PlantIntel Vol. 4, Issue 1

ABOUT THIS ISSUE

Find a

Partner

And – together – connect people with plants

Ask any gardener: More often than not, two can lift heavy objects far better than one. And so it is with much of the work the Garden is involved in outside its gates as it strives to fulfill its mission of connecting people with plants. Whether it’s school outreach programs, community gardens or plant conservation research, partnerships are a critical tool for getting the job done.

Fortunately, the Garden’s partners are diverse, including government agencies, academic institutions and other nonprofit organizations. That’s extremely evident as this new issue of PlantIntel illustrates, taking you into the field, into the classroom, into the neighborhoods – not just in metro Atlanta but throughout the Southeast and even in China.

Imagine spending most of your adult life creating a world-class garden only to watch it fall into disrepair as declining health makes it impossible to maintain. Grab your loppers and join our horticulturists as they travel regularly to Bishopville, S.C., to help local volunteers restore the famed Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden to its sculptural beauty while developing long-term plans for ensuring its future.

Closer to home, learn how our programs staff is teaching refugees how to grow healthy local food when land –

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and know-how – are in short supply as they adjust to a new home and new life in a foreign country.

Or join the education team as it works with high school students in labs to carefully count and monitor some of the rarest seeds in the Southeast. The tedious work not only is a tremendous help to conservation and research staff but also sows the hope of interest in the field among a next generation of budding scientists.

Maybe you’re more the adventurous type? If so, you’ll be amazed by what Garden scientists tackle along the treacherous terrain of North Carolina’s Linville Gorge to learn how a critically imperiled plant is able to endure its challenging growing conditions. And they’re getting help from an unlikely source – a robot – thanks to federally funded research in collaboration with Georgia Tech.

And what’s more exciting to a gardener than finding a new plant? The Garden’s resident plant explorer, Scott McMahan, introduces us to a new iris species that colleagues recently discovered in China. Thanks to Scott’s connections back in the States, the iris will be available in nurseries this spring, with part of the proceeds going to plant research back in China.

Now there’s a partnership for the books!

DANNY FLANDERS PlantIntel Editor

On the cover: Garden staff Bill Hemsley and Amanda Bennett visit the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden regularly to help with maintenance. (Photo by Shutter Visionary)

Reshaping a

LEGACY Garden lends expertise in restoring famed S.C. topiary garden

By AMANDA BENNETT

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Pearl Fryar’s garden is no ordinary garden.

As featured in the 2006 documentary A Man Named Pearl, the South Carolina topiary garden was started in the early 1980s by a self-taught artist with a love of plants, a contagious spirit and the desire to make the world a more beautiful place – starting with his own yard in the small town of Bishopville.

But with time comes age, and Fryar, 82, has not been able to sculpt and care for the garden he created over the decades for more than three years. So early last year, the Garden joined the Garden Conservancy, the University of South Carolina McKissick Museum and the WeGOJA Foundation in contributing funds to the South Carolina Community Foundation in an effort to restore Fryar’s sculptures.

The Garden hired a South Carolina landscaping firm, Healy Horticulture, to begin re-shearing the topiary under guidance from Garden horticulturists. Allowing this garden, with its message of love displayed on signs throughout it, to fall into disrepair wasn’t something the staff was willing to see happen.

With remote and in-person guidance from the horticulture team, the local firm began reshaping the sculptures last spring, and Fryar and his wife Metra couldn’t be more pleased.

Previous page, top: Ongoing maintenance ensures free-form hedges and sculptures are kept in perfect shape. Below: Mike Gibson, left, and Pearl Fryar love seeing the results of hard work.

Call it destiny. Topiary artist Mike Gibson later joined the effort to give definition and life to the sculptures. Gibson, who also created freeform topiary in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, had gone to Bishopville yearly since 2016 to work with Fryar, and last year upon seeing the state of disrepair, he immediately sought a way to help. Thanks to a South Carolina Community Foundation grant, Gibson was hired as Topiary Artist-In-Residence and relocated his family to South Carolina. Caring for the three-acre garden, restoring the topiary and leading a one-year apprenticeship program was under way.

With Garden horticulturists as advisers, a one-year restoration plan was created, and staff made numerous visits to monitor the work, later securing the help of Riverbanks Zoo and Garden in nearby Columbia and Brookgreen Gardens near Murrells Inlet, S.C. Both were happy to lend a hand.

“It’s nice that the botanical garden world is small and this project so personal and important to many within it,” said Mary Pat Matheson, the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s President & CEO. “Neither Pearl nor Mike are horticulturists. They are artists, and the preservation of this living legacy is not only about the forms but also about the plants themselves.”

Predominantly junipers, hollies, boxwoods and pines, the evergreen plants are the medium for the art of Fryar’s abstract sculptures, which the self-taught artist created from plants he rescued from a nursery’s cast-off pile. But they still need water

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WHY IT MATTERS

Community engagement is a critical part of the Garden’s mission in connecting people with plants, providing both education and enjoyment.

