Hello All,

I hope everyone had a wonderful summer. School started last week and people are just getting use to their new schedule. The normally sedate summer Miami traffic has degenerated back to the maniacal form of movement where a red light means speed-up so you can pass through cross street traffic like fast thrown pencil moves through the spokes of a spinning bicycle wheel. Anyway, I hope you are readjusting to the fall schedule. Since it is going to start cooling off, I thought we might look at how we protect plants from the cold. Of course, this is Miami so by cold we mean temperatures below 40 °F (that is about the temperature inside your refrigerator).

For plants that don’t have enough sense to come in out of the cold, we can send them to their room. This is the banana room (picture below). Tropical plants, ones who like it hot all year round, will start to get cold 

damage when temperature’s drop into the low forties (40 °F). That is because tropical plant enzymes (proteins that will grab a specific compound and hold it still, then grab a different specific compound and hold it still so that the two different compounds can combine to form something a plant really needs),    . . . tropical plant enzymes don’t like cold. For example if a plant needs to make starch, it has to take two smaller sugar molecules called glucose and bond them together. The enzymes (it takes more than one) are shaped so that they can only grab a glucose molecule. If it gets too cold the enzymes loose their shape and can’t grab glucose, so no starch is made. In Florida, temperature’s can get into the low forties during winter nights. To keep it nice and warm for bananas, we grow them in these open-air rooms. In the day, the sun heats up the walls. At night, the walls release that heat and banana can stay warm. This method works if the temperature does not get too far below 40 and only lasts for a few days.

Another trick for plants that can’t come in from the cold, is to spray water on them. When water turns to ice it releases heat known as the latent heat of fusion. As the air temperature drops to around 34 °F, you spray a fine mist of water above plants. If the temperature drops to freezing (32 °F) water turns to ice and releases enough heat to keep the temperature near the plants from dropping any lower. This trick works at temperatures a few degrees on either side of the freezing. By-the-way, freezing does not necessarily kill the plant. Freezing damage usually occurs because plant cells thaw unevenly, cracking cells open and allowing all the good stuff inside to leaks out.

Some outdoor plants can be moved indoors when the weather gets cold. We put them in our greenhouse or in a room that gets the right amount of sunlight. Plants that grow in the open are put on a windowsill that gets a lot of light; plants that grow in the shade are put on a counter that does not get direct sunlight. A greenhouse usually has clear glass walls and ceiling. Light comes through the glass and heats up the greenhouse. Whereas, the light can penetrate the glass, heat cannot. Once sunlight heats a greenhouse the glass walls trap heat inside and keep it warm despite cold temperatures outside.

This is our cacao greenhouse. Cacao is a mid-story forest plant (larger trees grow around it blocking some of the sunlight). Because cacao likes partial shade we painted the glass panes white so the right amount of sunlight enters.

When it gets a little too chilly we give plants a blankie.

Or when they go outside we wrap them in a nice warm sweater.

When it gets too cold in the greenhouse, we turn on a heater.

The grass in trays at the bottom is sugarcane.

The fan helps circulate the warm air.

Small plants get a little jacket. It is clear, like the greenhouse walls, to trap heat. This plant only needs protection for the sensitive aboveground growing parts.

These plants need protection down to the pot surface. During a south Florida winter the ground tends to stay warmer than the night air. Plants that have a growing point below the surface can have their top parts dieback. Underground parts survive freezing temperatures in the warmer soil. In spring they can regrow.

Some of our Madagascar palms like this stylist red-striped cover.

Some go with a conservative white stripe.



But regardless of what color of protection they like, tropically evolved creatures like avocado, cacao, and people need to keep warm when temperature gets near freezing.

Newsletter #5 "The Pit"

Hello family, friend etc.

