Adorning the body with paints and dyes, both temporary and permanent, has been a wide practice around the globe and across centuries. The purpose for these decorations has ranged from culturally significant rituals and ceremonies to simple beauty practices. In recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we offer a brief exploration of two historical practices that are still used today.</p> Lawsonia inermis</em> (commonly known as the henna tree, mignonette tree and the Egyptian privet) is a flowering plant native to much of the south of Asia (including the more specific regions of Southern Asia, Southeastern Asia and the Middle East). The leaves are crushed into a fine powder and mixed with water to make henna, a paste which has, for millennia, been used as a dye to color everything from fabrics such as silk, wool and leather to parts of the body including the hair, fingernails and even the skin, resulting in a rich, deep russet tone when finished. </p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Lawsonia inermis </em>Blanco</p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Henna for dying hair.</p> While henna is used for a wide array of everyday coloring and dyeing, the tradition of decorating the hands and feet in beautiful intricate patterns has grown in notoriety and popularity. The application of henna has become popular as a temporary tattoo, but the art of henna (or mehndi in Hindi) is an important practice that has been performed for centuries in Southern Asia as a ceremony held the day before a wedding. The bride-to-be, surrounded by her closest female friends and family, is beautified and blessed in preparation for the wedding. In Hindu tradition, this beautification and blessing ritual, Solah Shringar, is a series of 16 adornments applied to the bride, each with an individual purpose and belief behind it.</p> Among these 16 adornments, the purpose of mehndi stems from the deep red color and the long-recognized cooling properties of the henna paste. The color is associated with emotional and fertility-related qualities as well as representing the essence of love; painted on the hands and feet, the intent is to strengthen the bond of love between the bride and groom. When applied to skin, henna has also been known to cool the body, particularly useful in the warmer climates of Southern Asia. It has also been used to relieve stress fever and headaches. These wonderful cooling and medicinal qualities are said to calm the bride’s nerves as she prepares for her new life as a married woman.</p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Mahendi</p> Body modifications include the permanent tattoos of the Pacific Islands’ various cultures. The traditional practice of tattooing in Hawaii (kakau) had been almost completely lost to time and the colonization of the islands of Hawaii. To keep their heritage alive, some tattooists have dedicated themselves to practicing only the traditional method of the kakau. </p> This method requires the use of chisel-like tools, typically made of wood and animal tusk; not at all like the needles that most who are familiar with modern tattoos would see. The ink would have been made from the soot of the fruit of the kukui tree, and then tapped into the skin by the tattooist. The tools and particular tattooing technique were very similar across many peoples of the Pacific, including Samoa and the Maori peoples of New Zealand. While the tools used for these tattoos today are still much the same, the composition of the ink has now change to modern productions. </p> </picture> </div> </article> Instruments for traditional Pacific Island tattooing. </p> In traditional Hawaiian tattooing, the placement and the tattoo all have a meaning. These tattoos would tell the life story of the individual. Given the lack of antibiotics historically, it was a dangerous procedure to undergo, but the significance far outweighed the risk. The process is a little less risky today, but likely just as painful. </p> Dig Deeper</h4> Learn more about henna</a>.</p> Listen to this interview with Keone Nunes</a>, the man renowned for reviving the art of the traditional Hawaiian tattoo. </p> At the Helen Fowler Library:</strong></p> “Religious & useful plants of Nepal & India: medicinal plants and flowers as mentioned in religious myths and legends of Hinduism and Buddhism” by Trilok Chandra Majupuria</p> “Plants in Hawaiian Culture” by Beatrice H. Krauss </p> There are far too many practices across cultures to name, but if you would like to learn more about the practices of such cultures, particularly those that involved certain plants, the library has a fine selection of books on ethnobotany. The library</a> will be opening again for limited hours in June. All such materials will be available to browse, and members of Denver Botanic Gardens will be able to check books out. Come visit us!</p> All images public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.</em></p>
Nature’s stage is (re)set: How might plant communities respond to disturbance by wildfire?</p> In ecology, the word disturbance </em>has a specific meaning. While our everyday use suggests a disruption to a desired, peaceful state, ecological disturbances represent a change to the landscape that alters resource availability and, as a result, patterns of biodiversity. Pulsed and dramatic disturbances such as fire cause obvious changes to the physical environment and resources. Fire opens space by clearing vegetation and plant litter, increases light availability and can prime the soil bed with nutrients. With such pronounced environmental change, it is easy to see that a new stage has been set. What is harder to know is which actors will arrive to shape the post-fire scene. </p> Plant community response to fire is complex because the characteristics of the disturbance – in this case the size, intensity, and return interval of the fire – interact with propagule availability, or the pool of species that can potentially recruit post-fire. While there are many actors waiting in the wings, only some will play a lead role in the post-fire landscape, recruiting abundantly and having large attendant effects on ecological processes such as soil erosion and water infiltration. Still, even plant species with bit parts have their place, as it is these uncommon species, sprinkled judiciously but often vividly across the land, that contribute disproportionately to biodiversity. In grassland and shrubland ecosystems along Colorado’s Front Range, forbs (herbaceous plants with showy flowers) largely contribute to biodiversity, provide ecosystem services like food for pollinators, and nitrogen fixation for the soil.</p> Given the importance of understanding plant community response to fire in a changing world, researchers from the Gardens are partnering with Boulder County Parks & Open Space to work on the 10,000-acre CalWood Fire that burned in 2020. We are asking how fire interacts with previous treatment to remove cheatgrass, an introduced annual grass that can become so abundant that it reduces native propagule availability, potentially affecting how plant communities re-assemble following fire. </p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Leucocrinum montanum </em>(sand lily) growing in area burned by the 2020 CalWood Fire.</p> </p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Viola nuttallii</em> (Nuttall’s violet) growing in area burned by the 2020 CalWood Fire.</p> </p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Scorched bunchgrass and bleached Opuntia </em>(prickly pear) cactus.</p> </p>
