, Scott Beuerlein, is standing in front of the ancient oak...

That picture doesn't give the right scale. Here's one that conveys the magnificent oak's size better. We'd just seen Lucy Braun (and her sister Annette's) graves at the fringe of the oak's crown.

Scott's wonderful wife, Michelle, gives a much better sense of the size of this specimen. There were dozens of graves in the shadow of the oak--it took us a while to find the Braun sisters. 

Later Sunday afternoon I had the distinct pleasure of watching a movie about Lucy Braun at Cincinnati's fantastic Union Station--a gigantic Art Deco masterpiece filled with museums, restaurant, wonderful ice cream parlor and much more--including a theatre where documentaries are shown. 

Like the books I've read about women botanists, this documentary was more stirring than similar pieces I've seen done about men. I suspect knowing the enormous challenges professional women faced in the past (and no doubt still do) adds a layer of concern and engagement to the account of their lives. Or are women just more interesting?

Click on the image above to have a chance to learn about a great American botanist. And her sister to boot--an important entomologist.

And if you've managed to read this far, I have another blog post about another extraordinary woman who also led an amazing life in Academia and beyond: Mary Rippon. 

A tale of two (or three) from A to Z(abelia)

Abelia x grandiflora cv. at Dallas Botanic Garden in October

I am not sure what rock I've been hiding under, but I was entirely ignorant of the autumn flowering abelias until this fall (or late summer) when I was in the mountains of Central China in late August when we encountered the parent of the hybrid shown above growing on steep ravines. I was transfixed!

 So transfixed I apparently didn't photograph them! What we saw in China was Abelia chinensis, which looks very much like this hybrid, which represents a cross between chinensis and A. uniflora (the latter apparently lost to cultivation). As Jan is demonstrating above, it has a bewitching fragrance....

Everybody who walked by the spectacular hedge alongside the building where I spoke seemed to want to poke their nose in these. Some botanists have tried to lump these taxa under Linnaea, Twinflower--the circumboreal groundcover of subalpine coniferous forests, but the lumping doesn't seem to have stuck. 

We hit this at the perfect time: there are never enough showy late summer blooming shrubs, are there?

When I came back to Denver Botanic Gardens anxious to teach my colleagues about this gem, and of course we were growing it already....when I went out to check the specimens I was underwhelmed--they were no match to Dallas' hedges. And of course the extensive literature about these plants (I blush that I knew nothing about it hitherto) pretty much says it will be marginally hardy in Denver. Next spring I intend to attempt as many different clones (and there are a lot of them) in various parts of my home garden in order to see if that's true!

Zabelia tyaihyoni

There is another plant, once known as Abelia mosanensis, of which we do boast good specimens at the gardens. There is a great deal one can write about this fantastic plant, but the International Dendrological Society does it much more succinctly and better than I could. Do click on that link and you'll find a wonderfully tangled taxonomic mess (almost every website miss-spells the name, by the way!) Except for mine and the I.D.S.!

To recap just a tad--this shrub is extremely rare in northeast South Korea where it's considered at risk of extirpation. Who knows what's happening in North Korea with it.

The Zabelia at Waring House, DBG (Not as floriferous--it had been pruned hard the year before)

It's surprisingly new to cultivation, and still rare in gardens, which is strange since it's a tough customer, and quite graceful and not too big for most gardens. Most significantly, it is EXTREMELY cold hardy (possibly Zone 3), very attractive in form and blossom. And the flowers are also extremely fragrant and produced for a long time. No one seems to mention that the seedpods are rather pretty, and it has wonderful fall color....speaking of which, here is my specimen at home:

It took on some reddish tints a week or so later. I planted this five or so years ago--it took some doing to find a mail order source. Last spring I was admiring it from this spot, taking in the rich fragrance when I noticed something similar in our neighbors' garden: you can see a yellow shrub at the top of this picture: turns out, they'd planted one several years before me and I'd never noticed it until this year--it's twice as big as mine and was part of the source of the rich scent I was noticing. I was torn: should I be pleased at their good taste (where the hell did they find it? No one sells it around here), or pissed I'd been "trumped"...in the old sense of that word, of course!