I know it has been a long time but i have been very busy here. Last time I promised to take you down into a pit but first let’s talk about how some of these pits form. As a surface feature Florida is very young, just a baby landform. It was born roughly 10,000 years ago. The bedrock below Florida was formed under water by all sort of ancient marine or sea creatures like clams (fossil clam shells are everywhere). They would die and settle on the sea floor. Here they would become cemented together to form rocks. This happened over millions and millions of years so there are very thick deposits of these rocks. Ten thousand years ago sea level reached current levels and the rocks were exposed at the surface. Because Florida is so young, only a few inches of ‘dirt’ (wind blown sediments) have been deposited over these rocks. The rocks have a lot of calcium carbonate in them (baking soda is similar to calcium carbonate), which as rocks go will easily dissolve in water. It rains a lot in Florida! After a couple of thousand years of teeny-tiny bits of rock slowly dissolving and being wash out to sea, the remaining rock has lots of small holes and tunnels in them. Eventually the rock will not be strong enough to support itself and collapse to form a pit called a sinkhole.

I like that story, it is true but two things I should admit: 1) the pit we are going to visit is man-made. In the 1920’s they dug out the rocks to build some of the older buildings here. We have not planted anything interesting in the natural pits (just tree after tree after tree of avocado). So I’ll show you a man-made pit.  2) Rocks and soil particles slowly dissolving and getting washed out to sea is why the sea is salty!

People like to plant Fruit trees in these pits; the soil is better and the trees are protected from the wind. Usually we get more and bigger fruit from trees planted in sink holes than from trees planted above on the flats.

The first picture shows bedrock at the surface, just above a man-made pit. Picture two shows the pit wall with thousands of small holes created by water dissolving calcium carbonate in the rock. Picture three is fossilized sea creature (I tell people it is a sponge but I really don’t have a clue what it is). This rock was too cool to be used as a brick in a building so they put a bunch of these around a small garden in front of my old office.



Bedrock on surface



bedrock along pit wall



 

Fossilized sea creature



This is the edge of our lychee and jackfruit pit. It is about ten to fifteen feet to the bottom.



Jackfruit Pit



 The first tree we will visit is Artocarpus heterophyllus or the jackfruit (picture below). The benefits of jackfruit were promoted Ashoka the Great of India (274 – 237 B.C.), the world’s most famous vegetarian. And why not promote jackfruit if you’re going to be called the Great? Jackfruit is the world’s largest fruit. The fruit can weigh up to 80 pounds and be 3 feet long. It is the main flavor component in juicy fruit chewing gum. Before old Ashoka the Great began telling people about how good jackfruit was, the king was called Ashoka the fairly mediocre.

(Artocarpus heterophyllus) Jackfruit

The actual fruit is so large it grows directly on the trunk or branches big enough to support it.

 

And what story about south Florida would be complete without a palm tree?



Cocos nucifera (Red Spicata palm)



According to the National Tropical Botanical Garden’s website

“The trunk is very strong and elastic, and is able to bend in heavy winds. In times of hurricanes the coconut palm has been a lifesaver. People lashing themselves to this flexible tree have avoided being swept out to sea. This palm is the most useful plant of the tropics. It is said that more uses are made of it than any other tree in the world. Besides drink, food and shade, it offers the possibilities of housing, thatching, hats, baskets, furniture, mats, cordage, clothing, charcoal, brooms, fans, ornaments, musical instruments, shampoo, containers, implements and oil for fuel, light, ointments, soap and more.“

You can read more about this palm at their website:

http://www.ntbg.org/plants/plant_details.php?plantid=11820

The last tree we will visit in our pit is the lychee (Litchi chinensis) from southern China. Fruit from this tree become ripe for only a short time in late spring. Under its leathery skin there is a clear (grape-like) sweet pulp. It is verrrrry tasty but only available for a short time (around June in Florida). As a result, in first century China the Emperor developed a version of the pony express to deliver fresh lychee to his wife. This variety is called Brewster, named after the Reverend W. N. Brewster a Methodist missionary who introduced it into the U.S. in 1903. In China they call it Chen Family Purple.

Lychee (Litchi chinensis)

Lychee fruit

Peal off the red skin and suck the clear pulp from around the large black seed.

Since it has been a very cold and snowy winter up north, next time we will look at how we protect tropical plants when it gets so bitterly cold the temperature drops below 40 degrees.

