tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15232312738856276132012-02-01T22:02:37.269ZTalking PlantsEvery plant has a story to tellTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.comBlogger4791100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-71700579125778651432012-01-29T19:00:00.000Z2012-01-29T19:00:01.457ZWhen Clematis is out of blossom, kissing is out of fashion
In Australia I used to repeat the often quoted statement that there is always a wattle (Acacia) in flower somewhere in Australia. (This was despite me spending a lot of time saying they have their peak flowering in August throughout much of the country, an indicator of the start of my new season 'sprinter'. Both statements are true.)
For a country as small as England or the United Kingdom, Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-88199904841148778542012-01-26T20:10:00.000Z2012-01-29T18:12:59.616ZTommy time
It's day 26 of the year 2012 - 'Australia Day' for those of you with antipodean interests. One of the early spring flowers, or more accurately middle to late winter flowers, is the Early Crocus, Crocus tommasinianus. Also know as Tommies, according to Wikipedia, it was first recorded, and presumably planted, at Kew in the late nineteenth century and is now well naturalised almost everywhere.
Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-15562485539499729422012-01-23T20:00:00.000Z2012-01-23T20:00:01.112ZPiranha III: the algal hunter
Once I was sure the piranha had swum away I dipped my forceps into the water, submerging only the tips of fingers into the water (I figured I could still pursue most of my interests without them), carefully extracting a few of the bluish filaments from the soft brush-like growth of algae.
Although blue or grey in colour, it was clearly a red alga (trust me, I'm a doctor who specialises in Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-2798901373888980942012-01-21T19:30:00.000Z2012-01-21T19:30:00.078ZLearning to love London planes
Living in Kew Gardens, I am very familiar with London planes. I mean we have jumbos banking over our house three days out of four, sometimes on the minute, as they descend into Heathrow...
This gets the aeronautical pun out of the way, so now to botanical matters. I was reminded by a book review in today's Guardian that London Planes - the quieter more environmentally friendly (although more Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-40701123292187569532012-01-17T21:10:00.000Z2012-01-17T21:10:02.059ZAlmost nothing good to say about the snowberry
I'd held back blogging on snowberry because I couldn't think of anything nice to say about it. Mostly it looks to me like bits of polystyrene (bean-bag beans or packing peanuts) stuck on a stick.
Close up the white bits look squidgy and berry-like, but not a lot more attractive. Although enjoyed by deer, quail, pheasant and other creatures we like to shoot and eat, the berries themselves are Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-13634274422185610292012-01-13T20:15:00.000Z2012-01-13T20:15:00.600ZDaphne from the top of the world in top form
Walking through a frost-covered Wakehurst Place early this morning with the head of the estate, Andy Jackson, we turned into the Himalaya Glade to find a forest of Himalayan daphne covered in frost-coloured flowers. Of course Andy had planned it that way.
In fact I'd chanced upon them a little earlier when out myself but I was more than happy to make their acquaintance again.
Daphne Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-83833760532281539462012-01-07T20:00:00.000Z2012-01-07T20:00:00.783ZThe kingdoms of life in the county of Durham
Let’s start with a dry stone wall covered in lichens. I
could give you the names of the various species or I could leave you to enjoy
the beauty of their artistry (i.e. it was freezing cold and I forgot to even
take a close look at them). Let’s call them a fungus for the purpose of this
blog.
The wall was one of the highlights of a small tour today in
the countryside near Durham, Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-54055099670368236942012-01-05T19:00:00.000Z2012-01-06T06:51:45.923ZRun your car on the latest green energy. Just one question, algal foam or flask?
If we covered Wales in algal ponds or various oddly shaped growth chambers, we could generate enough fuel to run about half the UK transport system. Actually we'd probably need to throw in North Yorkshire or one of the other larger English counties as well.
More precise figures were presented at today's session of the British Phycological Society meeting in Newcastle. To run the Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-76234726826622615072012-01-01T15:40:00.000Z2012-01-01T15:40:00.781ZWhen you look, you see flowers: the evidence
A 'photo essay' to go with my post earlier today.
These images are from Savill Garden, near Windsor, which Lynda and I visited today. I've started with a provocative picture of an early daffodil, but mostly these are botanical displays you would expect to see in winter: wintersweet flowers, dogwood stems, camellia blooms, winter cherry blossom, the odd rhododendron (azalea) in flower, and lots Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-80167636039470131482012-01-01T09:00:00.000Z2012-01-01T10:03:34.551ZWhen you look, you see flowers
Everyone else is talking about it so to start the New Year I'll dive in. It's a mild winter we're having (in the UK) isn't it? Well according to yesterday's Guardian, not really. It's been an average kind of December and that's all we've had to judge so far.
As for 2011, well that was the second warmest on record thanks to a balmy autumn and pleasant spring. Summer was a bit so so, but that'sTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-7564217354122682322011-12-30T07:00:00.000Z2011-12-30T07:00:05.821ZThe Bitter Orange of the East
I missed the fragrant flowers and attractive autumn foliage
on this one but with all the leaves gone even I can’t miss the warty, down-covered
fruits.
It’s Citrus trifoliata,
the Japanese Bitter Orange. I’m assuming it has leaves divided into three but
as you can see in the next photo there is nothing but stem and fruit at the
moment. Bitter Orange is well known for its thorns, which canTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-70005295502016832172011-12-26T19:00:00.000Z2011-12-26T19:00:03.668ZRecord breaking English oaks
Not surprisingly, an English Oak will be planted in the British Garden at the London Olympics (the topic of my recent posting). But not just any English Oak. This one is a descendent of the de Coubertin Oak.
When a tree gets it's own name you know the tree has either grown rather big and old, or has witnessed something important. The Bowthorpe Oak near Bourne, in Lincolnshire, is over 1,000Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-45236598635568941452011-12-24T16:17:00.000Z2011-12-24T16:18:24.019ZA flower and a stem, our white winter
This Winter Cherry next to St Anne's Church in Kew Green (the burial site of early Kew directors Joseph and William Hooker) caught Lynda and me by surprise this morning. From a distance I assumed it was a sorbus or some other tree with white berries.
