Kudos for Quarryhill

Category(-ies): Other Botanical Gardens

Quarryhill Botanical Garden, located in Sonoma Country, California, has drawn a rave review from Alice Joyce in The San Francisco Chronicle. A relatively new garden (nothing planted before 1990), Quarryhill Botanical Garden and the David C. Lam Asian Garden at UBC share a similar mandate: a focus on wild-collected Asian plants.

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Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 2:14 PM

Royal Botanical Gardens Posts Large Deficit

Category(-ies): Herbaria , Other Botanical Gardens

The Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, has lost over two million CAD since 2001. To tackle the deficit, they have closed their herbarium to researchers and students, closed their library to the public, laid off staff and imposed parking fees on trailheads (RBG's landbase includes four nature sanctuaries).

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Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 1:38 PM

Public Recall of Camellias in BC

Category(-ies): Plant Diseases and Pests

The BC Landscape and Nursery Association is working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to organize a public recall of recently-purchased camellias to halt the transmission of Sudden Oak Death, Phytophthora ramorum.

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Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 3:59 AM

Making Sense of Climate Change

Category(-ies): Climate Change

Media reports about climate change can be conflicting and confusing. Many stories follow the formula of providing claims of evidence for and against climate change, giving media consumers the impression that the issue is not yet settled.

Robson Fletcher, a student in UBC's School of Journalism, reviews why a majority consensus regarding the reality of climate change is underreported in The UBC Thunderbird.

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Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 1:41 PM

Striking Images of Nature

Category(-ies): Botanical Art

Katinka Matson is a New York digital artist who produces incredibly detailed images of flowers and other natural objects using a conventional scanner. While most people think of flatbed scanners as useful devices for copying text or images from paper, Matson realized that the device was better at capturing depth than conventionally thought. This realization, combined with her aesthetics and sense of composition, results in striking images.

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Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 12:23 PM

Biological Reserve in Ecuador Threatened by Development

Category(-ies): Plant Conservation , Plant Legal News and Issues

One of the world's most biologically diverse areas, the Maquipucuna Reserve in Ecuador, is threatened by seemingly illegal development. The reserve, referred to as the “inland Galapagos” because of its impressive biodiversity, is home to 4% of bird species on the planet and at least 36 IUCN red-listed orchid species.

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Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 6:21 PM

Middleton Secure for Now

Category(-ies): Other Botanical Gardens

The financially troubled Botanic Garden of Wales has been granted approximately $7 million CDN to continue operations. Created in 2000 as one of the United Kingdom's millennium projects, it has been troubled by financial shortfalls since shortly after its opening.

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Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 10:20 AM

National Herbarium of Haiti

Category(-ies): Herbaria

Modern history is rife with examples of museum lootings and artifact destruction due to political instability. What about natural history collections?

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Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 12:27 PM

Using Plant DNA to Thwart Counterfeiters

Category(-ies): Novel Uses of Plants

From The Christian Science Monitor: Biotechnology firms are developing methods to use plant DNA for thwarting the trade of counterfeit goods. It is claimed that the complex genetic sequences are ideal candidates for use as unique markers.

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Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 12:13 PM