Vanessa Handley, Director of Collections & Research This article was originally printed in the UC Botanical Garden Newsletter, Vol. 44, 2019 Tropical forests are the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, collectively harboring roughly 60% of the world’s species. Tragically, these cradles of biodiversity are also among the most critically imperiled. Current estimates indicate that tropical…
Sophia Warsh, Horticulturist In early March, before the coronavirus pandemic upended our lives, Assistant Curator Clare Loughran and I headed to Shoshone, California, for a Jepson Herbarium workshop called: Botanical Islands in the Northern Mojave Desert: Exploring the Flora of the Amargosa River Basin. We were lucky to travel with expert botanist Sophie Winitsky, who…
Vanessa Handley, Director of Collections & Research The last few months have been a flurry of activity at UCBG, both at the Garden and in the field. In the later realm, I recently had an exciting opportunity to join biologist Héctor Gómez-Domínguez for field work in Chiapas, Mexico. Héctor is not only a gifted botanist…
Justin R. Cannon, Guest Writer My fiancé Max and I are members of the UC Botanical Garden and find it to be a truly magical place. It’s one of our favorite places in the world and we visit at least weekly. Our latest visit to the garden led to an unforgettable adventure. Strolling through the…
Vanessa Handley, Director of Collections & Research At the end of last month, I had the pleasure of representing UCBG at the XIX International Botanical Congress in Shenzhen, China. Given that the IBC is only held every six years, it was a much anticipated and heavily attended event. Over 6500 botanists from around the world…