When I saw it was a cherry in flower, I assumed it was a cherry making a big mistake. Didn't it know it was Christmas! Wasn't it aware that theTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-2961502863025327572011-12-23T07:10:00.000Z2011-12-23T07:10:00.062ZThe best Olympic Games (parkland) ever
Bicentennial Parklands in Sydney are hard to beat as a
biological Olympic legacy, but they are adjacent
to the Olympic site, not really part of it. Here in London, the 200 ha Olympic site
contains various gardens and
parklands, so it may well be the best Olympic Parkland ever.
Two things (apart from the Boris sculpture above) make it very London and very good: canals and meadows.Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-6264839733483801092011-12-18T20:20:00.000Z2011-12-20T12:54:08.110ZLegalising the snowdrop trade in Georgia
ვაჭრობა თოვლი წვეთები საქართველოში. It's nearly Christmas, we had our first snow fall and the snow drops are out. On the down side, it's cold and snowdrops in Georgia are under pressure from over harvesting.
The cold is easy to deal with - more layers! And the shortest day of the year is six days away and then we are on our way towards that long summer twilight. At least that's the way I likeTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-30878421325319957282011-12-14T21:45:00.000Z2011-12-14T21:45:00.765ZFrom Greer on gardening to the blessing of a cake. Ah, London life!
Life in London is becoming as intriguingly unpredictable as Sydney, which is nice.
On Monday night Lynda and I listened to Germaine Greer tell us how to suck eggs - her words. What she actually did was show us how her property in south-eastern Queensland has been converted back into a self-sustaining rainforest. She also gave an interesting summary of vicariance biogeography, using the Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-68695859333637888432011-12-09T18:00:00.000Z2011-12-09T18:00:00.945ZSir Joseph by proxy
I was a little concerned to see that the first talk on a day
honouring the life of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker was all about his father. Sir
William was a famous botanist himself, and also a Director of Kew Gardens, but
amongst six talks could we afford a whole presentation devoted to dad?
As it turned out the main talks all swirled around Sir
Joseph rather than targeting in on the man. I Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-52094869577333882222011-12-07T08:00:00.000Z2011-12-12T21:12:35.418ZThe species most responsive to change
Today's quote on the back page of the East African edition of Business Daily is from someone described as an English naturalist. "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change", said Charles Darwin.
Surely this sums up the future of Africa, and indeed of the whole world. I would add that a little intelligence, and Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-47784951579782337132011-12-05T10:01:00.000Z2011-12-07T20:19:28.733ZSeeding Africa
There are some 675
million hectares of forest in Africa, now. This forest (only one tenth of it
primary natural forest these days) is being removed at the rate of 3.4 million
hectares per year - for firewood, timber , unsustainable food and medicinal
harvesting, and urban expansion.
The decade before
last the forests were being 'lost' at a rate of 4 million hectares per year,
so things Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-3643001303312191552011-12-01T06:30:00.000Z2011-12-01T06:30:00.170ZBougainvillean variations
I could find only one link to botany in the collection of scientific souls competing for attention beneath the Pantheon in Paris. The French respect their intellectuals of course, and our subject shares the giant basement under Foucault's oscillating pendulum with the likes of Messrs Voltaire, Hugo and Curie.
As you might have guessed by the first photo, I'm talking about Louis Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-16249252419491434992011-11-27T17:30:00.000Z2011-11-27T17:52:49.816ZAncient Parisian acacia has a crise d’identité
It’s reputedly 400 years old this year, this False Acacia (Robinia pseudoacacia). Just shows what a little neglect can do: this
can’t be the best place to grow, with air pollution and soil compaction. On top
of that, folk wisdom is that ivy is bad for a tree and filling cracks in trees with
concrete and rubble is now out of favour.
Yes right now there is fruit on what may be the Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-51847630423609665552011-11-20T16:15:00.000Z2011-11-20T16:15:00.456ZSyon House garden all lit up uh huh huh
It isn't quite Lumiere 2011 in Durham - reviewed so positively in today's Observer - or even Vivid 2010 in Sydney (which I've blogged about) but Syon Park's Enchanted Wood is in a garden setting and it's just across the other side of the River Thames. (And five URL links in the one sentence! You have to be either annoyed or impressed with that.)
You can see Syon House across the Thames from Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-41841311027719427382011-11-18T20:20:00.000Z2011-11-18T21:15:49.169ZTables of temptation in the Garden of Eden
Once again the Eden Project in Cornwall is doing things differently. Not only can you eat good quality food from local ingredients in an odd setting (inside the bubbly 'biome'), now you can sit next to the chef.
Well at least at the next table. It's not unusual these days for chefs and food preparation to be on show, but at Eden the cooking is very much centre stage. The source of some of Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-65579637336630084302011-11-12T19:00:00.000Z2011-11-14T17:32:27.553Z'Ave a Good Weekend
Apart from a short quote about how many plants species are in peril in this week's Guardian, all is quiet on the Entwisle media front in London. A good thing, I hear the chorus from Sydney and Melbourne.
This weekend Amanda Hooton's article about the boy from Nhill ran in the Good Weekend, in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Good Weekend is one of those quaint magazines that exists onlyTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-43811273326082081982011-11-05T16:55:00.000Z2011-11-05T17:07:41.974ZFrench Lady visits English Monkey with a shady Military past
A small group of English monkeys living in Oxfordshire were visited by ladies who either drifted across the Channel or were deliberately transplanted onto English soil. The monkeys and ladies bred, producing monkey-ladies capable of back crossing with the ladies and monkeys.
The English monkeys had a shady past having bred at some distant time with military types, so they were hardly 'Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-20800764644642808942011-11-02T20:05:00.002Z2011-11-02T20:42:40.779ZShrew poo and the origin of species
Pitcher plants have carved up the market for eating animals. Some use sweet perfumes to attract flying insects, some position their pitchers close to the ground where ants roam, others thrive on the poo of shrews. A few even prefer a vegetarian lifestyle, or cannibalism if you like, living off leaf litter falling into their pitchers.
