If you've ever read any of the pages on my personal website, especially those regarding aroids, you'll find I love to read and quote botanical science. I've become friends with several of the best known botanical scientists and experts who publish scientific articles today and I often quote their work. Why? Because I want to be accurate and to know the scientific facts regarding the plants in my personal collection. There are plenty of opinions, but I'm only interested in the science. And I hope to be able to pass along those scientific facts. UBC is, after all, a botanical garden. Are those scientific facts important to everyone? I sincerely doubt it. There are far more growers than scientists so it is obvious most just want to grow a particular specimen and keep it healthy. But I have come to the conclusion if I know where the plant originated, how it grows in nature, how often it receives water, how much sunlight is is subjected to in nature, if it is variable, and any peculiar aspects to that plant specimen I have a better chance of keeping it healthy. That was part of the reason I began my little website almost 2 years ago. I've made a practice from the beginning to check my facts with people like Dr. Tom Croat, Pete Boyce, Dr. Eduardo Gonçalves, Julius Boos, Russ Hammer, Tricia Frank, Christopher Rogers, LariAnn Garner, Leland Miyano, Ron Kaufmann, Derek Burch, Mic Paschall, Denis Rotolante, Michael Mattlage, Enid Offolter, Michael Mahan, Steve Marak, Neil Crafter and many others who prefer not to be named. These are the people I quote. And it is there expertise I hope to pass along. I have never made a claim anywhere to be a plant expert. I only like to quote those who are experts. And I thank each of them publicly for their help. I've developed a good relationship with quite a few. As a result, they often answer my personal questions, sometimes daily, and I do my best to accurately pass along their information. My web tracking service indicates over 130,000 people have read one or more pages on the site in the last year. The average is three pages per visit. But I hope all understand, they are largely reading the thoughts and expertise of people who are experts, not what I think. I gladly credit them for their information. I often sit for hours with a botanical journal in my lap reading what they write trying to make sure I understand a plant, and make copious notes, before I post anything on the website. Please, don't anyone confuse me with any of these experts. I am just passing along their expertise. Should you do exactly as I and those who advise me suggest in order to be successful? Do you have to read botanical science to be a grower? Certainly not! But many of the growers I correspond with, and I do correspond with quite a large number daily. tend to follow the same principles I follow. The more you know about the plant, the better chance you will have of being successful with its growth and reproduction. Botanical science does matter. Otherwise, several hundred years of written science would be just a pile of trash! And to those of you who love to grow hybrids, there is no disrespect on my site. I just happen to prefer species to hybrids. But every grower chooses what they personally like to grow. If you disagree with what I write, that is fine. Just ignore it! Many people obviously do. But many also write to me daily thanking me for the information they just learned as a result of a page on my site. Am I a botanist? NO! Am I an expert? NO! Do I know about the plants I grow? Well, I hope so! I've managed to grow some specimens in my small atrium much larger than many would expect and have had many reproduce including species some consider difficult. This forum was started as a suggestion from edleigh7 to exchange information regarding aroids. That is and was my only intent from the beginning. If you dislike what I write, I have no objection. Don't do what I suggest. But I will continue to post botanical science. To me, it matters. But to those of you who often send me personal notes, and there are many, thanks! I do this for fun. Nothing else. And I couldn't do it without you!
As a graduate plant physiologist, I certainly concur with the importance of sound botanical science. Of course, there are far more things in science of interest to me personally than I feel would be of interest to many people on a forum such as this one! I recognize that, too, and also that "science" for many people involved with plants, simply means having the correct name and family for their plants. Personally, I enjoy the opportunity to engage in discourse with an authority in a botany field of interest, such as genetics or plant taxonomy. These opportunities are infrequent for me, however, and as a result, I may begin giving casual questioners a little more information than they really wanted. But that's what happens when you have a passion about your subject matter! I do prefer to speak from personal experience whenever possible, as I feel that is the most useful information to pass on. Let me share an experience with a college professor that will illustrate this beyond doubt. I had a botany professor who was an authority on gymnosperms (for example, pines and cycads). In class that day we were discussing the botany of pine trees. Now, ever since I was a child romping around in the woods near my home, I noticed that on dry sunny days, the pine cones on the ground were open, and on wet rainy days, they were closed. This was so obvious to me after many observations that I guess I just assumed everyone knew it from experience. So I mentioned it casually to my professor while noting the variety of pine cones he had on display for the class. To my shock and chagrin, he told me that it wasn't so, that pine cones did not close when wet and open when dry!! After explaining to him a couple of times that I had seen this phenomenon many times, he insisted that I was wrong. So I challenged him to put some dry open pine cones in a container with water, then come back in an hour or so and see what happened. I even prepared the container with water and plopped the pine cones in for him! Well, he never apologized for his error, but I did get an A in his class! The moral of the story is that you don't have to be an "expert" (or an adult) to make real valid observations, and that "experts" can be very wrong, especially if they spend too much time in the lab and not enough time out with the plants in real life. LariAnn Aroidia Research
Noted LariAnn! You know how much I appreciate your input since we often exchange private mail. You help keep me straight, and for that, I owe you!
Probably left from when cones were still on tree, with seeds in them and has something to do with protecting seeds from moisture and/or dispersing them during favorable weather conditions.