Goodby for now.

stewart

SHRS tour part 4

Hello all,

One of our cousins from California, Reed Kelly e-mailed me and asked if I could put the newsletter on a more user-friendly outlet like a blog. My response was, “what’s a blog? So my little sister Cynthia took the matter into her own hands and set me up with a blog. http://StewartReed691.blogspot.com.

Peltophorum pterocarpum DSCN2049 

Earlier I mentioned that every plant that is a part of our collection has an address. We have been looking at plants in the east #1 and #2 neighborhoods. Now we will cross the road into north #1. The tree above is Peltophorum pterocarpum. It is from southeast Asia and north Australia. The tree likes to grow in the lowlands and along beaches. Its wood is burned for fuel or used to make furniture. Wine is made from the bark; leaves (I think it is the leaves) are used to cure bellyaches or ground to make a toothpaste. We have had this tree since 1939.

Peltophorum pterocarpum flowers

Next is the Marula tree (Scelerocarya birrea) from Africa (two pictures below). People have been eating nuts from this tree for 10,000 years. Nuts from this tree will automatically ferment. Fermentation is a natural process that starts with things like sugar and converts them into alcohol. Animals will eat the nuts and become drunk on the alcohol. So, what is more fun than a barrel of monkeys? How about a tree full of monkeys eating Marula nuts? Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVG4XAFJZZY and see for yourself. By the way, amarula (a drink made from the Marula nut) is the second most popular cream liquor among humans.

 Scelerocarya birrea

Scelerocarya birrea (nuts from the Marula tree)

Below is the candlenut tree, Aleurites moluccanus, it is the state tree of Hawaii. We got A. moluccanus in 1928. This tree is a native of temperate and tropical Asia and Australia (China, Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines and southeastern Australia). Early Polynesian settlers of Hawaii brought the plant there where it now grows like a weed, everywhere on the islands. People use this plant to make cosmetics, soaps and to spice-up food. It can be use as a biofuel (fuel like gasoline or heating oil made from plant material). At an evening wedding in Hawaii they will line the path for a bride with these nuts and light them on fire so she can see her way to the groom.
 

Aleurites moluccanus

 A. moluccanus nuts

Nuts usually are ripe in the early summer. These ones have dried out. I tried to light one; it took along time to get a dried nut to burn, but once ignited the flame lasted for about 5 minutes.

The fig is one of history’s first cultivated plants. There is some evidence that people were planting fig trees even before we learned to plant wheat. Many cultures believe that the fig was the forbidden fruit that Eve offered to Adam in the Garden of Eden. After all it is the only tree mentioned by name in the story. Legend has it that the fig, embarrassed by all the negative publicity resulting from the Adam and Eve incident, hired a political spin doctor to revive its reputation. Through a series of dirty tricks, concoctions, misrepresentations, fabrications, lies, and down right prevarications they managed to frame the apple for tricking a naive Eve and an obtuse[1] Adam into getting us kicked out of the garden of Eden. However the apple, not a fruit to be taken lightly, worked hard to defend itself. It launched an advertising campaign to promote the health benefits of ‘an apple a day’. Soon it was the featured attraction in: apple pie, apple sauce, apple cider and even  made a cameo appearance in the opera William Tell. Today, apple is the world’s most popular fruit.


[1]  Obtuse (adjective) not sharp or quick of wit. Synonyms: brainless, dopey, dense, pinheaded, dim-witted.

---

Ficus religiosa

The tree above is Ficus religiosa. This is the very tree the Buddha was sitting under when he became enlightened; actually it is the great, great, great, grand tree of the one Buddha was sitting under. This tree has been here since 1929.

Another fig in our collection is Ficus drupacea. The tree can to Florida in 1927 but was not planted in this spot until 1940. In some places it is considered a weed because it competes with some tastier fig varieties. We will talk about what makes a weed a little later.

Ficus drupacea

 Figs

 Lots of figs

The last plant we will look at before we go down into the pit is Tectona grandis or the teak tree. Teak produces a very hard, durable, termite resistant wood. It is use for making furniture and as beams in buildings. There are 1000 year old temples still standing in India that were made from teak. We have had this tree since 1929.