Using plants propagated and growing in Royal Botanic Gardens,Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-18288204641024688382011-10-30T20:10:00.000Z2011-10-30T20:10:01.327ZA day in Cornwall: Hottentot fig, a vagrant heath and biomass boilers on the Lizard
After a day enjoying the intense colour and movement of the Eden Project, near St Austell, yesterday we savoured the winds and mists of The Lizard, that southernmost bit of mainland England.
Our host for today was Sir Ferrers Vyvyan whose family have owned the 1000-acre Trelowarren estate for 600 years. The family home dates back to the 1600s, but there are remains and remnants of the Iron and Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-30781695744710173862011-10-26T20:35:00.002+01:002011-10-27T12:52:21.059+01:00i'Ve iNputted iNformation iNto iNaturalist
This is Devin Brown with one of 5,000 fish species identified in less than 24 hours using Facebook. He was mentioned by Scott Loarie today.
Yes I'm over iThings and eThings, but after a whirlwind presentation by Scott Loarie from Carnegie Institution at Stanford, I signed up to iNaturalist and entered my first observation, the basket fungus I posted about a few weeks ago.
I was a little Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-21003529053011264912011-10-22T20:10:00.000+01:002011-10-22T20:10:00.562+01:00The Palm House, puritanical proclivities counterpoised by instinctive ebullience
This is my favourite view of the Palm House. Late in the afternoon (or evening if it's summer), with the setting sun behind it and a palm frond or two in silhouette.
It's also similar to the image used on the latest edition (2007) of Ray Desmond's The History of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, which I'll dip into for this post.
I was thinking about the Palm House this week while doing an Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-77954227949237189112011-10-17T06:30:00.000+01:002011-10-17T06:30:01.403+01:00It is reputed to be a good amorous medicine to make one in love, if it be inwardly taken
It is also poisonous, it being the tuber of the Cyclamen. Still, cooking turns it into a love potion according to John Gerard in 1597.
Many centuries earlier, the Greek doctor and naturalist Dioscorides was even more effusive about the medicinal powers of Cyclamen. Most famously these include making pregnant women abort if they walk over it (or speeding up their birth if they wear it) and 'Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-1670245532139004272011-10-15T22:30:00.002+01:002011-10-16T09:17:27.087+01:00This tree is 620 years old
And the next one is about 390 years old, even though it looks like it should be older. They are both growing near the mansion at Wakehurst Place.
They are both Yews (Taxus baccata), two of five that we had dated by a Dendrochronologist - someone who counts tree rings. The modern Dendrochronologist doesn't chop a tree down to count its rings, of course. Instead they drill a small core for the Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-51424636627867470232011-10-10T07:00:00.002+01:002011-10-10T07:00:10.585+01:00Critters in the cottage garden
This is my pathetic picture of a robin in our dog's bowl. I found out yesterday this is a good thing: not to lure birds into a dog's eating area but to provide them with water to drink and bathe in.
I was invited along to welcome 40 or so dedicated souls from the village of Kew to a workshop called 'Winter Gardening for Wildlife' (you can see who ran the workshop by scanning the logos down the Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-35979201196568795072011-10-08T18:30:00.002+01:002011-10-08T18:41:01.641+01:00It's the UK native seed hub
The meadows of wild flowers in Kew Gardens were one of the unexpected treats when we arrived in April. Back then it was bluebells and Perfoliate Alexanders, in colourful monoculture.
OK, not quite monocultures but mostly one species dominating. A good healthy meadow is brim full of species, albeit not all flowering at the one time. The UK Native Seed Hub is set to turn the UK into a mosaic of Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-16511619473744152392011-10-02T18:00:00.005+01:002011-10-03T06:57:47.571+01:00Saccharum not sweet enough so Steve to the rescue
Sugar from sugar cane (various species of Saccharum) gets a bad rap. We seem to be in continual search for an alternative: something that tastes sweet but has less calories, more vitamins and minerals, and doesn't kill you.
Of course there are already alternative sources of sugar such as sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) but like sugar cane it gives us primarily the sugar sucrose. I won't bore you Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-24164828972778309062011-09-30T21:15:00.002+01:002011-10-01T09:43:05.114+01:00Royal Mycologic Gardens, Kew
There's a rare and unusual fungus fruiting in Kew Gardens. It's not pretty, but its pretty interesting. More on that later.
The latest edition of Kew Magazine features fungi. There's an interview with Brian Spooner who is retiring after 36 years at Kew, and another of our fungal experts (another mycologist) Martyn Ainsworth illustrates and writes about some of the showy fungi growing in Kew Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-80887072901596118452011-09-29T08:35:00.002+01:002011-09-30T21:48:48.656+01:00Indian summer or a double dip spring?
So is it the summer we missed in August, or a second spring? Either way Kew Gardens get another flush of flowers as well as spectacular autumn colours.
If you visit Wakehurst Place (pictured above) today, you'll get both at the same time! Head of Wakehurst Place, Andy Jackson, is particularly impressed by Viburnum plicatum ‘Mariesii’ which is in the middle of a second flowering flush while its Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-10516297963952035262011-09-25T17:00:00.019+01:002011-09-25T17:00:02.119+01:00I'm Thorea than you are to have used this pun (or are algae and mock-rafflesias more interesting than wetland birds?)
I was quite excited about visiting the London Wetland Centre in Barnes, and once part of the Thames floodplain. After all, I like this kind of thing (algae):
I'm keen on anything to do with the River Thames, which runs almost past my door. In fact it runs back and forth past my door due to tidal influences right up to Teddington Lock where I kayak to from Richmond Bridge most Saturdays. This Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-83167613605895353752011-09-20T19:00:00.005+01:002011-09-20T19:00:03.840+01:00A shady future for my favourite fruit, coffee
Planting shade trees in the middle of coffee plantations might just be the best way to save them from Coffee Berry Borer, a pest thriving as temperatures rise in East Africa.