I suppose the botanist's and scientist's don't have the time to relay information on a daily basis to forums such as this, and Steve, since your retired and love research, you are like the middle man with this information. I appreciate anyone's factual information, and as I am on a steep learning curve with aroids, and it is something that I am getting very passionate about, I seem to be lapping it up at the moment. So thanks to all who can provide factual information, I appreciate it. Ed : )
Thanks for the response Ed. I probably dig deeper into some of the species information than many would ever care to know. Its just in my nature, I'm too curious. But it does pay off sometimes. Last year when I was deep into learning about the reproduction of Anthurium regale I was fortunate enough, with Dr. Croat's help along with the help of LariAnn and Julius Boos to make a scientific discovery even Dr. Croat had not realized before. And I'm no scientist! I'm just curious. I'm told my little discovery had value to science and Dr. Croat is including it (or so I'm told) in some of his own research. Plant collectors can play a part in helping botanical scientists from time to time and those who are curious sometimes do get lucky! My little discovery was simply luck because I had no idea what I was looking for! When I write, I probably go way over the heads of what many want to hear. If I do, please forgive. But some do write to say they learned something, and that is what I hope to be able to offer. I'm just curious and enjoy attempting to translate what I read and learn into information any plant grower can use. As you and I have discussed privately, I want this forum to be a learning experience for anyone interested in aroids. I want to expand the interest in aroids and so far this forum appears to be doing just that! Thanks again for your input.
And also the opinion or observations of growers etc are priceless to science! To continue on in the vein of LariAnn's story about the pine cones....I had a similar experience, not with plants though, with a species of bords over here called Black Cockatoos. When I was young, I did furniture removal, and we were moving all the "stuffed" birds, mammals etc from one building to another for the CSIRO, a government research institute. I came across the Black Cockatoos with yellow or red on its tail ( I can't remember). I said to the scientist that I had seen about 60 of these birds last weekend in the forest where we were shooting foxes. The same thing happend, he said "that is impossible, boy, there are only 40 left in the wild", well I argued with him, all to no avail, but I knew what I saw. So the opinion or observations of others are important to science.. Ed
There's even a botanical research paper on the topic . . . he really ought to have known!! Harlow, W., Côté, W., & Day, A. (1964). The Opening Mechanism of Pine Cone Scales. J. Forestry 62: 538-540. There are two bands of tissues within the scale which have different expansion / contraction reactions to wetting / drying, which thereby flex the scales with changes in water content. The major reason for having this is to allow the cone to open at maturity in the first place; that they close up again on re-wetting is probably largely incidental (it would be more difficult to have a system which didn't do so). Out of curiosity, who was the Prof.? Wondering if I've heard of him. Send a private message if you don't want to embarrass him publicly!
Michael F, Thanks for the reference! Based on the date, it had been published by the time I sat in his class. Of course, he is in the Botany department, not Forestry, and my experience is that some scientists who are well versed in their specialty are often ignorant of publications in other specialties, even if the subject matter covered is closely allied to their specialty. It may be different now with the internet, email and the tremendous increase in knowledge dissemination that is made possible by those two tools. Actually, I have to correct myself as his specialty was not gymnosperms; but since he taught the course that covered gymnosperms, I assumed that it was a specialty of his. He really focuses more on ferns in his work. Private message sent!
Thanks! Yep, from his CV seems he's mainly a ferns expert, with most of his experience in (pine-free) tropical areas, so understandable he didn't know about cone behaviour.
True regarding his academic experience, but where he grew up, and where he received his degrees; all three are places where he could have observed pine cone behavior on campus or when out and about. After all, my interest in plants started when I was 10 or 11 years old and I was looking at things in nature then. That's how I learned a lot of little tidbits of knowledge that I later followed up on with formal education. LariAnn Aroidia Research
It seems classes are taught at colleges by the wrong people all the time. And some of them aren't very good about looking around much.
Yesterday Big Bill put up a post with information from Dr. Tom Croat revealing the species often being sold as Anthurium jenmanii is actually Anthurium bonplandii subsp. guyanum. The Anthuriium from the Guiana Shield that is rare is A. bonplandii guyanum, not A. jenmanii. Specifically, it is the Anthurium specimen that produces the purple/red new leaves. I repeated his post in an effort to draw attention to it since it was somewhat obscured at the end of a long thread. His post directly points out what I was attempting to say at the very beginning of this thread. A lot of people now own that plant, but they have the wrong name tag on on their specimen. Botanical science matters. Should that make anyone angry? I can't understand why? It is simply a matter of writing a new tag! Dr. Croat often tells me I've got the wrong tag on a plant and I simply change it! I want to know. But more than a few people didn't like what Dr. Croat said, Bill reported, and I repeated. I got slammed with nasty email today as a result. I didn't say it, and I sure didn't make it up! I just repeated it. Tom Croat said it! Please understand, I just report on botanical science via my website. I enjoy reading that kind of material! If you don't like, or are not interested in botanical science, that is perfectly fine. But some of us are interested. I've received at least a half dozen emails during the night who were intrigued to find out they had the wrong name tag on their plant. But others didn't want to hear such a thing! There are hundreds of plant "myths" on the internet. When one is brought to my attention I try to dig out the facts. Some don't want to read the facts and that is their right. I just like to find them and try to help clear them up. Thanks again Bill for making that post. I've already changed the tag on my specimen. If you'd rather not, that is certainly not a problem. But please, if you don't want to change your tag, DON'T! Feel free to call that specimen any name you choose. I just prefer the science. In my book botanical science matters.
I for one want to get it right. Whats the point in looking up information that is for another plant?? And thanks to these type of forums, I can id my whole back yard!! Might take me a while though : ) I'm not big on common names, personally, and its only my opinion, because it could mean a whole variety of plants. For example Elephant Ears.... Sometimes its hard to use google if you don't even know where to start. Oh and don't get me started on nurseries or growers with mis identified species!! I can understand that nurseries just buy off a grower with the growers label on their, fair enough. But I think some nurseries, in Aus anyway, just make up the name half the time... Ed
There's only one of those as far as I'm concerned . . . http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/2049925/2/istockphoto_2049925_elephant_ear.jpg
OK, two actually; the African species above, Asian below http://www.thaifocus.com/elephant/images/ear.jpg
