</p> Did you know that Denver Botanic Gardens is a museum accredited by the American Association of Museums? We are proud to announce the addition of an ethnobotanical herbarium to the list of official museum collections at the Gardens. The other collections are:</p> The Library (botanical, including rare books)</li> The art collection</li> The living collections: Cactus and Succulents, Alpine, Native Plants, Aquatic Plants, Steppe Climate Plants, Tropicals and Amenity</li> The Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi</li> The Kathryn Kalmbach Herbarium (plants)</li> </ul> The 12th collection, the Ethnobotany Collection, documents those plants that are being used or have been used in the past by humans in our region. These include medicinals, plants used for spiritual purposes, plants used to track the seasons, aphrodisiacs and others. There are three main components of the collection: The Market Collection (specimens purchased at Botanicas and other Native and Hispanic markets), Colorado Native Plants (species that grow in our region that are used by people), and Plants Used by Native Americans. The collection will be a resource to educators, Gardens staff, researchers, and the interested general public. This newest collection is made possible by the donations and expertise of Dr. Don Hazlett, Gardens Adjunct Researcher, who has volunteered many hours compiling and curating the collection. He has been aided by Virginia Till, another valuable Gardens volunteer with particular interest in ethnobotany. "We are very fortunate to have Dr. Hazlett doing this work" says Dina Clark, Curator of the Kathryn Kalmbach Herbarium who made the presentation of the proposal to the board last week, "The Ethnobotany Collection is a real asset to Denver Botanic Gardens that supports each of our core values of sustainability, diversity, relevance and transformation." </p> This blog post was written by Anna Sher, Ph.D.</em>, adjunct researcher and former director of the Research & Conservation Department at Denver Botanic Gardens.</em></p>
</p> Three new Colorado records of mushroom species were discovered among our collections of our Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi, thanks to a visit from Gasteromycete specialist, Dr. Scott Bates. Dr. Bates identified a Tulostoma</em> and a Geastrum</em> (an earth star, pictured above) which have never been documented as occurring in the state before now. </p> The Geastrum</em> has been collected three times throughout the last decade right here in the Botanic Gardens, presumably brought in by landscaping projects and then the spores have migrated with the help of our gardeners. It has not been reported here in the wild but Scott Bates has recorded it from Arizona in natural habitats. These are puffball-type mushrooms, fungi that form pretty, bulbous, white fruiting bodies; what we know as mushrooms are the fruiting body or reproductive part of the fungi, which is mostly underground. The photo below shows Bob Brace, a former herbarium volunteer, holding a fine specimen.</p> </p> Because identification of mushrooms is so difficult, it is believed that only a very small percentage of existing species are even known to science. Hence, identification by visiting experts is critical for any herbarium to determine if previously collected specimens might have been misidentified, or to update names that have been changed. Dr. Bates has extensively studied the Gastromycetes (puffballs </em>and their allies) in desert areas of Arizona and has a great interest in our specimens that have been found in prairies and mesas of Colorado.</p> This blog post was written by Anna Sher, Ph.D.</em>, adjunct researcher and former director of the Research & Conservation Department at Denver Botanic Gardens.</em></p>
Get a head start on your holiday shopping with this fun night out activity: The Gardens’ Holiday Sale Preview Party! Be the first to shop among our finest vendors, while enjoying a leisurely experience complete with samples of wine from D’Vine Wine and chocolate fondue samples from the Melting Pot--plus enjoy live holiday entertainment all evening. There will be chances to win tickets to Trail of Lights, Blossoms of Light or a Gardens membership. Limited tickets will be sold for this event so you can enjoy shopping to the fullest without the crowds. So grab your friends and have a fun night out! Some perks:</p> Free parking and complimentary gift wrapping</li> Music live in the main building from 5-8:30 p.m.</li> Carolers in the crossroads from 5-6:30 p.m. and 7:15-8:15 p.m.</li> </ul> Don’t Miss Out! Friday, Nov. 13, 2009 from 5 – 8:30 p.m. Admission: $15 Buy your tickets here >></p>
