Perhaps I am out of line here, but I haven't seen many of you wandering around the botanical garden lately. Certainly we have lots of visitors, but now I am addressing the hundreds of you who regularly receive the newsletter. When was the last time you communed with our plants?
Our palms...We informed you about the outstanding collection of tropical and subtropical palms donated to our collection by the Palm Society of Southern California. Now they are planted out, thanks to our intern Greg Mason and others, and they have signs, thanks to Dr. Barry Prigge. You should follow their success under our care. I already have my favorite, the menacingly armed Aiphanes erosa.
I have not seen many of you with newsletters in hand searching for the plant novelties that I try to tell you about in each newsletter. Get a garden map, locate these plants on your map, and visit these to learn some botany in the field.
If you don't regularly walk the paths at MEMBG, you surely will miss rare events. Yes, someday we too--like The Huntington--may have a flowering specimen of the foul-smelling titan arum, Amorphophallus titanum. But right now we are experiencing other flowering events that are similarly rare. I cannot warn you ahead of time about rare events, because rare events happen when you do not expect them. They are accidents, albeit nice accidents. In mid-August, for example, a specimen of the rarely cultivated bromeliad Alcantarea geniculata donated from the collection of Victoria Padilla produced its meter-and-a-half inflorescence with delightful yellow flowers. In another part of the garden, one of our specimens of the equally rare Furcraea macdougalii produced its massive flower stalk. Both of these plants die after flowering (they are monocarpic), but fortunately the bromeliad reproduces by forming dozens of vegetative pups at the base, and the Furcraea produces plantlet clones within the inflorescence.
Two years ago we told you how MEMBG designed and planted a landscape at the entrance of the UCLA Center for the Health Sciences. Those plants have grown up. Have you ever stopped by to observe and critique that project? I do, every time I walk down to Westwood Village. The golden, whispy tussock grasses work so well with the light blue succulent leaves of the kleinia. This is a dangerous corner to be gawking from a moving car, so I strongly advise that you pull over to the curb to take a look. Better yet, park your car in the nearby campus parking garage or next to Macy's and spend a few hours with us. Then visit a Westwood restaurant to complete your pleasant day.
And when you get home, remember to renew your annual membership in Friends of MEMBG, so that we can continue to do good things for the campus and Westwood community.