Tectona grandis DSCN2244

Well, that’s all for this week. Next week we will look at trees we like to plant in pits and sink holes.

SHRS tour part 3

Hi everyone;

It’s Sunday and it has just started to get what we call cold here, 70 degrees. Soon it will stop raining everyday and we will have the best of south Florida weather. Last time I left you with a question about the Triassic epic. That is the time period between 250 and 200 million years before the present, but I’ll get to that in a little bit. First let’s talk a little about the function of this research station. It is to collect and preserve tropical and subtropical¹ plants that can be used for food, fuel or fiber. That means plants we eat, burn for heat, or use to build stuff. We also collect plants that look really good in a house or yard. Our first stop on today’s tour is a place one of our chemists nicknamed Stonehenge for the circle of rocks surrounding it (see picture). Rocks we put there to stop people from parking on the young plants growing under the trees.

Before I show you these plants let me explain that the station is setup with one set of imaginary lines running south to north and another set of lines running west to east. Every plant in our collection has an address (picture below), identified by where two lines cross.

¹ Subtropical roughly refers to a temperature of greater than 50 degrees all year round.

People that know more about the internet than I can use the Grin system (government acronym for Germplasm Resources Information Network) and Google Earth to make a satellite photo of this individual plant. A friend of mine prepared a map of this tour with a satellite photo marked with the location of each plant we will see. However, when I put it down to take a picture of a flower about 20 feet up in a tree, a gust of wind blew my map away. It also shook the branch so hard I did not get a clear picture of the flower.

The first plant on our tour belongs to one of the oldest surviving plant species. Zamia floridana (see picture below) has been around for some 200 million years! They date back to the days before plants invented flowers, so they produce seeds in the cone found at the center. This Florida native is sometimes called ‘coontie’ from the Native American Creek word for ‘flour root’. The stem can be pounded and dried into a material that is used like flour. It was so popular in the early 1800’s that almost all known plants were harvested for food. Today it is illegal to take one of these plants from the wild.

Zamia floridana

So, what does Samuel L. Jackson in the movie Jurassic Park and Zamia floridana have in common? They were both dinosaur food.

Okay, I admit that was bad. I’ll make it up to you by showing you something really cool. This next picture is of a tree taken through a leaf. From May to December it is hot and wet here. If a leaf falls to the ground the environment is just perfect for fungi and other microscopic creatures to decompose soft tissue between the leaf’s veins. Recalcitrant² veins form this see-through skeleton.

Next on our tour is Ficus benjamina, a great place for a gnome³ to live. As F. benjamina grows it drops down those runners to help support branches as they spread out. Ficus are good for food, fuel and fiber. They produce an edible fig. However, just because you can eat something does not mean you will like it. I’m told this fig taste very, very bad! Latter we will see some very good tasting figs.

² re·cal·ci·trant [ rə kálssitrənt ] (adjective): stubbornly resisting treatment or handling.

³ Gnome (noun) dwarf of folklore.

Ficus benjamina

Ficus benjamina

This next tree is a Caesalpinia (Fabaceae family). This tree was given to us by Brazil in 1943. We will see several members of the genus Caesalpinia latter. Several members are used to make medicines, but we are not quite sure of the species name for this fellow so I can’t be more specific.

Caesalpinia species

Caesalpinia flowers

To end today’s part of the tour we have Colvillea racemosa. It is named for Sir Charles Colville, Governor of Mauritius from 1828 to 1833. Mauritius is an island off the southeast tip of Africa near Madagascar. It was the only known habitat of the now extinct dodo bird. The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) was a flightless and very tasty bird. No one lived on Mauritius until about 1638 so dodo’s never learn to fear people. Once the island was settled people quickly began to catch and eat dodos. By 1681 poor dodo was extinct. This led to the expression ‘dead as a dodo’, which means your gone for good.