</p> Autumn is imbued with intimations of mortality: dying leaves, dormancy, doom, gloom, Hallowe'en colors and ghosts and spooks: Boo! Gardeners know another side of this "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness": there are a number of plants that only begin </strong>blooming in September, with one or another species coming on until the spring: Hellebores, crocuses, cyclamen and witch hazels are all plants that have a different notion of the growing season. It's their spring right now! A well stocked collection of any of these genera begins with heavy bloom in October and one or another will keep blooming right until the hot days of late spring when they go dormant (so to speak) for the summer doldrums. These are my kind of plants! Crocuses for most of us means the bright orangy-yellow Crocus flavus </em>or C. ancyrensis</em> among a host of others, not to mention the Dutch giants derived from C. vernus</em>. Although pitifully few Coloradoans grow them, crocuses will thrive almost anywhere they are planted in a Colorado garden: dry or wet, sunny or shady. They love it here. Now is a great time to plant these spring bloomers for a splash of color in February and March. There are another group of true crocuses that wait until October to put on their show. These you must order early in the season and plant in September preferably. Denver Botanic Gardens boasts wonderful plantings of these in many gardens: they are among the largest flowered plants in their genus and have flowers of a luminous shades of lavender, purple and occasionally white. Ten days ago we had a precocious bout of winter that froze many leaves and diminished our autumn beauty. But I have never seen the autumn crocuses bloom more spectacularly than they have the last few weeks. I am not talking about the pink Colchicums that go by that name (they are mostly done and are in the Lily family and have six stamens: true crocuses are related to irises and have only three stamens!). Above you have Crocus speciosus</em>, the commonest and bluest of the autumn crocus which is blooming in the east west pathway and the Rock Alpine Garden right now. Below is C. nudiflorus</em> in my own home garden. An even darker C. medius</em> will be blooming the next few weeks in the Rock Alpine Garden. Remind me to order more of these and the rest next year for my garden! To walk into a garden where dozens of unearthly, fluted goblets of autumn crocuses are gently trembling in the autumn breeze is heavenly. It's as though they are toasting the start of the crocus season with their beakers, full of sky blue or evening lavender. Cheers! </p>
</p> It is with utmost pleasure that I report that the official dedication of the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi was a smashing success. Approximately 45 colleagues, friends, and admirers of the late Dr. Mitchel met for a formal luncheon today with presentations by Vera Evenson, Curator of the Herbarium; Dr. Barry Rumack, Colleague who worked with Sam on mushroom poisoning research; Dr. Hope Miller, mycologist; and Rosa Lee Brace, long time friend, patient and colleague of Sam's. </p> Denver Botanic Gardens is proud to introduce the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi. To honor his memory, an endowment was established to support the scientific application of the collection. The primary goal for the Herbarium of Fungi is to continue to realize Sam Mitchel’s vision of a premier Rocky Mountain fungal collection that serves the public and scientific communities by continually expanding and improving collections, contributing to education programs, serving the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center, and other activities.</p> </p> Dr. Duane H. "Sam" Mitchel (1917-1993) was a medical doctor by training. He turned a love of wild fungi into a second profession in 1965 when he established a collection of preserved fungi at Denver Botanic Gardens. He donated his time, equipment and supplies to create the foundation of our mycological lab; the first with proper documentation of collections for this region. Dr. Mitchel’s initial collection of almost 4,000 specimens was the foundation for our now world-class collection of over 24,000 specimens, including several type specimens (the original voucher for a newly discovered species). The fungal herbarium at Denver Botanic Gardens is now the largest and best curated collection of Rocky Mountain fungi in existence.</p> This blog post was written by Anna Sher, Ph.D.</em>, former director of the Research & Conservation Department at Denver Botanic Gardens.</em></p>
