My first job after college was funded by a US AID grant. No matter your politics, I hope we can all agree that making the world a better place is a good thing. US AID makes that possible by judiciously funding relatively small grants. Now Trump and Musk are destroying it, just because they can.

📝 An Anonymous Botanist has Poisoned a Herbarium in New York in an Unusual Way 🧵
https://doi.org/n4tf

My guess: Professor Plum, in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, with the suspicious green bottle.
#Botany #PlantScience 🧪 #InBrief

Herbaria are essential tools for Botany.

Greetings from Kirkwood where the weather was awesome, the snow was …eh and a little thin, and the company was amazing ❤️

Here is Cattleya cernua (formerly Sophronitis cernua) blloming in SJSU’s Temperate Greenhouse. Native to Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. It is pollinated by hummingbirds.

The Greenhouse Facility at SJSU houses approximately 400 species of orchids for class use and for research. #SJSU 🧪

This is also the time of year when the elves are about. Here is a specimen in the SJSU Sharsmith Herbarium’s Elves of North America collection. In addition to their festive cheer, elves are also an important food source for raptors like golden eagles.

This time of year is when most of the Angaecums start to bloom. Here are two of them: A. leonis and A. didieri in SJSU’s Temperate House. Our Darwin’s orchid (A. sesquipedalis) is also in bud. #SJSU #SJSUScience

Here is another bucket orchid. This one, native to Colombia, is Coryanthes misasii

This kind of bizarre looking thing is a bucket orchid; in this case the species Coryanthes bergoldii. We have about 18 different species of bucket orchids at SJSU.

I’m starting off with a bunch of pictures from SJSU’s greenhouses, but my plan is to use this as a personal account. I do have an account on IG: sjsugreenhouse that you can follow there if you just want plant pictures 🙂. Maybe II’ll eventually bring that account over here too.

Rossioglossum Rawdon Jester, a really nice larger-flowered member of the Oncidium group of orchids. This plant came to SJSU thanks to the estate of Ernest Littauer. The Littauer family donated well over 100 large orchids to SJSU. I will share more of them when they flower.

A beautiful and fragrant Zygopetalum orchid blooming in SJSU’s Cold House. This plant comes from SJSU alum and expert orchid grower Ed Nazzal’s collection. Ed has donated many large orchids to the greenhouse facility, and it’s always a treat when one begins to flower. Thank you Ed! #SJSU