Left: A roadside sign welcomes guests to the garden. Above: Amanda Bennett and Bill Hemsley perform maintenance work. Below: The garden is a maze of junipers, hollies, boxwoods and pines clipped into abstract sculptures.

and care. There are still weeds to pull, mulch to refresh, debris to collect and grass to mow. Helping Gibson navigate his new role – with one foot in horticulture and the other in art – the Garden is well equipped to provide the necessary guidance.

“Pearl’s love for his community has once again brought that community to his garden, but this time to help as well as to marvel,” Matheson said.

“This garden is not only important regionally but also nationally, and the Atlanta Botanical Garden will continue to be a part of its future.”

“The help from these botanical gardens has been tremendous and shows the effect that Pearl’s garden has had on the garden community,” Gibson said. “Although there is still work to be done, it’s been quite fulfilling hearing from Pearl that after four months of hard work, the garden looks good. That makes my work more worthwhile, knowing I’m a part of this community effort to help save his legacy for generations to come.”

Fryar couldn’t be more thrilled by the enthusiasm and hard work.

His only wish is that he, too, was able to help.

Already, the outpouring of community support for the restoration project has been tremendous, and the progressive transformation of the garden astounding. And that’s just the beginning.

Cymbidium sinense 6 PlantIntel

“It’s been really great seeing everyone joining together, and I really appreciate it,” he said. “The garden is starting to look just as I kept it because everyone came just in time, and for that I am so grateful.”

AMANDA BENNETT is the Garden’s Vice President, Horticulture & Collections.

new

hope

Land management changes expected to increase populations of imperiled orchid

By IAN SABO

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PREVIOUS PAGE: A White Fringeless Orchid (Platanthera integrilabia) blooms in the Piedmont region of eastern Alabama. THIS PAGE: Growing side by side in eastern Alabama are a White Fringeless Orchid and a Yellow Fringed Orchid (Platanthera ciliaris).

The White Fringeless Orchid, with its delicate pure white flowers and long nectar spurs, is easy to like, making it even more unfortunate that this terrestrial orchid is imperiled, with only 60 known occurrences scattered across the Southeast.

But thanks to land management changes introduced by the Garden and its conservation partners, there’s hope that populations of this charismatic plant will soon flourish again.

The Conservation & Research staff works collaboratively, often through the Southeastern Plant Conservation Alliance, to achieve its conservation goals, and one method is changing wetland habitat management. Last summer, the team surveyed populations of the federally threatened White Fringeless Orchid (Platanthera integrilabia) in eastern Alabama. Land management choices contribute significantly to the decline of many wetland species such as this. Draining wetlands to build and farm destroys the conditions required by the plants to grow, while wildfire suppression allows trees and shrubs to encroach on wetland openings, and burgeoning white-tailed deer populations lead to increased damage.

Garden researchers collect data about plants and their fragile habitats to get an overall sense of the health of these populations. Data collected for White Fringeless Orchids include the number and reproductive status of plants, observable threats and infor-

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WHY IT MATTERS IT MATTERS HabitatWHYmanagement

Garden Conservation & Research staff John Evans, left, and Ian Sabo collect locational data for White Fringeless Orchids using a sub-meter accuracy GPS device (Photo by Patrick Thompson).

storage is a Seed critical tool in is critical for restoring populations conserving the of imperiled plants. genetic diversity

When fully mature, each of the developing capsules in the White Fringeless Orchid can produce thousands of seeds. mation on the vegetation structure of each population.

In addition, seed and genetic material are collected for safeguarding collections.

Only one of the White Fringeless Orchid populations visited this year was thriving, an actively managed site with well more than 1,000 plants, more than 300 of which were in bloom. Yet, most populations had few or no reproductive plants, resulting from encroachment by trees and shrubs which decrease light, water and nutrients available to the orchids. Fortunately, the Garden has documented remarkable population recovery through thinning of the tree and shrub canopy over the orchids. In fact, after selectively thinning in early 2018, one Georgia population increased from only three reproductive individuals to 155 last year, encouragingly accompanied by substantial seed production.

Given that success and based on the recent survey data, staff are working with the Alabama Plant Conservation Alliance and U.S. Forest Service on management plans for several White Fringeless Orchid populations in Alabama.

Field work was launched earlier this year, and it’s hoped and expected that land management actions informed by data-based monitoring and collection results will significantly increase the viability of these orchid populations for years to come.

IAN SABO is a Field Biologist for the Garden.

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Hybrids sometimes develop in habitats where multiple Platanthera species occur, such as this plant in eastern Alabama, which appears to be a cross between the White Fringeless Orchid and a Yellow Fringed Orchid.

Rare

rhodie

Efforts to save endangered rhododendron target native habitat and safeguarding collections

By ASHLYNN SMITH and LAUREN ESERMAN

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WHY IT MATTERS

Collaboration WHY IT MATTERS through Seednonprofit storage and isgovernmental critical for partnerships conserving the promotes success genetic diversity in of preserving the most endangered endangeredplant plants. species.

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Chapman’s rhododendron is not only considered federally endangered but also is endemic to Florida and the state’s only native evergreen rhododendron.

