Weekend of Natural Cultural Institutions - Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Last weekend, we ended up checking out two of NYC's institutions: the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the Bronx Zoo.
What brought us to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden was the flowering of titan arum, aka the "corpse flower" (Amorphophallus titanum). This plant is native to Sumatra, Indonesia, and shoots up a giant flower-like object, which blooms for several days and smells like rotting flesh. It rarely flowers in captivity; in reading about the plant on the web, I found sites which listed every bloom in captivity in the US and Europe! On August 8th, the flower at the Botanic Garden began to bloom. So we figured we had to go and see it! (I first came across it on a webcam that the Garden had set up for this blooming.) The actual huge, red part isn't a true flower; the real flowers are tiny, nondescript bits on the tall middle stalk. And it's from the same family of plants as the calla lily. (You'll probably recognize the same shape.)
It is indeed huge (I think the middle was about 7ft tall), but no longer smelled. We overheard workers saying that by about 9am Friday morning, the smell in the room resembled "New York on a bad summer day". Yucky, but not overwhelming. (Unless you had to hang out in it all day, for days on end, like we do when the weather gets hot and humid!) In true NY fashion, there were long lines to get into the conservatory room which housed the flower. The pot itself was cordoned off, and security was high. Guards kept repeating, "Take your photo and move on." What about those of us who were there to actually learn about the flower, not just take our momento photo and forget about the plant?! Apparently, they didn't have room for us! Anyway, we're thinking of contacting the two botanists whose baby this plant is, and ask more questions, like whether the plant will be on display now that the flower is gone!
After seeing the corpse flower, we wandered along the conservatory buildings, marvelled at the water lily ponds (they have blue waterlilies!), then set off for less-crowded parts of the Garden. Here, we found out what hazelnut seeds look like: weird alien creatures!
We also discovered conifers with giant needles, and I was floored by 4-ft-diameter lily pads!
While wandering around, the clear blue sky was interrupted by 5 jets flying in formation. Not only that, but somehow their jet streams were controlled so as to output white fluffs in a set pattern! This pattern turned out to be an ad for an insurance company! I wonder how expensive that marketing must have been?!
What brought us to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden was the flowering of titan arum, aka the "corpse flower" (Amorphophallus titanum). This plant is native to Sumatra, Indonesia, and shoots up a giant flower-like object, which blooms for several days and smells like rotting flesh. It rarely flowers in captivity; in reading about the plant on the web, I found sites which listed every bloom in captivity in the US and Europe! On August 8th, the flower at the Botanic Garden began to bloom. So we figured we had to go and see it! (I first came across it on a webcam that the Garden had set up for this blooming.) The actual huge, red part isn't a true flower; the real flowers are tiny, nondescript bits on the tall middle stalk. And it's from the same family of plants as the calla lily. (You'll probably recognize the same shape.)
It is indeed huge (I think the middle was about 7ft tall), but no longer smelled. We overheard workers saying that by about 9am Friday morning, the smell in the room resembled "New York on a bad summer day". Yucky, but not overwhelming. (Unless you had to hang out in it all day, for days on end, like we do when the weather gets hot and humid!) In true NY fashion, there were long lines to get into the conservatory room which housed the flower. The pot itself was cordoned off, and security was high. Guards kept repeating, "Take your photo and move on." What about those of us who were there to actually learn about the flower, not just take our momento photo and forget about the plant?! Apparently, they didn't have room for us! Anyway, we're thinking of contacting the two botanists whose baby this plant is, and ask more questions, like whether the plant will be on display now that the flower is gone!
After seeing the corpse flower, we wandered along the conservatory buildings, marvelled at the water lily ponds (they have blue waterlilies!), then set off for less-crowded parts of the Garden. Here, we found out what hazelnut seeds look like: weird alien creatures!
We also discovered conifers with giant needles, and I was floored by 4-ft-diameter lily pads!
While wandering around, the clear blue sky was interrupted by 5 jets flying in formation. Not only that, but somehow their jet streams were controlled so as to output white fluffs in a set pattern! This pattern turned out to be an ad for an insurance company! I wonder how expensive that marketing must have been?!
posted by blumaroo at
3:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home