Celebrating Plants and the Planet:

With the New Year, I’d like to think that good changes are coming for humans and Nature alike. 2007 could be improved upon.

This month’s links (at www.zooplantman.com under NEWS) are all about the New…the good and the not so good:

·         So you’re creating a rain forest exhibit and you want there to be big trees on opening day. The first link details the installation of 30’ specimens in the new California Academy of Sciences (click on “more” under the story’s pictures to get a gallery of the move-in.) In the interests of full disclosure, this a ZHCD project.

·         Giving youtube a new meaning: the tube-lipped bat of Ecuador evolved a record-breaking long tongue to get nectar other bats can only wish for.

·         Speaking of bats, recent heat waves in Australia foreshadow what will happen when global warming eliminates the flying fox, a keystone species. (It won’t be pretty.)

·         Are plants immobile, passive, even inanimate? New research shows roots don’t just elongate, they pulse rhythmically (Is that why we used to play music to make our plants thrive?)

·         The green movement promotes the promise of  biofuels. Can crops replace fossil fuels as well as feed the world population? Or are we going to choose to feed our gadgets and S.U.V.s rather than feed the third world?

Please share these stories with associates, staff, docents and - most importantly - visitors!

Guilty Pleasure of the Week: last week’s episode of “Nature” on PBS was “The Seedy Side of Plants.” OK, not deep science, but fun stories and great video. My favorite was the speeded up shot of the quinine seed’s root radical growing and looking for all the world like someone sticking a white tongue out! Take a look: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/plants/

Rob

Zoo Horticulture

Consulting & Design

19 Meadowbrook Drive

Ossining, New York 10562-2910

    914.762-6569

    FAX  914.945-8915

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