… We humans have used technology to become masters of communication. But we are far from the only species with an impressive array … Scarlet Mormon (Papilio rumanzovia) Photo by Bill Bishoff Consider the butterfly’s ability to see ultraviolet light. UV light is a spectrum of light between 10 and 400 nanometers that humans and most other animals cannot …
Type: Blog
… and whimsical gift for mom, grandma, or anyone special. A nice feature of these tiny bouquets is that you can show off the beauty of small flowers that always sing backup to showier blossoms in large arrangements. Also, you can use aromatic herbs with small leaves as filler greens to add a pleasant scent. What you need A cap from a plastic bottle, such as a milk container or …
Type: Blog
… With the Kentucky Derby—and mint julep season—approaching, it's time to consider mint, a fast-growing, almost wonderfully invasive plant. Mint survives Chicago … crack clay pots.) Mint needs at least four hours of sunlight per day, so pick a sunny spot. It is tolerant of most soils and weather conditions—just be sure it gets some water every week to keep it from becoming bitter. Maintaining flavor Mints spread in two ways: by runners and by …
Type: Blog
… the sedges and grasses along side the trail. (This was when my hearing was still acute enough to detect such high-frequency sounds.) It took me a while, but based on the emphatic commotion, I … are technically known as insectivorous mammals. Insectivores are critters that depend, to a large extent, on invertebrates, mostly insects, for their survival. I wasn’t sure which … in length, with the tail being about a quarter of the length of the body and head combined. It is by far the largest of the shrews we will see here. They are generally a velvety, dark gray …
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… Chicago Botanic Garden turns its educational programming attention—as well as its decorations—to the only plants that stay green through the season: the evergreens. We teach class after class of school children how to identify different kinds of evergreens by their needles and cones. It’s a lesson in … the words “evergreen” and “conifer” —they are not the same thing!—and every year, someone is confused. I blame Christmas trees. The “Christmas Tree” intersects both of the sets …
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… ever before, and discover vital information. “One of the problems we have with soil science is that you can’t see into it so you really depend on a lot of techniques and methods to work out what’s happening,” explained Dr. Egerton-Warburton, associate conservation scientist … ecology. She has used high-throughput sequencing (also termed Next Generation Sequencing) to identify more than 120 species of mycorrhizal fungi in a single plant community. In …
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… made of sugars. Even plant cell walls are composed of a substance called cellulose , which is a compound sugar. Sugars from plants are the basis of our food chain. Our favorite dietary … and love as table sugar. Now that you know where your candy comes from, let’s use some sucrose to make a treat. The common sugar beet, Beta vulgaris (this one is cultivar ‘Bull’s Blood’), is … Rock candy is pure, crystallized sucrose, and you can make it at home. This takes one to two weeks, so be prepared to be patient. How to Make Rock (Sugar) Candy All the …
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… a fair bit of brewing myself. Despite seemingly endless beer varieties, beer making boils down to just a few basic ingredients. So what’s really happening during the major steps in the brewing … process? And what do all those colorful beer-making terms mean? Malted (germinated) barley is used as a base in beer and scotch. Photo via Finlay McWalter, Wikimedia Commons. GFDL A … carbohydrates will feed the yeasts during fermentation. The brewer doesn’t want the grain seed to completely germinate, though—if it did, the embryo would “eat” all of the food reserves, …
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… As an active leader in international research collaborations, the Chicago Botanic Garden is participating in an initiative to set the stage for new partnerships. Patrick Herendeen, Ph.D. , senior director, systematics and evolutionary biology at the Garden, served as co-coordinator of “A Workshop to Explore Enhancing Collaboration Between U.S. and Chinese Researchers in Systematic Biology,” …
Type: Blog
… architect. The Chinese Garden of Perfect Brightness. Tie them together and the result is part of the intriguing back story of the Chicago Botanic Garden—which starts long before the … of the wetlands and, with another landscape architect, Geoffrey Rausch, produced a master plan to transform the land into island gardens and a series of lakes. Unlike some of his peers who … Garden began construction, Rausch recalled, “I have never seen anything quite as bad as that site. Literally, it was burning.” He was referring to the trash, raw sewage, weeds, and abandoned …
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