But fortunately, because of the Garden’s collaboration with several Florida conservation organizations, efforts are under way to save this rare plant.

Left: Buds form on Chapman’s rhododendron. Above: Stem cuttings are collected, propagated and introduced into conservation living collections within the Garden’s conservation nursery.

Chapman’s rhododendron (Rhododendron minus var chapmanii) was already a “very rare plant” when first reported by pioneering botanist Alvan Wentworth Chapman in 1860. But because of plant collecting for the horticulture industry as well as habitat alteration and destruction, the number of plants has declined by nearly 50 percent in some areas of Florida.

matrix demographic population models are being developed to allow the Garden to offer informed recommendations concerning prescribed fire. Collecting data from hundreds of plant stems across the preserve over several years will allow for the development of a robust model that characterizes how the species responds to prescribed fire.

With support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Garden is implementing conservation actions targeted both at protecting this species in its native habitat and through safeguarding collections at the Garden.

Other targeted conservation efforts include the collection of seeds and stem cuttings from across the entire range of Chapman’s rhododendron. Seeds are stored long term in the Conservation Seed Bank, while stem cuttings are propagated and introduced into conservation living collections and housed within the Garden’s Safeguarding Nursery.

Conservation & Research staff are leading efforts to use genetic analysis to aid in the taxonomic treatment of Chapman’s rhododendron and also to determine the level of genetic variability within and between wild populations.

Within-population genetic variability can help determine the most diverse populations – knowledge critical in conserving wild populations. Staff also are working with the Florida Natural Areas Inventory to find additional populations of Chapman’s rhododendron.

In addition, the Garden is coordinating field-based projects in partnership with Florida’s St. Joseph Bay State Buffer Preserve. As a stronghold for Chapman’s rhododendron, Buffer Preserve land managers want to be sure that resource actions – primarily prescribed fire – are appropriate and beneficial for Chapman’s rhododendron. Stage-classified

To date, leaf tissue samples have been collected for genetic analysis from nearly every population in Florida, and several areas have been searched for additional populations. In addition, the demographic study has been initiated within the Buffer Preserve, and seeds and representative stem cuttings have been collected from across native populations in Florida.

ASHLYNN SMITH is the Gulf Coast Coordinator for the Garden’s Conservation & Research team.

LAUREN ESERMAN, PhD, is a Research Scientist, Genetics

Tolumnia bahamensis

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Breaking

barriers Community partners join forces to help refugees grow healthy food

By MOE HEMMINGS

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WHY IT MATTERS

Growing fresh food encourages consumers to eat healthy while also cultivating sustainable gardens and productive communities.

Imagine the world of a refugee – the barriers and hardships of life in a foreign country.

Enter the Garden. For several years, staff have worked with community organizations to educate refugees about growing and consuming fresh produce in the South. Recently those efforts were expanded to form a network of partnerships for providing plants, materials and know-how that would enable 100 refugee families to grow edibles in container gardens.

“With so many of the families we work with living in apartment complexes and also realizing that tending to a community garden plot is a lot of work for a busy family, we wanted to give families an opportunity to grow food at home,” said Katie Hiebert, Director of Agriculture & Nutrition at Friends of Refugees, one of the project’s two partners.

Previous pages: Volunteers help refugees prepare containers for planting.

Above: Key to the program’s success was the opportunity to create educational materials that could be translated into four languages. Below: The project allows 100 families to grow herbs, vegetables and flowers.

Last year, Garden staff jumped at the chance to collaborate with the community organizations to expand its community outreach program, launched during the early days of the 2020 pandemic, with support of an Urban Agriculture Resiliency Award. The funding provided by the U.S. Botanic Garden and American Public Gardens Association aims to support public gardens in promoting urban food growing programs.

The Garden had worked with Friends of Refugees in the past to provide gardening programming via the community outreach program Plant. Eat. Repeat. as well as the Refugee Recipe Celebration, held each June at the Garden in honor of World Refugee Day. That organization also works closely with Global Growers Network as part of the Clarkston (Georgia) Food Initiative, a group of non-profits supporting the local food movement among the Atlanta metro area’s growing refugee population.

The Garden along with Friends of Refugees and the Global Growers Network proposed expanding an original program that served 30 families to 100 families identified among several refugee cultural groups as new to the South’s growing conditions. Using linguistically and culturally appropriate resources, training and technical assistance, the three organizations were able to more than triple past programming to reach new families with materials, expertise and collaboration for building on their centuries of inherited agricultural knowledge, traditions and skills.

Learning from past challenges and successes of providing containers, growing medium and seedlings to families, the partners utilized their unique strengths to form an expanded home-growers network within the refugee community. The new funding provided for all materials for 200 container gardens (two containers per family) as well as staff support in identifying families, purchasing and distributing materials, and providing ongoing support through two growing seasons.

One key to the program’s success was the opportunity to develop and record three instructional videos, hire translators and edit materials in four languages, and provide assistance and oversight.

