… Paleobotanical Research on Mesozoic Age Fossil Plants The Mesozoic was a period of great change. Ancient lineages of seed … plants were disappearing and other lineages were taking their place. Some of these would go on to dominate modern ecosystems, such as the conifers and angiosperms. Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age rocks from Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China, are the source for a remarkable diversity of fossil plants and animals. The Early Cretaceous of Mongolia in …
Type: Staff bio
… . Three simple steps will make a big difference in preventing winter burn. A burlap screen on the Esplanade path protects young boxwoods in this highly-trafficked area. Prepare properly The right plant for your design goals should help reduce maintenance. Choose the right plant for your garden’s … frost cracking in young, smooth-barked trees in some situations. Garden staff use tree wrap on a limited basis to protect certain plants from animal damage. Cut back herbaceous plants that …
Type: Blog
… know about taking pictures at Lightscape at the Chicago Botanic Garden. It’s a great chance for photographers of all abilities to practice shooting after dark. And with a little time and … your lens can do with this technique. Camera phone users can create bokeh by using focus-lock on a nearby subject and then repositioning the composition on lights that are farther away. In addition to boken backgrounds, you can add glowing orbs to …
Type: Blog
… David Murray is the horticulturist for the Shida Evaluation Garden. Our new Shida Evaluation Garden allows us to expand our … child. As a teen while adventuring out west, he saw his first old-growth forest and from then on, has become enamored of the power of plants, and especially trees. David has worked at the Botanic Garden in a variety of positions since 2016, starting as an intern on Japanese Islands, working on grounds and as a seasonal assistant, and most recently as the …
Type: Staff bio
… composed of three petals contrast with its six bright yellow anthers, each flower opening for a few hours in the morning or longer if cloudy. Spiderwort belongs to the Commelinaceae, the … resembles bovine saliva as it drips from the broken leaf. A volunteer who worked with me on the Dixon Prairie called the plant snotweed—appropriate, but no need to go into the details … and nearly hairless. In fact, the hairiest parts of the plant are the long blue hairs on the filaments (stalks) of the stamens (male flowers). It has been reported that these blue …
Type: Blog
… explore and make more than one kind of insect. Coffee filters —Cut these each into six pieces for wings. You can see how to cut them from the photo of our completed insect below. Pipe … we talked about the different parts of our particular insect. We put antennae and one eye on the head, a feather and another eye on the thorax, and wings on the abdomen—and this was fine by me! While he was hesitant to put …
Type: Blog
… Unseasonably warm weather also raises questions about long-term effects on plants and what garden tasks are appropriate. Hold off on doing any detailed cleanup of garden beds as the mulch and leaves in the beds will provide … of the garden with more pronounced growth, they might benefit from a light layer of mulch. For the most part, though, there is nothing special for most gardeners to do in their perennial …
Type: Blog
… be rejuvenating and take you away from the stresses of everyday life. We started a bucket list for you, focusing on some of the natural wonders in the plant world. We know, oh, just a few plant geeks here at … bucket list. Great Basin bristlecone pine ( Pinus longaeva ) Some of the longest-living things on the planet, the older ones are more dead than alive (but technically…alive!); in their …
Type: Blog
… intriguing, ecologically brilliant prelude to the wildflower riot about to burst forth on forest floors from the McDonald Woods at the Chicago Botanic Garden to area preserves. It’s a … star-flowered isopyrum, and cardamine, also called bittercress. Within a few weeks, depending on the weather, forest floors will be carpeted with wildflowers, courtesy of the sun streaming … temperature inside the hood can be 95 degrees hotter than outside. Thermogenesis is the goal for skunk cabbages, titan arums , and other “warm-blooded” plants . The heat creates the …
Type: Blog
… relationship with the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) . Milkweeds are the only plants on which monarchs lay their eggs, and its caterpillars, also called larvae, eat milkweed leaves … pollen. The entire pollinarium is extracted from the flower by a visiting insect and deposited on another flower. Cross pollination occurs when an insect lands on the center of the gynostegium … are not large enough to escape the pollinarium’s grasp on its leg — an unfortunate situation for the insect! There are so many flowers in close proximity on a milkweed plant that it seems …
Type: Blog