Have you ever wondered what really happens within plants to help them carry on through the winter? As autumn approaches, the sun begins to set closer to the horizon, leading to cooler nights and shorter day lengths. This sends a warning signal to plants that winter is soon approaching and that they need to get ready to go into dormancy, which is similar to hibernation in animals. During dormancy, the plants stop growing, fluids within cells stop flowing and the tender growing tips are enclosed in a tight, frost resistant bud. Before entering this dormancy, the leaves of the plants turn from green to yellow, orange, or red before dropping to the ground. So, what causes the change in leaf color? In leaves, both the green chlorophyll and the yellow-orange carotenoid pigments occur within the chloroplasts. Since there are more chlorophyll pigments than the carotenoid pigments, the leaves appear green. In the fall, the chlorophyll pigments decompose allowing the caretenoids to express themselves as orange and yellow. In some plants, the leaf cells produce red pigments, the anthocyanins. In these leaves, once the chlorophyll has decomposed, the anthocyanins mask the caretenoids, thus turning the leaves red. The change in color and dropping of leaves are the plants' way of avoiding freezing damage to themselves. During freezing, the water within the cells of leaves turn to ice, causing disruption of the tissues. These damaged tissues become inviting sites for fungi and bacteria to invade the plant. In order to prevent microbial invasion, plants drop their leaves and form a protective seal over the areas where the leaves were once attached before the freeze damage can occur. Even though plants look lifeless in the winter, be assured that they are ever sensitive of their surroundings, keeping tabs on the temperature and day length before getting ready to spring back to life!</p>
We think of passion flowers as something exotic, tropical and certainly not something you can grow in Colorado. Fiddlesticks! There is a garden in Littleton where passion flowers are practically a problem. Sandy Snyder (who worked at Denver Botanic Gardens for 17 years as horticulturist) has perhaps the finest private garden in the metro area. The south side of her house is positively DRAPED with passion flowers (see below): in fact, she weeds them out (they do sucker a bit much, you know). Right now, the whole glorious wall boasts hundreds of these frilly, incredible Faberge gem-like blossoms. I know a garden in West Denver (Jim and Dorothy Borland) that has a similarly rambunctious white flowered passion flower growing just as vigorously. Sandy's plant originally came from the South Denver garden of Tom and Ann Johnson, who passed away decades ago--great gardeners whose plant and memory lives on. We have not yet managed to grow this outdoors at Denver Botanic Gardens, although we have quite a few passion flowers in the conservatory and containers. But I suspect one day we will. Isn't it amazing what the great gardeners of our area are doing? </p>
</p> Have you ever wanted to go on a mushroom hunt? Your opportunity has arrived. Join the Colorado Mycological Society September 18-20 for the Rocky Mountain National Park Mycoblitz. The mycoblitz, an event where a group of people get together for a short period of time to identify mushrooms in a given area, will be the second to be held at Rocky Mountain National Park. The mycoblitz is a joint endeavour between the Colorado Mycological Society (CMS), Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) and Denver Botanic Gardens Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi. This is the second year of this important activity designed to document the types of macrofungi growing in 10 selected habitats throughout the Park in a short period of time. The 24-36 hour period is varied from year to year in order to survey the great variety of mushrooms fruiting in varied ecological niches in the Park. The essential aspect of a scientific Mycoblitz is ‘vouchering’ each specimen. This involves careful collecting by dozens of volunteers, identification of each by specialists (Dr. Michael Kuo and DBG's own Vera Evenson) using macro and micro features, photographing, drying, and labeling each collection. As in 2008, the RMNP specimens will be brought to the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi for further documentation, databasing, and permanent integration into our diverse collection. Collections made during the 2008 mycoblitz include at least 4 new-to Colorado species within the genera Phaeocollybia</em>, Galerina</em>, Suillus</em>, and Russula.</em></p> You never know what treasures may be found, a new species of Amanita</em> was found in a bioblitz at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area earlier this summer. For more information on how to participate visit the CMS RMNP mycoblitz website or the MycoRant. For more information about the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi visit our web page.</p>