“We have provided many container gardens to our growers through this project, especially to growers who live in apartments,” said Leela Basnet, Grower Network Coordinator at Global Growers Network. “Container gardening is very helpful because the residents can better control the water system and temperature while being able to grow their favorite vegetables and flowers.”

MOE HEMMINGS is the Garden’s Community Outreach Manager.

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A program participant prepares a soil medium for planting.

Iris connections From the Garden’s Plant Explorer:

Garden helps introduce new species to the trade while furthering plant research

By SCOTT McMAHAN

Irises, whether species or hybrids, are perennials familiar to almost everyone and used in landscapes all over the world. So I was thrilled to learn a few years ago about a possible new species that had been discovered in China.

In 2018 while visiting my friend and iris researcher Xiao Yue at the Shanghai Botanical Garden, I asked her while walking through her research greenhouses if she knew anything about the new iris. A huge grin spread across her face. Actually, she knew quite a bit about it as she was the one who had noticed it growing in a small garden in the western Chinese city of Chongqing several years earlier. She spun around and motioned for me to follow her to a raised bed in the corner of the greenhouse.

Even though there were only a couple of small plants growing, I could immediately tell that they were something very different. The foliage was extremely wide, almost the width of the palm of my hand, and the photo she showed me of her sitting beside the original plant made my jaw drop. Xiao explained that an unknown person had found the plant in the wild, where there were several different species of iris growing, dug a plant and planted it at the garden in Chongqing. Xiao was allowed to take a piece of this unusual iris to see how it would perform in Shanghai and to try to determine its parentage. She found that it did grow well in the warmer climate of Shanghai and promised me a plant when I returned the following spring if they were successful in propagating it.

A few months later while back in China for work, I stopped by to visit Xiao again. She presented me with two plants – one for the Atlanta Botanical Garden and another for mutual friend and American iris guru Jim Waddick – and asked that we help her get the iris into the nursery trade. Once back in the United States, I began brainstorming with Waddick how to not only help Xiao introduce this amazing new iris but also how

Iris researcher Xiao Yue sits beside the original iris in Chongqing, with its extremely wide foliage.

WHY IT MATTERS Collaboration yields opportunities for discovery and knowledge sharing, a key part of the Garden’s education mission.

Plant breeder Hans Hanson peeks from behind Walter’s Garden’s ‘Ming Treasure’ iris.

to possibly attach a small royalty to each plant sold that would benefit the iris research being done at Shanghai Botanical Garden.

I contacted world renowned plant breeder Hans Hanson at Walter’s Gardens in Michigan, who loved the plant – and the idea. Waddick and I sent the company young propagules of the iris that we had been building up, and Walter’s Gardens was off and running with the plant! The company

has since propagated more than 10,000 of the plants, and Iris x ampliflora ‘Ming Treasure’ will be available this spring – with a 25 cents royalty from each plant sold going back to Xiao’s iris research.

SCOTT McMAHAN is the Garden’s Manager of International Plant Exploration.

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ROOT of the problem Robot helps scientists assess growth strategies for rare mountain heather

By JOHN EVANS and JASON LIGON

Garden Field Biologist Ian Sabo surveys a population of Mountain Golden Heather growing along a ridge of Linville Gorge.

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Garden Conservation Horticulture Manager John Evans navigates a narrow passage.

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Mountain Golden Heather is a critically imperiled plant known to occur only in North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest. Its rarity is partially attributed to its peculiar habitat requirements, as it grows in very shallow, dry, gravelly soils vulnerable to trampling.

That’s a problem because Mountain Golden Heather (Hudsonia montana) grows along some of the most scenic overlooks along the forest’s Linville Gorge, where visitor foot traffic is high. To better understand the plant’s ability to withstand such challenging growing conditions, Garden staff solicited the help of an unlikely source – a robot.

Conservation team members have been working along Linville Gorge’s precarious rocky ledges to monitor Mountain Golden Heather and to sample seeds and cuttings to propagate it in offsite safeguarding collections. The work is both strenuous and painstaking, as conditions can be extreme in both summer and winter, and copious amounts of data must be collected.

WHY IT MATTERS Collaboration through nonprofit and governmental partnerships promotes success in preserving rare plant species.

Top: A healthy stand of Mountain Golden Heather illustrates its name. Above: Field Biologist Ian Sabo collects seed and cuttings from along a rocky ridge. atlantabg.org 23

The robot’s camera photographs containers at regular intervals, and images are compiled into a time-lapse video that allows scientists to analyze root growth and interactions with a solid surface – an indication of the rocky conditions the plants will face in the wild.

Past attempts to grow Mountain Golden Heather in a greenhouse setting have proved frustrating. While the seeds germinate easily, the seedlings typically die within several weeks. With knowledge gained from observations in the field, staff attempted to solve the problem through a controlled experiment designed to discover the soil and environmental conditions that would lead to success in growing this plant outside its natural environment. As a result, the Garden is now able to recommend a protocol to other botanical gardens and researchers working to conserve this species.