Juliana Jaramillo from University of Hannover in Germany, along with colleagues from Nairobi, USA and our very own Aaron Davis from Kew, used climatic models for East Africa to predict a doubling of the number of Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-54883398383003742582011-09-18T17:10:00.002+01:002011-09-18T21:35:47.870+01:00Useful plants on display, for the day, or two
Sorry Mark. Mark Nesbitt is the Curator of the Economic Botany Museum. He mentioned to me yesterday that it would be helpful if I blogged on their open day last night to draw even bigger crowds today.
(Instead I saw Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy at the Curzon Theatre in Richmond. It was a beautifully crafted and acted film if a little familiar and at times feeling almost like a send up of a spy Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-69940749647065914792011-09-15T19:00:00.002+01:002011-09-16T08:41:56.590+01:00The lonely Texan at Wakehurst Place
Every visit to Wakehurst Place is a pleasure, and as with every botanic garden there is always a plant you notice for the first time. A couple of weeks ago it was the Texan Sotol, sometimes also called the Desert Spoon because the plucked leaf has a spoon-shaped base (something I didn't test).
This tufty and prickly plant produces striking flowering stems in late summer - at least late summer Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-5083587850238814722011-09-10T15:30:00.006+01:002011-09-11T17:11:36.645+01:00Botanicotourist enters the Phycocosmos
I'm about to leave Rhodes, a Greek Island in the very west of the Mediterranean Sea, after a couple of days at 'Exploring the Phycocosmos: a European Perspective'. This rather grand sounding event was the fifth European Phycological (you know, the study of seaweeds, phytoplankton and other algae) Congress.
I learnt all sorts of interesting things about algae - including some more about my Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-8787347735482623442011-09-04T19:00:00.001+01:002011-09-04T22:29:32.940+01:00No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money
How can I get away with talking about Dr Samuel Johnson in a botanical blog? That’s today’s question and quest.
First up I am clearly a blockhead according to Johnson's well known dismissal of eighteenth century blog writers. I doubt he would have much time for my frivolous musings. But let's move on.
On Saturday I saw the heroic statue of Dr Johnson in St Paul’s. As my mother partook of Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-43598092907533737122011-09-03T11:35:00.001+01:002011-09-03T16:50:19.047+01:00Sprinter and sprummer in the UK?
Today was a gorgeous autumnal, or perhaps summeral, day in London. Puffs of warm wind, 25 degrees C, and another crop of berries on my backyard brambles.
Of course the mind turns to seasons. In Australia I lobbied (rather unsuccessfully it has to be said) for a shift from a colonial perspective to a more indigenous one, or at least one informed by living and observing in the country. I argued a Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-58544805143392940412011-08-31T09:25:00.001+01:002011-08-31T09:25:01.015+01:00Homo confusus - a little (correction to) Fry and Cribb
As I walked among the Giant Sequoia in Kew Gardens this morning I listened to a 20 August podcast of the ABC Science Show (National Radio, Australia). Leading off the show was the always provocative, generally insightful, and often rather grumpy, Julian Cribb. Dr Cribb was petitioning us humans to change our scientific name to something other than Homo sapiens sapiens.
After reading out a Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-89456713931566440012011-08-29T18:45:00.005+01:002011-08-29T19:37:38.685+01:00Views with a room, or two
I really don't know what to say about Hidcote that hasn't been said already. And I definitely don't have pictures to rival those I've seen in books, talks and Facebook pages.
The day I visited (yesterday) was rainy with glimpses of summer. This meant most of my pictures are rather dull, except when the sunlight hit the house and garden in front of a thunderous black sky.
Still there must Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-67774908207534288432011-08-24T21:45:00.002+01:002011-08-25T08:23:26.083+01:00The exception that proves the rule - a hardy, terrestrial bromeliad
Early this week I was explaining to guest Amanda Hooton (a visiting journalist from the Good Weekend magazine, one of the pleasurable additions to the weekend Sydney Morning Herald/The Age in Australia), that we have to grow bromeliads indoors here in London.
Like all generalisations (he says generalising) it was mostly right, but just a little bit wrong. I said that the species you can see in Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-31752074125813905982011-08-21T16:30:00.012+01:002011-08-24T08:22:36.503+01:00Wiggen fruit but no witches in Kew Gardens
In 1826, 'Concerned of Ifitherslaek' (at least let's call him that) wrote to the editor of Table Book of Daily Recreation and Information Concerning Remarkable Men, Manners, Times, Seasons, Solemnities, Merry-Makings, Antiquities and Novelties Forming a Complete History of the Year.
C of I chastised us all for not celebrating the virtues of the Mountain Ash, or Wiggen Tree, being primarily Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-71232411651369179172011-08-16T07:01:00.002+01:002011-08-16T11:14:53.455+01:00A Strawberry Tree of vert fructed of gules
The title phrase is from the technical description of the Madrid Coat of Arms. The gules are the ten red fruits in the vert (green) Arbutus unedo. The tree is fructed because it is bearing the edible but not very tasty fruit.
This is not really a sufficient description of the Strawberry Tree but it serves a purpose. The bear, in sable, is clearly a bear and black one at that (at least to a Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-33074989178172839942011-08-14T21:00:00.008+01:002011-08-15T07:25:01.371+01:00The Real (Jardín Botánico) Madrid
I can’t claim to have seen the real Madrid in two days but we did visit the Real/Royal Jardin Botánico, what used to be the Royal parkland and listened to some flamenco music outside the Royal Palace.
The botanic garden in mid August is probably not at its peak, but there are still some pretty views to take in.
Elsewhere the capsicums where drooping, the bosques threadbare and there was lots Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-45798749197282664162011-08-09T19:30:00.001+01:002011-08-09T19:30:02.065+01:00After the manner of a flower garden, from disorder to superorder
Shock, horror. Has the world gone topsy turvy?