Magnificent mountains of central China

Ever since I returned in mid September from the extraordinary trip through the mountains of Central China I've been haunted by them. I have been privileged to visit China five times over the past three decades--and have traveled extensively in Yunnan, and even across much of Southern Tibet. I visited great cities along the east coast from Hong Kong, Shanghai, the Shandong Peninsula and of course Beijing. There were lots of mountains in many of these areas, but not until this past trip did I finally go to the great central heartland--between Xi-An (the ancient capital Chang An) and the Sichuan plateau and then down to the Yizhang gorge region--three epicenters of Chinese civilization which are nestled, so to speak, between a vast complex of sugarloaf mountains the scope and complexity of which dumbfounded me.

Most jarring of all was the realization that those Chinese paintings of mountains I've admired all my life, thinking they were flights of fantasy were actually quite realistic.

The focus of this trip was woody plants, especially trees since it was organized by the International Dendrological Society (I.D.S.)--an august very international group which in this instance had participants from more than a half dozen countries. I knew China was unusually rich in woody plants--and assumed most of that biodiversity was further south, in the Western extremities of the Himalaya. I was vaguely aware that Metasequoia, Gingko, Acer griseum (for instance) were found further north a bit. I had no concept that we would find hundreds of taxa in the complex, mostly karst mountains clustered in China's very heart. 

I will intersperse the far too few pictures I took of these mountains with a few palate cleansers--like this shot of Chinese quite literally circle dancing below us at one of our outdoor dinner venues. My dullish shots of green mounds might get a tad tedious otherwise. I confess that of the several thousand photos I took, far too many are of green leaves of the vast assortment of trees we encountered--not to mention an awful lot of the mind-boggling fern flora and rich herbaceous layer we weren't suppose to notice.

And it was misty and even rainy many days (this was still part of the monsoon season), and I came to realize that much of China is really warm temperate rain forest! 

Our drivers (we had a fleet of sturdy vehicles at our command) were all characters. This car belonged to someone who was manifestly Buddhist, and that the photo was taken at 12:08 pm on September 2 of 2025. On a Tuesday to be exact.

We traversed just a sliver of two enormous mountain ranges--the QinLing between Shanxi province and Chongqing (effectively and formerly the eastern portion of Sichuan province). and then the Daba mountains 

Unless you've actually been there, it's hard to believe the diversity of plant life: we must have seen a couple hundred kinds of ferns, and more woody genera than I dreamed possible. There had to have been a couple dozen kinds of maples, for instance. I was so focused on the near ground I simply forgot to look up much of the time, and took far too few pictures of the scenery.

Oh yes, fungi galore!

A vista taken in a big bend of the road.

The roads were incredibly well maintained, although the near rain-forest vegetation did try and take over at times!

We finally arrived at the Yangtze.

More mushrooms--love how these come out of the overlapping scales of the pine cone!

How fun it would be to repel down those cliffs (not for myself however)...what treasures must lurk there...

The graceful characters transliterate as "Shen Nong Jia"--the name of the national park where we stayed the longest.

And here is Shen Nong Jia hinself: the deity spirit of the region. We were fortunate to visit during a slow period in September: the park is swamped with visitors from March to August (when it's cooler here than in the surrounding heavily populated lowlands) and again in November due to fall color.

Every view seemed different.

Lots of rugged rocks as well in spots.

We did have wonderful meals and stays at elegant inns and hotels.,,,

And lots of misty days--we were in the monsoon season still. Fortunately not a lot of hard rain.

Proof positive I was there!

How fun it would be to go back in spring, or brave the crowds to see the fantastic fall color. Perhaps another lifetime...although if you live long enough, dreams you didn't even know you had come true!
 

Succulent gems of Bolivia this SUNDAY!