</p> Denver Botanic Gardens staff were among the thirty-six scientists who donated their time in the first Soapstone Prairie Natural Area Bioblitz, surveying all species in a 24-hour period. Ten scientist teams inventoried insects, mammals, fungi, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and of course plants.</p> Over fifty species were added to the list of known flora and fauna at Soapstone Prairie, including a mushroom (Amanita</em> sp) that may be new to science (see photo above)! This mushroom was found by Jack Jones and other members of the Colorado Mycological Society under mountain mahogany, Cercocarpus montanus</em> Raf. This association alone may give us a clue to its identity, since the shrub is known to have a mutualism with higher fungi. The specimen has been donated to our herbarium so further work can continue. Without the Bioblitz, these species might never have been known. Denver Botanic Gardens' Dina Clark said of the event:</p> “My parting image of the Soapstone Bioblitz was coming upon the beetle people … standing on a hill adjacent to a white sheet that had been strung between trucks, the bottom edge held down by rocks with a black light shining on the fabric. Not the average scene encountered at roadside. I slowed down and asked if they were the beetle people, and in return they replied in a nonplussed fashion that they were. I then told them to ask for Georgia Doyle back at base camp as she had some potentially interesting beetles in her shirt pocket. I thought afterward [of] the exchange that we had seemed so normal, but perhaps it would be unusual for the average person. That is too bad. What a true gift the Earth is with all of its creatures, and what an opportunity it is to encounter and work with the people who are interested in its diversity.” For more information and a complete species list, see their official website: http://www.fcgov.com/naturalareas/bioblitz.php</blockquote> This blog post was written by Anna Sher, Ph.D., former director of the Research & Conservation Department at Denver Botanic Gardens.</em></p>
I think sometimes we Americans take cuccooning a bit too far! You have</em></strong> to call friends ahead of time before you visit nowadays (was I the only one whose family would "drop in" on friends growing up?) preferably we make arrangements weeks</strong> in advance, we are so important you know...The Europeans believe in visiting one another unannounced. In Britain visiting gardens has been raised to a high art. You can buy a garden visit book at any newstand by the National Garden scheme (http://www.ngs.org.uk/) with descriptions and dates where you can visit over 3600 gardens during the garden year. This charity thereby raises enormous sums to support worthy causes. We have a similar organization. The Garden Conservancy was designed to preserve great gardens across America. This year Denver Botanic Gardens is helping support the autumn garden tours sponsored by GC: these include Randy and Marcia Tatroe's "Godwottery" in Centennial, Dan Johnson's Englewood extravaganza, the Mentor's expansive garden in Greenwood Village, Rob Proctor and David Macke's famous garden in Denver and Ann Weckbaugh's Denver jewlbox garden: these are among the most ambitious and accomplished gardens in our region. Check further details at: http://gardenconservancy.org/events.pl?ID=268 Take look around your garden and see if you could host a tour this autumn: if not, sign up for this tour: you can get tips on how to get your garden up to speed! More importantly, you can have an enchanting day in our most equable and wonderful season. Also, the night before the tour there will be a talks by the designers of these gardens and Lauren Springer Ogden. Who says autumn isn't for gardens? </p>
</p> Mount Goliath, the northern shoulder of Mount Evans and located within the Arapaho National Forest, takes my breath away each time I visit. Visitors to this fragile alpine environment can experience the highest cultivated garden in the U.S. (managed by Denver Botanic Gardens in conjunction with the U.S. Forest Service), enjoy the Dos Chappell Nature Center or hike the M. Walter Pesman Trail. </p> As one wanders through the trail, one can witness numerous alpine wildflowers along with one of the most accessible stands of Rocky Mountain bristlecone pines (Pinus aristata</em>), some of them over 1,500 years old.</p> </p> If you haven’t been up to Mount Goliath, this is the perfect time to get up there. A Denver Botanic Gardens membership does not allow free access to the U.S. Forest Service Mount Evans Recreation Area. Visitors to Mount Goliath and Mount Evans need to pay the recreation area fee at the fee station. </p>