The Order Beds, or more historically correctly the Herbaceous Ground, are in transition.
In 1846, William Hooker knocked down one of the walls around what was previously the Royal Kitchen Garden (and the newest addition to Kew Gardens) so he could arrange hardy herbaceous plants according to the French botanist Jussieu's classification system.
Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-4850492528252825262011-08-07T10:40:00.005+01:002011-08-07T17:09:49.787+01:00Fungus so humongous it's punny
For eight years, Kew Gardens has held the record of the largest (observed) fungal fruiting body in the world. In 2003 a specimen of Rigidoporus ulmarius was measured at just over 1.5 metres in diameter and 4 metres around the circumference. As the species names suggests, it grows normally grows on elms but I wouldn't be surprised if 'the big one' grew on a Horse Chestnut here in Kew Gardens (Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-68147637986677424322011-08-05T19:00:00.020+01:002011-08-05T19:00:01.342+01:00The hundred day alga and five seasons for the UK, just for the record
I've been in office now for 100 days. If I ran a country, or an Australian State, there would be some kind of Report Card prepared the media, inevitably ending with something like 'tries hard but could do better'. As Director of Conservation, Living Collections and Estates at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew I have to prepare my own review.
I spent the first month or so on an induction tour of Kew soTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-69614403484970392152011-08-02T19:00:00.001+01:002011-08-02T19:00:02.095+01:00Sex in the city
Late summer in London, and there is sex everywhere. Of course I work in a botanic garden which prides itself of displaying the sex organs of plants.
The provocative parade continues. The latest to grab my attention is a Clerodendrum, to the left of Kew Palace in the picture taken between rain showers this morning.
It has shocked or shocking looking flowers. The petals are flung back, the Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-53482160035317890932011-07-28T00:59:00.005+01:002011-07-28T00:59:00.576+01:00To tweet or not to tweet, there is no question
I'm writing this blog during a couple of talks at the International Botanical Congress in Melbourne (see my previous blog). I'm also participating in a group tweet from these sessions, and now and then checking my email. Is that good?
Well last week the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature caught up with the Anglican and Catholic Churches and did away with having to use Latin for the Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-63282275136346129872011-07-27T09:20:00.001+01:002011-07-27T09:20:00.368+01:00International Botanical Congress in Melbourne all a twitter
Half way through the International Botanical Congress in Melbourne it's time to draw breath. The pace has been cracking, particularly with hands on Twitter, eyes on the speaker and mind on running the Congress.
Some background first. The International Botanical Congress is held every six years and attracts botanists from around the world to discuss the latest developments in plant science. The Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-78593976341967871802011-07-20T21:05:00.005+01:002011-09-05T17:24:10.145+01:00Kew's Royal Mallow (one of the Gay Hyères Tree Mallows)
Lavatera is called the Tree Mallow, or sometimes Royal Mallow. The cultivar I’m featuring today has a Royal Botanic Gardens Kew pedigree so the second common name works for me.
Mallow is a common addition to the vernacular names of plants in the family Malvaceae, also known as the Mallow Family. That well known member of the family, Hibiscus, is sometimes called the Rose Mallow, another name Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-79645444632298013302011-07-18T11:30:00.029+01:002011-07-18T11:30:00.351+01:00Stanley Spencer meets Capability Brown
Spencer v. Brown. It sounds like one of those weird pub questions - e.g. which animal would win if a badger fought a marlin - but more genteel.
But this post is on an exhibition celebrating the works of these two dead Englishman, held at Compton Verney, somewhere between Warwick and Stratford Upon Avon (although I'm now wondering who would win if Shakespeare, Spencer and Brown fought it out?)Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-28314666075148249122011-07-14T22:25:00.003+01:002011-07-15T08:02:53.306+01:00Coastal parasite clings to Kew wall
I love this plant. Dull brownish flowers, no leaves, and free-loading off that rather commonplace plant, the ivy.
Orobanche hederae, the Ivy Broomrape, is a parasite. It gets all its food from creeping ivy rather than the sun. Anything that slows down the growth of ivy (Hedera helix) is a good thing, right.
According my handy little reference on wild Kew plants (Tom Cope's The Wild Flora of Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-45882334090654187752011-07-10T21:55:00.002+01:002011-07-10T21:55:00.138+01:00Order in the Court
Today's botanical excursion took us to Hampton Court Palace, for the (Royal Horticultural Society) Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.
All 157,000 people who attended the Chelsea Flower Show, and every one of their friends and reletives, seemed to be at the show today. Good day to go to Westminster!
It really is huge and I can believe it is the biggest in universe, or at least the UK. So many Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-53175834522754199962011-07-08T15:10:00.003+01:002011-07-09T19:33:36.060+01:00Mixed messages in St Louis
I’m an Australian, resident in London, visiting St Louis, and that doesn’t help me make any sense of this city. It’s the second time I’ve been here, and to the US. In 1999 I flew into Michigan to visit my friend and fellow phycologist Mike Wynne before driving south to St Louis, for the 16th International Botanical Congress.
That was the congress where the Global Strategy for Plant ConservationTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-46290206766614212432011-06-25T16:00:00.002+01:002011-07-01T21:10:48.981+01:00Eating botanic gardens
Last night, for the second time, I ate a botanic garden. Not all of it – that would be greedy, reckless and irresponsible – but scavenged weeds and stray plants on the verges of our carefully curated collection of plants.
Along with about 50 other adventurous eaters Lynda and I supped at the Orangery in the Kew Gardens, as the first Pop Up Restaurant held there. I won’t explain what a Pop Up Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-12039825116774700882011-06-21T21:25:00.003+01:002011-07-22T15:34:46.124+01:00Botanical battle over acacia moves to Melbourne
Just before the 18th International Botanic Congress in Melbourne next month, a hundred or so plant namers will gather together to accept decisions made six years ago in Vienna. These are decisons about how we name plants and resolutions for a few thorny disputes in botanical nomenclature.