Very little is understood about the root growth of Mountain Golden Heather, so staff turned to a robot nicknamed the GROOT (Generating Rhizodynamic Observations Over Time). This root-monitoring array is part of a National Science Foundation-funded research collaboration with Daniel Goldman, Ph.D., a physics professor at Georgia Tech.

Last spring, the ongoing GROOT experiment was launched in the Garden’s Micropropagation Laboratory to assess variations in roots that develop from seed versus vegetative cuttings.

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Understanding those differences will be important as both propagation strategies will likely be used in augmenting wild mountain heather populations.

Seeds from wild populations were prepared by scratching the coat that inhibits germination, sanitizing the seed, then sowing them in containers of clear growing media. The GROOT’s camera photographs each container at regular intervals, and the resulting images are compiled into a time-lapse video. This allows Garden scientists to analyze root growth and interactions with a solid surface. That interaction is an initial proxy for the rocky conditions the plants will face in the wild.

JOHN EVANS is the Garden’s Conservation Horticulture Manager.

JASON LIGON is the Micropropagation and Seed Bank Coordinator.

Tolum-

Climbing the walls ‘Shingle leaf plants’ offer unique opportunity for houseplant enthusiasts

By MICK ERICKSON

Looking for a new planting opportunity? Look no further than inside the Garden’s Fuqua Conservatory where a group of plants with a unique growth habit climbs along the walls and up into the trees.

Like shingles on a house, these plants grow completely flat leaves against the surface of a wall and often overlap one another to produce a look similar to roofing shingles. The most recognizable of these species of “shingle leaf plants,” Creeping Fig (Ficus pumila), can be seen outdoors in Georgia growing against the brick or stone exterior walls of homes.

This group of plants is not limited to only ficus (Moraceae) but in fact possesses a type of growth habit that has independently evolved within several different, mostly tropical, plant families. The reason the plants have evolved in this way is not fully understood, and there has been limited research on the subject. Some speculate that shingle leaves retain more moisture than those of other plants and collect nutrients along the stems rather than from the soil. Typically leaves orient themselves for maximum sun exposure for more efficient photosynthesis; this doesn’t seem to be the case, however, for shingle leaf plants. The predominant theory is that the plants have evolved mainly to grow in an unoccupied niche in the ecosystem where they do not have to compete with other species for light. Subsequently, they generally require much lower light levels than non-shingle leaf plants of the same group.

WHY IT MATTERS

Displaying plant collections for education and enjoyment plays a major role in the Garden’s mission.

Recently, these plants have grabbed the attention of many houseplant enthusiasts, with some species, simply referred to as “Shingle Plant” (Rhaphidophora sp.), even sold in grocery stores.

And because most houseplants don’t grow up the walls in a home, these plants require a little unorthodox growing help. Consumers can coax them along by placing a wooden plank or even a tree fern orchid mounting board into the pot for the plants to attach to and grow.

Lighting requirements for shingle leaf plants are similar to those of aroids, not needing long periods of direct sunlight. Although they can be slow growers, given the right conditions they can grow almost indefinitely and are easy to propagate by cuttings.

MICK ERICKSON is the Fuqua Conservatory’s Tropical Horticulturist.

Shingle-leaf plants like ficus grow completely flat leaves against the surface of a wall and often overlap one another to produce a look similar to roofing shingles. atlantabg.org 25

Seeds Southern

Program sows interest in science among area high school students

By LORIN BOREN

Once a week, the Garden’s newest lab technicians remove their Petri dishes from dark cabinet drawers and carefully count and monitor some of the rarest seeds in the Southeast.

They are looking for the emergence of a small radicle, or root, coming from each of the seeds, a clear sign of germination.

Most weeks are relatively uneventful, requiring only a quick mist of the seeds before taking a picture of the dish and logging data. Other weeks find the technicians carefully sanitizing and replating the seeds that have attracted mold in the nonsterile environment. They document their observations, giving scientists baseline germination data for new species of plants being introduced into the conservation seed bank.

This valuable information will serve as the foundation for seed collection and storage practices in hopes of preserving these native treasures.

These new lab technicians are an unconventional group to be considered for caring for such a prized seed collection; they don’t have multiple degrees from prestigious colleges nor years of experience working in a lab. Instead, they’re teenagers participating in the Garden’s Southern Seeds program.

Southern Seeds is a joint effort among the conservation and education teams, and metro Atlanta high schools for encouraging students to actively participate in plant conservation. This year, students from Booker T. Washington and South Cobb high schools were selected and trained to monitor and document germination rates of various seeds over the course of several weeks. Initial germination trials involved native commercial seeds not part of the Garden’s collection so students could perfect techniques and data

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collection practices before receiving seeds from maternal lines of various rare species out in the field.

The goal of the Southern Seeds program is to expose students to plants and plant-based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) careers while engaging them with opportunities to practice science and the scientific method.

And by partnering with Title I schools, the Garden is able to include students of underrepresented minority backgrounds in this important conservation work, which hopefully will lead to further interest in the field. Participants also are encouraged to continue connecting with the Garden through its Summer High School Internship and other programs.