Cacti & Succulents of the Bolivian Highlands

Wendell S. Woody Minnich 2007-2017

 

            Bolivia, an inland island in the western regions of South America, is south of Peru and north of Argentina-Chile and west of Brazil. Being squeezed by past wars with its neighbors, Bolivia is now a small country with no direct connection to the Pacific Ocean. It is mostly made-up of high Andean mountain environments often divided by deep river gorge valleys. From sea level to altitudes in excess of 24,000feet, it is well known for its Inca ancestry, high altitude terrace farming and the beautiful llamas, alpacas and vicunas.  Due to it being mostly high in elevation, many of the cacti and other succulents are endemic to very specialized and uniquely created cold hardy habitats.

 

        When flying into La Paz, the capitol of Bolivia, one soon becomes aware of their first immediate adjustment. As soon as you step off of the airplane, you really feel the altitude of near 14,000 ft. Normally, a few days of acclimation are necessary, thus what better way to see this historically beautiful city, than to just meander verrry slooowly from street to street! The people and their culture are pronounced, and the colors and vibrancy of their life style is inspirational. One would think, at this mountainous altitude, the winter temperatures would get very cold and thus prohibit the growth of most succulent plants. Surprisingly, there are numerous cacti and other succulents found growing everywhere. And, if the altitude makes you feel ill, there are always vendors along the cobblestone streets anxious to sell their famed cocoa leaves. Just chew some, dribble the juice down your chin, and soon you’ll feel as if you’re back at sea level.

 

            From La Paz into Bolivia’s more remote regions, one quickly begins to view fantastic scenery from snow covered peaks to deep valleys and sculptured geological formations. Soon the Puyas and columnar Cereus become the dominate vegetation. If curvy winding roads with sheer drop-offs are not to your liking, this may not be the best place for you. Pretty soon, many smaller cryptic genera become visible from the window of your Land Cruiser. You totally forget about the rough roads and immediately get excited by more and more species appearing with each and every bend in the road. Sulcorebutias, Rebutias and Weingartias are the most dominant genera, and when they are in flower, they seem to glow with their big electric red, yellow and burgundy flowers. The Echinopsis, Lobivias, Oreocereus and Cleistocactus are also very common and are often found growing in association with numerous Bromeliads and the occasional Echeveria.

 

            Everyday in Bolivia is like riding a rollercoaster, from sea level to 20,000ft, and from one species of cactus to another. In some areas, the cacti dominate the landscape, and in others, the cacti are as cryptic and camouflaged as chameleons. Hopefully sharing my travels in Bolivia from Lake Titicaca to Sucre, will be as exciting for you as it was for me. For those of you who may never make such a trip, perhaps this presentation can take you to Bolivia without ever leaving home.  

Click HERE to SIGN UP for Woody's fantastic talk!

I lied. Sorry!

Mark Akimoff

In a post I just published I called this gentleman Dr. Bulb. That's only part of his story. He is an all round plantsman, and his nursery, Illhahe Rare Plants, sells a wide range of rock garden, alpine and xeric and native perennials in addition to his rare bulbs. Nothing like stuffing people into a box! I shared a few pictures of his bulbs I photographed last April, but now just random shots around his nursery and garden--pretty much randomly, alas. Before you check out the treasures in his garden, see what HE has to say about next Sunday's symposium--there's some surprises! Click HERE.

A few random shots around his garden and nursery...starting what USED to be Hutchinsia alpina, then it was, Pritzelago alpina and now (or should I say for the time being...) it's Hornungia alpina.

A South American Berberis--B. x stenophylla 'Irwinii' (a cross between B. darwinii and B. empetrifolia)

A wonderful white combo including a compact Iberis taurica (above) and Arenaria montana below.

Daphne x transatlantica 'Eternal Fragrance' above Silene x robotii 'Rollie's Favorite' below

Clematis coactilis?

A new bed planted to pitcher plants

Raised bed full of all manner of treasures

Viola cotyledon? Oooo Lala! in an alpine house...

Arenaria alfacarensis

Lewisia tweedyi

Edraianthus jugoslavicus

Sedum spathulifolium

Darlingtonia californica

Scilla (Hyacinthoides?) vicentina

Calochortus uniflorus

A bulb house full of treasure!

 More goodies--as you'll see if you clicked on Mark's blog, he's bringing  two large flats filled with 64 plant gems that will be shared among attendees of the Symposium though a free raffle. Be there or miss out!