It all centres around the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, a surprisingly robust system of Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-33655852628724787632011-06-15T19:00:00.013+01:002011-06-15T19:00:01.440+01:00Salvia salvo and salve
It is salvia time here in London. For us botanically minded folk, early summer is about sipping G n Ts (a solution of junipers, quinine, and other plant materials) in the late evening twilight while strolling along a border of flowering salvias.
There are almost 1000 different species of Salvia, from the Common Sage, through to garishly coloured species from the Americas, Asia and back through Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-90849218440082036602011-06-12T11:00:00.003+01:002011-06-13T08:28:21.973+01:00Top botanic garden in the UKFrom the Mediterranean - the (pseudo) location of my last post - to as far north as I've been in the UK here are a few pictures from the top* (in a North-centric cartographic sense) botanic garden in the UK.
Of course I'm in Scotland and this is Benmore Botanic Garden, a wee way west of Glasgow. There are 11,000 plants from all over the world - particulary Asia and the Americas - including an Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-36975312993040296582011-06-05T19:40:00.001+01:002011-06-05T19:40:00.938+01:00No longer pining for Mediterranean
One of the most evocative trees in Kew Gardens, to my eyes, is the Stone Pine. It cuts a striking profile against stormy and blue skys, it reeks of the Mediterranean and you can eat it (at least bits of it). Oh, and I like the course textured, reddish bark.
For me personally it also evokes the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne with its wonderful collection of conifers thanks to its early Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-32578252778724765812011-05-29T17:15:00.002+01:002011-05-29T17:15:00.892+01:00Cockroaches may not rule the post-apocalyptic world, but ants might
What do you get when you put a small group of humans, some plants and some other animals into a sealed glasshouse? Cockroaches, and then Ants.
This is the story of Biosphere 2, from the early 1990s. It's a story often told, but worth repeating. I'm paraphrasing this from an article by Adam Curtis in the The Observer today. Curtis is a film maker, most recently of a documentary 'All Watched OverTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-42576872792474810182011-05-27T19:00:00.001+01:002011-05-27T19:00:05.157+01:00Blooming Chelsea
This is some of what I saw at the 2011 Chelsea Flower Show. I'm going to include a few of my observations in an article I'm writing for the next Gardening Australia Magazine so this can be seen as the photographic backdrop.
I have to of course include an image of our garden, the combined effort of The Times (who publish the monthly Eureka science magazine) and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to "Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-84592801718893004282011-05-26T11:30:00.002+01:002011-05-26T11:30:01.434+01:00Top 10 new species: Fungi 2, Plants 0
At 2 am this morning I caught a taxi to the BBC radio studios in Woods Lane, to join Dr Karl (from Australia, operating at the reasonable time of mid-morning in Sydney) on Dotun Adebayo's Up All Night from 3-4 am.
Despite the unsociable timing, it was a hoot. Mostly it was talk back, with topics from hairy arm pits to whether plants would survive in a sealed jar on Mars. One question was Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-11311245501695705322011-05-19T10:02:00.000+01:002011-05-19T10:02:30.688+01:00Tomorrow City
I know this looks more like Yesteryear City, but its around the corner from Tomorrow City, in Central Park, Songdo International City, Incheon, Republic of Korea. I gather from this pamphlet I found on the ground that is the decaying remains of an exhibition of truly biblical proportions.
As far as the eye could see were fading dioramas of stories from the bible, I gather. I've been reading Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-83476847784968045482011-05-14T21:00:00.007+01:002011-05-14T21:00:00.060+01:00The world in a botanic garden
I've always liked the idea (the marketing slogan?) that you can experience the whole world in a botanic garden. Well, at least the planty bits. On a good day, in a good botanic garden, you can see, smell and touch plants that once lived in all sorts of exotic lands. Today, at Kew, it was especially true.
Kew Gardens, with 30,000 or so different plants, is already a global experience. The plantsTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-73408134394661409992011-05-13T20:00:00.001+01:002011-05-13T20:00:01.965+01:00Old trees, ancient algae
Botanists on the US west coast have found that blue-green algae living on mosses, which in turn live on old trees, keep forests alive and healthy.
As reported by ScienceDaily, Zoë Lindo and Jonathan Whiteley, from McGill University, are studying the way nutrients like nitrogen move around old-growth forests growing from southern Alaska to northern California.
We all know, don’t we, that Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-84186224461141813172011-05-08T19:45:00.003+01:002011-05-08T19:45:00.658+01:00King of Angels gives umbrella advice
Angelica archangelica is a name to be reckoned with, although its common name, the Garden Angelica, brings it decidedly down towards Earth.
This is a wild plant in London, and since at least the late nineteenth century it has been found along the banks of the River out this way. It has been in cultivation at Kew Gardens since 1768 so there is no need to look far for the original source of the Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-12360293533809845042011-05-05T22:30:00.002+01:002011-05-05T22:34:30.544+01:00Badgers, Bryophytes and more Bluebells
This is the best photo of a badger I could manage in the twilight at Wakehurst Place, inside a hide with a dozen of other badger watchers, making sure I didn’t scare one of the three creatures on show with a flash or an overly exuberant clicking mechanism.
It felt very English. As did wandering through more English Bluebells on the way to the hide. As did the slight chill in the air. Still, it Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-45705023803867739042011-04-25T16:00:00.002+01:002011-04-26T10:49:58.337+01:00Coffee discovered in Far North Queensland and Mid West London
After chocolate, coffee. I can report that a new species of coffee plant has been discovered in Laura, just west of Cooktown in northern Queensland, and a good coffee shop in the Borough of Richmond upon Thames, just west of central London. Both cause me great excitement.
Let’s start with the personal revelation. Following a tip off from Peter Feilen I checked out the Taylor St Barista, at theTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-12890226710276198122011-04-24T17:35:00.006+01:002011-04-24T17:35:00.354+01:00Searching for cacao eggs
On offer Kew Gardens today: sun, easter eggs, spring flowers and this... This is one of the chocolate sculptures, part of the special Easter at Kew: Where chocolate grows on trees.