For Jordan Wanza, a student at Booker T. Washington High School, the work, though tedious, has been rewarding. “What I’ve learned through working with the project is to be patient and careful with seeds because if you do something incorrect it may harm the life of the seeds,” she said.

“I want to be able to participate in more of these activities so I can also learn more about different species of plants and how to grow them. I truly enjoy participating in this project.”

And the students aren’t the only ones who gain something from the partnership; the Garden benefits from their watchful care and documentation, said Jason Ligon, the Garden’s Micropropagation and Seed Bank Coordinator. “Monitoring seeds is time consuming and tedious,” he said. “As the Garden expands its region-wide conservation initiatives, having more hands involved to share the workload is quite helpful.”

“I’m also hopeful that this project will spark a few curious young minds to pursue a career in conservation or at least follow up in the future with interest in volunteering or interning with our department, giving us a richer pool of talent.”

LORIN BOREN is the Garden’s School Programs Assistant Manager.

WHY IT MATTERS

Engaging youth in hands-on scientific research encourages future generations of plant conservationists.

A South Cobb High School student carefully monitors the seeds of native plants in the school lab. atlantabg.org 27

Slipping away

M. ashei

Paphiopedilum sanderianum

Multiple efforts are under way to expand the Garden’s collection of endangered Asian Slipper Orchids

By SARAH CARTER

M. faustinomiranda 28 PlantIntel

ae

Asian Slipper Orchids form one of the core collections displayed in the Garden’s Fuqua Orchid Center. More than 100 known species and natural hybrids of the genus Paphiopedilum are found throughout tropical Asia and the Pacific Islands growing on the forest floor and in the nooks and crannies of steep limestone cliffs.

With their unusual pouch-shaped lip and various patterns of stripes, warty spots and even hairs, it’s no surprise that they have long been in high demand among orchid enthusiasts. Unfortunately, that popularity has led to great declines in their population among native habitats because of commercial over-collection. In its most recent assessment, the International Union for Conservation of Nature listed more than 90 percent of 85 species evaluated as “endangered” or “critically endangered” in the wild. These losses are even more tragic as many of the disappearing Paphiopedilum species are readily found in cultivation and can be obtained from sources that grow them legally and sustainably.

Paphiopedilum spicerianum

WHY IT MATTERS

Paphiopedilum malipoense

Paphiopedilum venustum

Displaying and expanding collections of endangered plants educates guests about the importance of the conservation of threatened species. atlantabg.org 29

The Garden’s Paphiopedilum collection, including this P. niveum, is displayed in the Orchid Center among rocks, mosses and other tropical species that mimic the plant’s natural growing conditions.

The Garden maintains its collection of Paphiopedilum not only for their beauty but also to tell the story of the threat that over-collection and illegal trade pose to orchids across the globe. The collection is housed in garden greenhouses and also is on display in the Orchid Center among rocks, mosses and other tropical plant species that mimic the Asian Slipper Orchid’s natural growing conditions.

One way that the Garden obtains new Paphiopedilum plants for expanding the collection or distributing to other institutions is through pollination and seed propagation of 30 PlantIntel

the collection in its micropropagation lab. Plans also call for orchids to be grown in the lab from seed collected in southeast Asia by the Garden’s International Plant Exploration Program team.

Two years ago, longtime Garden volunteer Clark Weisner gave a generous donation earmarked for the further development of the collection. With the gift, the Garden is able to purchase a large number of plants from a variety of sanctioned commercial sources, ensuring that the collection will be more genetically diverse and robust.

From all those efforts, the Garden hopes within the next one to two years to submit

an application to make Paphiopedilum one of its American Public Garden Association’s Nationally Accredited Plant Collections, alongside Acer, Magnolia, Sarracenia, Gongora and Stanhopea. The Garden also plans to expand its Asian Slipper Orchid display areas and educational interpretation so that visitors can see and appreciate even more of these intriguing, imperiled orchids.

SARAH CARTER is an Orchid Horticultural Curator at the Garden.

MIMICKING HABITS Lab-raised striped newts hold promise for saving imperiled species

By CHELSEA THOMAS atlantabg.org 31

While most Garden staff spend their days busily creating beautiful displays of annuals or conducting valuable research on endangered plants, others are focused on raising, well, what they lovingly call “slime babies.”

Striped newts (Notophthalmus perstriatus) are a rare species of salamander found only in southern Georgia and northern Florida. The amphibians’ complex life cycles require both fishless seasonal ponds and fire-maintained upland habitats in longleaf sandhill regions. Human influences on these habitats have led to population declines so severe that none of these salamanders were found in Florida’s Apalachicola National Forest for more than 10 years.

But with the help of the Garden and other organizations, things are looking up for this species. Staff have been able to breed striped newts in captivity for release into the forest with the hope of reestablishing self-sustaining populations of this disappearing salamander.

The work is part of the Striped Newt Repatriation Project, a collaborative effort led by the Coastal Plains Institute in which several environmental agencies, zoos and conservation initiatives have partnered to restore the striped newt habitat, breed newts in captivity and release the offspring into the wild.