Although they named this tree after Sir Charles, nobody really liked him. In fact, during his whole time as governor people were in revolt against his version of British rule. Even many back in England thought he was kind of a dodo.

 Colvillea racemosa

C. racemosa flowers (out of focus)



Looking up to take pictures of these flowers is how I lost my satellite map. From the picture of the flowers you can tell I’m not a professional photographer.

Colvillea racemosa and Zamia floridana are both rare and indangered plants so you are among the few who have seen them.

That is all for this week.

Next week, what is more fun than a barrel of monkeys?

Have a good week,

Grandpa Stewart



USDA-ARS-SHRS tour

The U.S. Plant Introduction Garden at Chapman Field

Statring center right is a road just left of the line of buildings. This was the main runway in the days Chapman field was an air base. One of those buildings was an airplane hanger. They would push planes up that small hill standing just below the buildings. With the plane’s nose facing up, mechanics would stand in a ditch so they could get under the engine for repairs. The burm running along that road is still here. At the very end of this tour you will see what we have planted there today. At the beginning of the road was the front gate (see picture below). Since 1926 we have removed the native pine and added that pretty green color to plants.

Notice the difference in government cars from 1930 to today (white and cream colored vehicles in center of bottom photo). Today’s government cars are gas efficient hybrids! See, we even added some green to our cars.

At the first stop on our tour we will see Collecia. This is part of my private floral collection. It was hanging in my office for about two weeks until the mess on my desk got so high it blocked the view. It now hangs in my home, above the stairwell landing. The artist is Joan Liebowitz. You can see more of her work at her website (www.joanliebowitzart.com). Some of the flowers she paints are part of our collection here so you can compare her abstract impressions to the real plant. Cool!

I’ll start the tour next e-mail. But first, what does Samuel L. Jackson in Jurassic Park and Zamia Floridana have in common?

E-mail you next Friday.

Love Grandpa

Chapman Field in the Beginnning

Hi,

I know it has been a long time since my last news letter. But the government is broke and it just would not be right if someone saw a public employee roaming these beautiful grounds taking pictures. So I snuck in on a Saturday to take these. The place where I work is called the United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service – Subtropical Horticulture Research Station. Wow! Now you know why the government uses acronyms¹! This one is USDA-ARS-SHRS, which is still a mouthful so the locals call it Chapman Field. It was named after Lt. Victor Chapman (see picture), the first U.S. airman killed in World War 1.

 Lt. Victor Emmanuel Chapman on the right

During World War 1 this station was an Army Air Corp flight training base. This very spot is reported to be the site where the greatest of all World War 1 Flying Ace was trained (see picture).

In the late 1890’s The USDA needed a place to house tropical and subtropical plants it was collecting. They built a small station in downtown Miami but as the collection grew a larger place was needed. In 1923 a bunch of good old boys, never meaning no harm . . . no that’s the Dukes of Hazard. I’m talking about some young talented botanists, who convinced the Army to transfer Chapman Field over to the USDA.  On April 26, 1923 Drs. David Fairchild and Walter Swingle (the two dashing young men on the bottom left and right) opened the U.S. Plant Introduction Garden at Chapman Field (USIG at CF, you can see our acronym grew as the station got bigger).

¹Acronym n. A word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as WAC for Women's Army Corps, or by combining initial letters or parts of a series of words, such as radar for radio detecting and ranging.

  

The Boys

top left to right: Joseph James, Theodore Holm, M.B. Waite, P.H. Dorsett

bottom left to right David Farichild, B.T. Galloway, Walter Tennyson Swingle

This is what the station looked like in 1926. What you can’t tell from this picture is that there are 20 gazillion mosquitoes lurking in the swamp below. At one time the CIA funded a study to train mosquitoes to attack troops who were not drenched in their top secret insect repellant. Insects have a phenomenal sense of smell so it worked great. However, the repellant was top secret so only generals with the highest of all security clearance could use it. The trained mosquitoes were release on April 20, 1923, by the end of the week the Army transferred Chapman Field to the USDA. Their first mandate was to get rid of the killer bugs (or at least that is the story I was told).

To be continued