Early this morning grey squirrels were darting excitedly on the large chocolate-paint coated sculptures but after 9.30 am (opening time for humans) it was a few thousands kids.
Kew's website very conveniently Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-44387314160946967172011-04-22T21:15:00.002+01:002011-04-22T21:15:00.875+01:00I stopped to smell the marigolds
What do I chose as my first talkative plant? My first post that isn’t just about arriving in Kew or the fact I live by the River Thames. My first British specimen!
There are, I’m told, 30,000 different kinds of plant growing in Kew Gardens and Wakehurst Place. If I did one a week I’d be just over 626 years old when I finish. Even at one a day, I’ll be the wrong side of 130 years old.
And all Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-4620164270656845312011-04-20T15:05:00.000+01:002011-04-20T15:05:00.665+01:00Australia rocks British Museum
Last night Lynda and I attended our visit public event as Londoners. I don't start work until 27 April but one must get into the party scene early.
The event was the opening of an Australian Garden in front of the British Museum. The garden was designed and built by Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and links to an exhibition inside the museum.
In a few steps you can travel from Manly to Manjemup, Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-65380373983569138642011-04-18T08:00:00.001+01:002011-04-18T08:00:04.755+01:00And I live by the river
Yes the Thames. We named our son Jerome K after the author of Three Men in a Boat, the story of three men (and a dog) on and in the River Thames. And now live by the river in Richmond.
The Thames is just a tad under 220 miles long (that’s the imperial way of saying a sniff under 350 km), from the village of Kemble to the sea. The Thames Path follows the river for 184 miles, and I navigated Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-77596585088681187942011-04-16T06:00:00.004+01:002011-04-16T14:34:51.002+01:00London Calling
I waited three days for it to appear but I can confirm that London does share the same sun as Sydney. At least it looked pretty similar from where I was standing near the Palm House.
What also look similar are (many of) the garden flowers. We’ve timed our arrival in Kew Gardens to coincide with spring and what we understand will be an increased incidence of sunlight.
The daffodils are fading Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-32977946426139868742011-03-31T23:00:00.002+01:002011-03-31T23:00:00.515+01:00Archibald Dreaming
As my life possessions are packed up around me and I scramble around grabbing passports, clothes for six weeks, a toothbrush, my netbook and a good papery book, Hadyn Wilson is finishing off this portrait.
Hadyn may be unhappy to see his work exhibited unfinished and in poor light (his originals are vibrant and entirely different to look at) but I gather success in the Archibald Prize depends Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-68139587801494076182011-03-25T08:00:00.028Z2011-03-25T08:00:12.358ZA few of my favourite (plant) things*
For my final chat with Simon Marnie on the ABC Sydney Weekend Show I thought I’d select a couple of my favourite (plant) things in the Royal Botanic Garden.
I finished today as Executive Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, after seven and a half years in the role. In a few weeks I start work as Director of Conservation, Living Collections and Estates at the Royal Botanic Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-58767503832679937022011-03-21T08:00:00.000Z2011-03-21T08:00:03.683ZLunatic plants
In A Year at Kew, a cable television series about my soon to be new home, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, in London, an experiment was run to see if seed planted at the time of the full moon produced more flower and fruit.
In at least one trial, this seemed to be the case. It was pointed out that was but one experiment and it would need some careful duplication and controls to confirm.
EvenTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-19279829529094155662011-03-18T08:00:00.000Z2011-03-18T08:00:10.338ZBotanical climate control
Having plants around you, whether in native bushland or manicured gardens or pots, is good for you. I've blogged before on the benefits of plants in hospital rooms a few weeks ago, and the evidence is stacking up for a range of benefits you get from being near to greenery.
Plants can give you better overall health, satisfaction with life, and reduced stress. More explicitly, there are Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-42361192170031001572011-03-15T08:00:00.000Z2011-03-15T08:00:07.525ZThe Ombú
One of the most imposing trees in the Royal Botanic Gardens is the Ombú. It’s not the tallest (that’s a Kauri Pine in the Palm Grove at 33m) and it’s not the rarest (that’s a tussle between the Wollemi Pine, Maiden’s Palm, the Nightcap Oak, and a eucalypt or two).
What’s impressive about the Ombú is its swollen base. It doesn’t have the rippling buttresses of some other tropical trees, or the Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-27104227634936559442011-03-13T08:43:00.000Z2011-03-13T08:43:11.492ZNoisy Art
Today was 'Sounds of Sculpture' at Sydney's Royal Botanic Garden, a day when our outdoor artwork acted as a muse for musicians from the world of classical, celtic harp, acoustic guitar, Shakuhachi (Japanese flute) and jazz. It's all part of our Sydney Morning Herald Autumn of the Arts. The group of ensemble musicians above are playing Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' near to our...Four Seasons Italian Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-10286981925112876232011-03-11T08:00:00.002Z2011-03-11T08:00:13.210ZBunya Bonyi Bunyi Ba’njii*
The Bunya Pine, or Bunya Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii), is most famous for its giant cones that will render you senseless if they fall on your head. We fence off one of our more exposed Bunya Pines in the Royal Botanic Gardens during fruiting season to protect our visitors.
The species is only grows naturally in a couple of places in Queensland – most famously in the Bunya Mountains, near Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-89839054750132793672011-03-06T08:00:00.001Z2011-03-06T08:00:08.498ZLes plantes françaises
It’s a great dinner party debate, whether life would be better if we had been settled by the French rather than the English.
Given I'm about to live in England I won’t go there, but French botanists certainly had a major role in the discovery of Australia’s amazing flora.
Jean-François La Pérouse commanded the first French expeditions to the Pacific in 1785, reaching Botany Bay on 26 JanuaryTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-24496253458524462382011-03-05T04:00:00.019Z2011-03-05T04:07:48.106ZLeaves have less holes but that's not a good thing
I have a few 'considered' postings to come before I leave Sydney at the end of March: two current radio blogs and a couple more from the radio archives (ones I missed in my first sweep). Then, I'll need to concentrate on moving home and catching planes for a while.