The Garden was an ideal candidate for participating in the project because staff already were experienced in breeding endangered amphibians in clean, bio-secure facilities for a previous conservation project with Panamanian frogs. It also has access to the live aquatic plants, limestone and peat moss necessary for imitating the striped newt habitat in captivity because 32 PlantIntel

Previous page: Lab-grown newt larvae as seen under a microscope. Above: Amphibian Program Coordinator Chelsea Thomas surveys wild striped newt larvae from a Florida pond. Below: Striped newts are a rare species of salamander found only in southern Georgia and northern Florida.

WHY IT MATTERS

Restoring and monitoring the fragile habitats of plants and animals threatened by human interference and natural forces is part of the Garden’s mission.

Top: The Garden’s bio-secure Striped Newt Lab offers an environment similar to the increasingly rare natural habitat of the imperiled species.

Middle: Eggs were laid in the lab days after wild observation. Bottom: A microscope shows a newt egg developing well. those elements also are used in horticulture.

Finally, the project dovetails with a significant part of the Garden’s mission focused on Southeastern plant conservation, particularly in the Florida Panhandle.

Last summer, Garden staff helped the project team weigh, tag (tattoo for later identification) and release juvenile newts bred at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens and The Orianne Center for Indigo Conservation. Staff from those programs advised the Garden on the final steps to prepare for breeding the newts.

Returning to Florida last fall, this time with permits from Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Garden staff collected eight wild striped newt larvae (babies) from one of only five ponds believed to still have populations stable enough to be unharmed by the removal.

Since then, those “founder” newts have been growing well in the Garden’s Striped Newt Lab and laid eggs just days after naturalists observed eggs in the wild. The first offspring hatched at the Garden in January and will be released into the wild in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service later this year.

With enough ongoing releases, project participants hope to establish self-sustaining populations in the restored ponds, with the eventual goal of seeing the species become stable in the region without further human intervention.

“Our unique ability to focus on live plants and mimicry of the natural environment have shown enormous promise for breeding this species,” said Amanda Bennett, the Garden’s Vice President, Horticulture & Collections.

“Hopefully, in time we can reestablish populations of this imperiled species.”

CHELSEA THOMAS is the Garden’s Amphibian Program Coordinator.

atlantabg.org 33

Phew!

Succulent milkweeds are rich in color, shape and form – and potent in odor

By TREY FLETCHER

commonly found in cultivation and can be found with stems in a variety of colors and highly ornamented flowers dappled in patterns of dark reddish spots. These plants are more shade tolerant than other Stapeliads, tend to require slightly richer soils and can withstand more moisture and humidity than many other species, though some members of the genus grow in crevices in rocks and have a trailing, pendant growth habit.

Hoodia is a genus of Stapeliad that can be among the most difficult succulent species to grow, as many species require a very narrow range of conditions to flourish. Some are native to areas that receive only two or three inches of rain per year, or take all the water they require from fog drifting across the desert from the ocean. This genus gained much Displaying unique popularity when it was identified as plant collections is the source of a trendy weight loss supplement, which has led some key in helping the species to become threatened in Garden connect their natural habitat.

Milkweeds, considered members of the Apocynaceae or oleander family, are best known for their value as important components of butterfly gardens. Lesser known are the succulent milkweeds native to arid and semi-arid regions of Africa and the Mediterranean – collectively known as Stapeliads.

WHY IT MATTERS

Some Stapeliads grow in the Garden’s Fuqua Conservatory Desert House including members of the genera Stapelia, Huernia and Hoodia. All share some of people with nature. the same basic structures, such as Overall, Stapeliads are a fascinating fleshy, succulent, multiple-branched and often challenging group of stems with ridges covered in small spine-like teeth. Their flowers are star shaped or roughly succulent plants to grow. They represent a highly diverse pentagonal, and many species are pollinated by flies. As a number of species, and their taxonomic classification has result, their fragrance is often quite repellant –reminiscent been drastically changed over recent decades because of DNA analysis. of decaying meat.

One of the most remarkable species in both the size of its flowers and the intense odor they produce is Stapelia gigantea. Several plants can be seen close to the pathway in Desert House, and their flowers, usually produced between May and September, can be up to a foot in diameter and covered in fine hairs. The star-shaped form of these flowers has led to this species being commonly called starfish flower, but the powerful smell of decaying carrion also has resulted in the species to be known as the corpse flower.

Members of the genus Huernia are the Stapeliads most

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Stapeliads make quite an interesting addition to any succulent collection, representing a fascinating variation in stem shape and color, and an impressive array of flower shapes. But anyone considering adding them to a collection should be prepared for the often intensely offensive odor they produce.

TREY FLETCHER is the Fuqua Conservatory’s Desert House Horticulturist.

Stapelia gigantea

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Research Scientist Lauren Eserman works with genetic samples of Purple Mountain Pitcher Plant in the Garden’s lab, research that has led to a new DNA isolation method that produces high quality samples.

