@oreotrephes
Director, William L. Brown Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden -- plants for people (and vice versa). Programs in Himalayan climate change, mountain plant ecology, community based conservation in Madagascar, and ethnobotany.
Paphiopedilum Black Thorpe
Paphiopedilum Black Thorpe
“Orchids are the most sophisticated of flowers, expressing emotions that words cannot.” — Prince
And this Paphiopedilum Black Thorpe is nothing short of sophistication. 😌
See more of the Paphiopedilum genus and more at the Orchid Show today!
📸 Nathan Kwarta
#MOBOTGarden
Bunch of cured brown vanilla pods tied with brown string in the middle
#SmellingTheBouquet Vanilla planifolia is the only orchid that bears edible fruit, and is endemic to SE Mexico & Belize. The cylindrical fruit pods containing tiny black seeds are the source of vanilla used in food and perfumery, commonly (and incorrectly) called beans. Pix: Shutterstock: Jiri Hera
#SmellingTheBouquet Vanilla comes from the fruit of the orchid Vanilla planifolia. Over 600ya, it was integral to the Totonac, Mayan & Aztec people in the plant’s native region of Mesoamerica. They practiced curing methods to enhance the aroma, making a paste to be blended with copal for incense.
👩🔬Happy International Day of Women and Girls in #Science!
Explore the reflections and visions for the future from our Women Editors-in-Chief.
💫With these insights, we hope to foster a more equitable #scientific community and inspire the next generation of girls to pursue their passions in #STEM.⤵
Scent glasses on table
➕ Catch Dr. Carlsen and mobotmuseum.bsky.social curator, Nezka Pfeifer this week as they offer visitors an in-depth look of Dr. Carlsen's scent research and the Smelling the Bouquet exhibition (open now–March 1)!
🗓️ Wednesday, February 11 from 9 a.m.–Noon
📍 Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center
Read the latest Discover + Share blog on how Garden scientist Dr. Mónica Carlsen is currently aiming to provide the first comprehensive characterization of floral scent across the genus Anthurium. 🔗
discoverandshare.org/2026/02/06/m...
This is figure 3, which shows forest plot and regional changes in richness.
A study in Nature Ecology & Evolution shows the long-term changes in tree species diversity across tropical forests in the Andes and Amazon. go.nature.com/45FPc1M 🌍 🧪
Did you miss the deadline to nominate yourself or a friend for our student committee positions? If so, now is your chance! Nominations deadline has been EXTENDED to February 7th!
Thrilled to share our new paper on restoring tree diversity in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest!🌳
Our findings are encouraging: restoration shows high diversity, though old-growth-like composition needs more time.
Amazing team effort from the Newfor team @ USP & @w-u-r.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1111/gcb....
Very happy to share this new article on Andes-Amazon tree diversity change. We found that over the last 4 decades, tree richness changed differently across the Andes-Amazon regions. Thanks to the many researchers across the world who made this possible!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Keep reading!
Abstract submissions for our 2026 meeting in Montpellier are now OPEN! ethnobotany.org/home/meeting...
Do you work with medicinal plants? Here is a great funding opportunity from the Garden Club of America, deadline of January 31st!
Reminder--nominations are still open for positions on our student committee! These are a great way for undergraduates or graduate students to get involved with the Society and to meet others in the discipline! Pleas reach out if you have any questions.
Hunter-gatherers in southern Africa laced their stone arrow tips with poison roughly 60,000 years ago, a new #ScienceAdvances study finds.
The discovery pushes back the timeline for poison weapon use from the mid-Holocene to the Late Pleistocene. https://scim.ag/4aQDXqI
Special exhibition @mobotgarden.bsky.social this summer! 🤩🤩🤩
Stay tuned for more details in April 2026.
Summit of Coire Etchachan Nan Shepherd But in the climbing ecstasy of thought, Ere consummation, ere the final peak, Come hours like this. Behind, the long defile, The steep rock-path, alongside which, from under Snow-caves, sharp-corniced, tumble the ice-cold waters. And now, here, at the corrie’s summit, no peak, No vision of the blue world, far, unattainable, But this grey plateau, rock-strewn, vast, silent, The dark loch, the toiling crags, the snow; A mountain shut within itself, yet a world, Immensity. So may the mind achieve, Toiling, no vision of the infinite, But a vast, dark and inscrutable sense Of its own terror, its own glory and power.