But occasionally I'll see, or be directed to, interesting plant stories on the internet so I might just post a few quick referencesTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-49396094745787825342011-03-01T08:00:00.000Z2011-03-01T08:00:01.374ZElderly and persistent trees
As I draw to the end of my time as Executive Director of Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, I've finally been through the back log of unblogged radio notes and this is my final blog 'from the archives'.
There are still a couple of current postings to come from my chats with Simon Marnie on his Weekend Show, on ABC Sydney Radio, and then it's over to Kew...
Fittingly, this one isTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-48860196423561417542011-02-27T06:40:00.004Z2011-02-27T06:40:00.333ZRed (and Purple) Surprises Again
A quick follow up to my excited posting nearly a year ago about my bromeliad Billbergia coming into mass flower. It was late March and the bright red flower clusters emerged, en masse, from the necks of the bromeliads.
In the comments that followed, it seems these synchronous flowerings are typical for this species (Billbergia pyramidalis), and probably others in the genus. There was also a Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-37466774702663685722011-02-25T08:00:00.002Z2011-02-27T06:32:00.910ZEvery plant has a story to tell; the Ginkgo has many*
“Every plant has a story to tell” is the new touchstone for our botanic gardens and the thinking behind our new branding, which you’ll see featured in our Sydney Morning Herald Autumn of the Arts program and on our website (a hint: the leaves of the tree are speech bubbles).
The Maidenhair Tree (Ginkgo biloba) is a tree with many stories. It’s common in cultivation all over the world but only Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-82855618800652393922011-02-21T08:00:00.000Z2011-02-21T08:00:05.225ZSix metre high fungus
We are used to seeing the occasional large mushroom or toadstool in our garden. I’ve seen pictures of Macrocybe titans (‘titan’ means big, like the giant Titan Arum flower from Indonesia) on the internet that seem to be about a metre tall, apparently weighing in at 20 kg.
But a six metre high fungus? We need to go back a few millennia. Scientists in the UK discovered fossilised trees from one Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-16492653888701420722011-02-18T08:00:00.021Z2011-02-18T08:00:16.582ZIt's a noble caper
The Noble Caper sounds like a hoity-toity British bank-hoist film, or perhaps something pretty exotic to eat. In fact its one of the vernacular names for an Australian native plant loved by butterflies, Capparis arborea.
It’s more commonly called the Native Pomegranate, but also Wild Lime or Wild Lemon.
We have mature specimens in our Rare and Threatened Garden, near the walled Cacti and Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-14059796756040386842011-02-15T08:00:00.011Z2011-02-15T08:00:07.648ZElephant's foot a grape
As I've mentioned before, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney has its own vineyard – only six vines but of the very finest Shiraz stock.
Over summer there is another kind of grape in fruit. It’s one of our succulents, and you’ll find it just inside the Cacti and Succulent Garden, to your left.
We call it Elephant’s Foot (not Elephant’s Foot Tree, Elephant Tree or Elephant Ear, which are Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-14870182229886465992011-02-11T08:00:00.020Z2011-02-11T08:00:07.314ZThe King's botanist but no cart and horse*
Allan Cunningham was the first in the lineage that leads to me as the 12th ‘Government Botanist’. In fact Allan Cunningham was the ‘King’s Botanist’ in 1816, and later the ‘Colonial Botanist’ for a very short period while Superintendent of Sydney’s Botanic Gardens in 1837.
Cunningham is one of the most important early collectors of Australian plants, working for Sir Joseph Banks back in London.Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-84972281209976390982011-02-08T08:00:00.002Z2011-02-08T08:00:02.842ZRare plant thrives in botanic garden
This beautiful tree can reach 20 m high and when in flower it’s chock full of rich yellow flowers. Native Laburnum or Brush Cassia, Cassia marksiana, grows well in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney but there are less than 100 left in the wild
It’s in the pea family and produces the typical pea pod, but its flowers are quite regular so it belongs to the Caesalpinoideae subfamily rather than Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-4401815713440048252011-02-05T22:00:00.035Z2011-02-05T22:00:00.795ZWhen one species dies, others go with it
One of the likely consequences of accelerated climate change is some animals and plants getting 'out of sync'. For example, the hatching of a pollinating insect may be triggered by temperature, which rises, while the flowering of the recipient plant may be triggered by day length, which stays the same.
In this case, the insect loses a food source and the plant will lose a pollinator. Not good Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-12494079874232586042011-02-03T08:00:00.004Z2011-02-03T08:00:11.239ZI see red
If you have to associate one colour with plants, it would be green of course. That’s why we have the Greens, the greenery, how green is your valley, and so on.
But there are plenty of exceptions, including plants with red streaks, yellow flecks and some almost entirely brown or purple. You may remember I suggested a while back about the ideal plant for outer space might be black or purple.
Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-44305326250250679472011-01-30T23:16:00.039Z2011-01-30T23:16:00.321ZPalm lives fast, dies young
Palms can live long lives – we have some more than 150 years old in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens. A few, however, live (relatively) fast and furiously, then die.
We had a good example in the First Farm beds where a senescing Fishtail Palm (Caryota urens) had been flowering since 1997. This species usually grows for about 20 years, flowers for another 10 years, then fades away over a few yearsTim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1523231273885627613.post-36296279324660041842011-01-30T00:45:00.003Z2011-01-30T02:21:07.324ZConserving weeds
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Angela Moles' work on twining plants. Today Angela is featured in the Sun-Herald for her work on rapidly evolving weeds.
Nicky Phillips reports that Angela and others have been comparing the vital statistics - height of plant, leaf size - of weeds stored in our preserved plant collections held in 'herbaria'. (This highlights yet again the importance of Tim Entwislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05778763864080365220noreply@blogger.com2