The Boracayán Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica was the location of Selby Gardens’ latest tropical expedition, in mid-December, 2012. Three Selby Gardens staff members - Bruce Holst, Laurie Birch, and Angel Lara - joined photographer Daniel Perales and world-reknowned...
Gardens Blog
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
Botany
Teaching Tropical Botany in Costa Rica
I arrived in Costa Rica on July 19, excited to meet the 20 students that had been selected from 10 countries to participate in the biannual graduate-level Spanish-speaking course on tropical botany and plant systematics (the study of plant relationships). The course...
Yellow Poinciana (Peltophorum dubium) – July
A popular Florida landscape tree due to its cold-hardy nature, Peltophorum dubium, also known as yellow Poinciana or yellow jacaranda, is a tropical tree in the bean family from South America and the West Indies. Find Selby’s Peltophorum in full, majestic bloom just...
Hoyas
Hoyas, known commonly as wax plants, are a mostly epiphytic genus consisting of about two hundred species found mostly in Asia, India, and the South Pacific. They exhibit an interesting flowering habit, involving an inflorescence with multiple flowers borne on short...
Update on the Pleurothallid Orchids of Brazil Project
Dr. Toscano de Brito departured for Brazil last in early June and will be away for nearly two months. He will be doing field and herbarium work related to his project “The Pleurothallid Orchids of Brazil”, which is partially funded by the National Geographic Society...
Return to Roraima
Our second trip to Roraima-tepui during March 2012 in southern Venezuela was a success. We faced similar logistical challenges as last year, but in the end we were able to fly to the tepui summit by helicopter and spend 14 days collecting and photographing plants, and...
Rare Plant Conservation Updates from Everglades National Park, Florida
Selby Botanical Gardens, the Institute for Regional Conservation and Everglades National Park have partnered to identify, collect, propagate, and augment populations of the rarest plant species of Everglades National park. The first major outplanting of one orchid and...
Selby Gardens Joins the Global Plants Initiative
Selby Botanical Gardens has joined the Global Plants Initiative, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with aims to digitize and make available for students and researchers over 2 million records of plant type specimens from around the world. The GPI network...
Walton Ranch Preserve Inventory Completed
Selby Botanical Gardens has just completed 16 miles of botanical transects through the Walton Ranch Preserve in south Sarasota County. The Walton Ranch Preserve was purchased through the County’s Environmentally Sensitive Lands Program, and contains a mixture of...
New Species of Orchids Discovered by Selby Gardens Staff & Collaborators
In preparation for a series of publications on the pleurothallid genera of Brazil, twenty-four new species have been discovered by Selby Gardens botanist Antonio Toscano de Brito and collaborator Carlyle Luer of the Missouri Botanical Garden. The new speciest are...