But in the climbing ecstasy of thought,
Ere consummation, ere the final peak,
Come hours like this…
—Nan Shepherd, “Summit of Coire Etchachan”
published in WANDERERS: A History of Women Walking, by @kerriandrewsuk.bsky.social
11 Dec is #InternationalMountainDay
#poetry
www.un.org/en/observanc...
... along with six other GLORIA target area regions in mountains across the eastern Himalayan region
A team of field workers at a GLORIA site for monitoring alpine plant community responses to climate change and effects on mountain ethnobotany in Yunnan, China, near the Kawagebo mountain area
and Meilishui (China)
An old castle ruin in a circular valley with the snow-covered mountain Jomolhari behind, just below two GLORIA sites for monitoring alpine plant community responses to climate change and effects on mountain ethnobotany
... Jomolhari (Bhutan)
The round slope of a GLORIA site for monitoring alpine plant community responses to climate change and effects on mountain ethnobotany in Manang, Nepal, with the snowcovered mountain Chulu behind.
...continuing our work from previous years at: Manang (Nepal)
Four members of the Missouri Botanical Garden / Western Washington University joint feild team stand on a small summit on an alpine ridgeline with Mt. Olympus behind them; Olympic National Park Summer 2025.
Happy International Mountain Day! I'm feeling grateful for Elk Mountain and Gray Wolf Mountain, which hosted our alpine plant fieldwork this summer as part of the Garden's research with the GLORIA consortium on climate change impacts on mountain plants. #InternationalMountainDay
The cover of the paperback edition of The White Mirror, a Li Du mystery by Elsa Hart, held up in front of a snowy morning scene in St. Louis Missouri
This snowy morning, I've been reminding myself what a great winter read The White Mirror is. "The charm and excitement of a snowbound Agatha Christie mystery", indeed! (per Wall Street Journal!) bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
Really nice coverage in Harvard Gazette of our recent article on global patterns of medicinal plant species richness.
#PlantsAndPeople
news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...
A conference poster for the Society of Ethnobotany. The background shows dry thistle plants in front of a calm lake and clear sky. Large text announces the theme ‘Undisciplined Ethnobotany,’ with smaller text noting the 65th Annual Meeting, held 31 May–4 June 2026 in Montpellier, France.
SEB's 65th Annual Meeting will be in Montpellier, France, 31 May–4 June 2026. This year’s theme, Undisciplined Ethnobotany, reimagines the field by centering plant–people stories, cross-cultural insight, & hybrid methods.
#SEB2026
More information soon: ethnobotany.org/home/meeting...
Four scientists sit before an audience in a panel discussion under the multicolored light of Tomás Saraceno's work "Cosmic Filaments"
WashU Kemper Museum was a perfect setting for scintillating conversation last night at the transdisciplinary
Incubator panel with Rodrigo Reis of
@washupublichealth.bsky.social, Tanslu Daylan and @otherrock.bsky.social of @washuartsci.bsky.social, and Lúcia Lohmann of @mobotgarden.bsky.social.
How do social and ecological factors shape the global distribution of medicinal plants? Nawal Shrestha et al. show variable documented medicinal plant richness, test human drivers, and emphasize the need for integrated conservation strategies. #PlantsAndPeople www.cell.com/current-biol...
#Postdoc in #landscape ecology with me
How does plant species traits influence communities responce to environmental change? An unique re-survey data set from the UK will be used to explore & test hypotheses about dispersal and persistence 🧪🌍
Apply 30th of November
su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...
Alpine plants used as incense in Bhutan are also being impacted by climate change in the Himalayas. Currently on view in the #SmellingTheBouquet #PlantsAndScentsInTheGarden @mobotmuseum.bsky.social
Learn more link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Have you seen the pink lanterns (𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢) in the📍Climatron?
Its nickname "pink lantern" came about due to the way its pink flowers droop on the arched stems in a way that the whole effect resembles a lantern!🏮
📸 Nathan Kwarta
#MOBOTGarden