DNA

Recovery efforts for imperiled pitcher plant turn to new laboratory method

By AMANDA CARMICHAEL and LAUREN ESERMAN

EVIDENCE? 36 PlantIntel

Sarracenia purpurea var. montana atlantabg.org 37

Garden Conservation Ecologist Loy Xingwen collects DNA samples of the imperiled species of Purple Mountain Pitcher Plant.

Purple Mountain Pitcher Plant is an imperiled species endemic to mountain bogs in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Sarracenia purpurea var. montana has been considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act because of its low population numbers and environmental threats – primarily habit loss, hydrological changes and invasive feral hogs that dig native soils in search of palatable roots. In the process, they uproot pitcher plants and cause high mortality.

The Garden has been involved in the recovery of this species for many years, most recently with research aimed at characterizing the plant’s genetic diversity and in the process developing a new DNA isolation method that produces high quality samples.

WHY IT MATTERS

Understanding the diversity of plant populations is critical in developing science-based strategies to conserve them.

In the past, plants were propagated at the Garden and outplanted in suitable habitats in north Georgia. It is not clear, however, whether there is sufficient genetic diversity for this species to persist into the future. Therefore, Conservation & Research staff have sampled plants from all known sites in Georgia in addition to plants being grown in the Garden’s Conservation Greenhouse to characterize genetic diversity.

Staff isolated DNA from 190 samples. Working with Sarracenia in the lab always proves challenging, whether it’s low DNA yield or sample 38 PlantIntel

contamination, and this project was no exception.

In response to those challenges, a new, efficient DNA isolation method was developed in the lab that saves resources and consistently produces quality samples. Currently, the samples are being sequenced by staff at the SNPsaurus laboratory in Oregon. This sequencing effort will result in 5,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (or differences in DNA composition among individuals) – much more data than has ever been generated for this species.

While awaiting the results, the Garden expects to observe low genetic diversity because many of these plants were derived from a single cross between two closely related plants. It is likely that the introduction of new genetic material from other states may be necessary to prevent the detrimental effects of inbreeding.

AMANDA CARMICHAEL is the Garden’s Conservation Laboratories Supervisor.

LAUREN ESERMAN PhD, is a Research Scientist, Genetics.

PLANT CLOSEUP Banana & Plantain

CLASSIFICATION: Musaceae is the banana family, which includes three genera: Musa, Ensete and Musella. Musa has 70 recognized species; Enseta, eight; and Musaceae, one.

NOTEWORTHY: Bananas are not trees but herbaceous perennials growing from an underground rhizome. They have four growth stages: vegetative, flowering, fruiting and dying back and suckering to form new plants. They come in all sizes; the tallest is Musa ingens from New Guinea reaching 60 feet down to two to three feet for other species. Bananas have three regions of diversity: Musa in Indonesia (specifically New Guinea), Ensete in Africa and Musella in China. Although there are about 80 species, there are thousands of varieties and hundreds of localized varieties.

USES: Dessert bananas (Musa acuminata) and Plantains, or Cooking bananas (Musa x paradisiaca), have been grown for 7,000 to 10,000 years. They can be boiled, fried and fermented to make a range of foods and drinks, and are highly valued in the landscape as ornamental plants. Both species are seedless.

PROPAGATION: Bananas are propagated from divisions.

SUMMER & WINTER: Numerous varieties of bananas can be grown as ornamentals in the Southeast during the summer; some dwarf varieties, such as ‘Super Dwarf Cavendish’ and ‘Dwarf Lady Fingers,’ can produce edible fruits when grown in a greenhouse or outdoors in a hot, sunny place.

For ornamentals, the Ethiopian banana, Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii,’ is spectacular with large purple leaves and stems all summer long. For flowering species, Musa coccinea, M. haekkinenii and M. velutina are hard to beat with scarlet flowers and interesting fruits. The prized ‘Golden Lotus Banana’ from China, Musella lasiocarpa, with its large golden flowers is a must for any sunny garden or conservatory. For winter hardiness, Musa basjoo from Japan and the Himalayan banana, Musa velutina, will survive the coldest winter.

CULTIVATION: As with all tropical herbaceous perennials, bananas like humus-rich fertile soil in a bright but sheltered location. They are hungry feeders and need plenty of garden compost and a pH between 6 - 8. In acid soils they benefit from an application of garden lime in the spring and a high nitrogen fertilizer in the late spring and summer. They also like plenty of water, but drainage is important. Hardy varieties require a heavy dressing of mulch to protect the rhizomes and buds from the worst of the cold. The more tender species should be grown outside in summer and brought indoors for winter.

PAUL BLACKMORE is the Garden’s Fuqua Conservatory & Conservation Display Garden Manager.

Musa itinerans atlantabg.org 39

The mission of the Atlanta Botanical Garden is to develop and maintain plant collections for display, education, research, conservation and enjoyment.

Huntleya fasciata

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PlantIntel

| Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2022-23 | The Anna and Hays Mershon President & CEO: Mary Pat Matheson Vice President, Marketing: Jessica Boatright | Editor: Danny Flanders | Designer: Bo Shell