Celebrating Plants and the Planet:

 

Humans and plants, what a wacky relationship! …like Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, or Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, Britney and reality: can’t get it right but compelled to keep on trying.

 

This month’s links (at www.zooplantman.com under NEWS) look at the complexities of our odd marriage to the plant kingdom:

                                                                               

·         An effort to save stands of Acacia trees from browsing giraffes disrupts a delicate mutualism that the trees depend on, and so the trees end up worse off.

·         Another Acacia produces one of the most useful natural products, but between habitat degradation and concerns about Darfur, supplies may decline.

·         So here’s the joke: a man checks into an American hospital and says “my medicine man gave me this treatment.” Next thing you know, scientists are combing Ecuador to take advantage of this new wonder drug.

·         This isn’t a joke: Half of all of modern medicines are based on or even extracted from plant sources. And those plants are disappearing because of our own behavior. (This report is astonishing and terrifying.)

·         Imagine this: you’ve walked by that palm a hundred times and thought you knew what it was. Until the day it shot up a flower stalk so big “it can be seen on Google Earth.”

 

Please share these stories with associates, staff, docents and - most importantly - visitors! The question is…HOW?

Use up-dated stories at exhibits to intrigue visitors, keep things fresh, initiate dialogue getting people to “open up”. (The only blog I read is about “Museum 2.0”)

 

Kung Hei Fat Choy! This week is Chinese Lunar New Year. Rather than the traditional exchange of an orange, I offer these beautiful exotic tropical fruits: http://colombiacuriosa.blogspot.com/2007/06/colombia-curiosa.html

 

 

Rob

 

Zoo Horticulture

Consulting & Design

19 Meadowbrook Drive

Ossining, New York 10562-2910

    914.762-6569

    FAX  914.945-8915

 

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