Here at the Gardens, our horticulturists are always searching for new and charismatic plants to grow and display. This ambition leads our staff around the globe on exploration trips from Patagonia to Kazakhstan to observe, document and collect new plants and bring fresh information to the public. Although our focus can often be abroad, we recognize that there are also gardening challenges closer to home. In fact, some of our region’s most charismatic and abundant plants are frustratingly difficult to propagate, establish or maintain in garden settings. </p> For some plants, propagation is the problem: plants may germinate poorly from seed or suffer in greenhouse environments. In garden settings, our difficulty growing certain species may arise from an inability to create the necessary cultural conditions in the garden (e.g. soil drainage, soil chemistry, specific mineral substrates) or some other environmental mismatch between a plants’ natural environment and garden conditions (e.g. differences in temperature or natural precipitation regimes). However, it’s also clear that relationships with other organisms – bacteria, fungi and other plants – rather than environmental conditions per se, may underlie some horticultural disappointments.</p> For example, native lupines (Lupinus spp</em>.) are challenging to maintain in cultivation despite a broad geographic and elevational distribution and high abundance in native plant communities. Lupines, like other plants in the pea family, have symbiotic relationships with various root-associated microbes (including Rhizobium spp</em>.), which help them acquire nutrients from the soil. This raises the possibility that we are able to create suitable cultural conditions for lupine plants, but not for the associated microbes that they rely on. </p> Paintbrush (Castilleja spp</em>.) are similarly tough to grow in gardens because they are hemi-parasitic organisms, meaning that they rely on host plants to supply carbohydrates and other nutrients (see my other post, Paintbrush: Colorado's Vampire Plants</a>). Although their seeds are relatively simple to germinate, paintbrush will often behave like annuals, living for only a single growing season without a suitable host. Past research has shown that the identity of host plant is an important factor in survival of paintbrush in garden settings, but there is little empirical evidence to support specific host plant pairing recommendations and a poor understanding of how host plant identity affects long-term survival in cultivation. </p> To address these open questions, we’ve set up a controlled experiment at Chatfield Farms where we are trialing six species of Castilleja </em>native to Colorado matched with combinatorial treatments of six host plant species to assess how host plant identity might affect the performance of paintbrush under cultivated conditions. We are measuring the growth, survival rate and fecundity (seed production) of all Castilleja</em>-host plant combinations in the study over the course of three years. We have also completed germination and greenhouse experiments to hone propagation procedures and are using tissue culture to grow paintbrush and host plants together in vitro (in glass). This laboratory method allows us to directly observe the infiltration of Castilleja </em>into host plant roots and better understand the timing of Castilleja’s </em>parasitic behavior during plant development. </p> Our results are only preliminary, so we can’t share details right now, but so far we are observing stark differences in paintbrush survival and growth based on the species of host plant each paintbrush species is paired with These experiments will help us better understand how to optimize the growth and survival of paintbrush in cultivation. Hopefully as a result, you’ll see more Castilleja </em>on display at the Gardens—or even at our plant sales— in years to come. </p>
Now that it really feels like spring, some of our early pollinators are more visible: Honeybees have been active on warm days for a while, I’ve heard of multiple hummingbird sightings in the Denver area, bumblebee queens are foraging and building their nests, and mason bees should emerge soon as well. </p> We often talk about how to attract pollinators, such as butterflies and hummingbirds, to our gardens. I want to suggest a shift in thinking from attracting them to supporting them. Hummingbirds, for example, need more than nectar. We’re told to plant red, tubular-shaped flowers to attract hummingbirds, but the information stops there. While that nectar is an important source of energy for them, they need more than that. Hummingbirds also need protein. In fact, research suggests they need protein as much as, if not more than, nectar. </p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Where do they get protein? Insects. This means that, in addition to nectar-rich flowers, our garden should promote healthy insect life. Reduce or eliminate insecticides/pesticides. Also, utilize complex plantings – mature trees (evergreen and deciduous), understory trees and shrubs, perennials, grasses – to create a multi-story garden. It doesn’t have to be big. But interplanting layers of these different types of plants creates a more complex environment to foster support for all stages of the hummingbird’s life. </p> This also supports insect life. Hummingbirds catch insects in flight, forage for them on plant foliage and steal them out of spiderwebs (maybe eat the spider, too). It provides them nesting opportunities and materials. Hummingbirds like to use spider webs in building their nests. Don’t forget to provide some water, whether it’s a pond, birdbath or just a bowl of fresh water. (And keep the cat inside!)</p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Pasque flower</p> What’s blooming?</h4> Sand phlox (Phlox bifida</em>), creeping Oregon grape (Berberis repens</em>), manzanita (Arctostaphylos</em>), serviceberry (Amelanchier</em>), Pasque flower (Pulsatilla patens</em>).</p> What else can you do right now?</h4> Read “Pollinators of Native Plants” by Heather Holm and pick at least one new plant to add to your garden to feed pollinators in each season – spring, summer and fall. </p>
