Wednesday December 30, 2009

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens – Sarasota, FL

“IMAGINE EARTH AS IT EXISTED 250 MILLION YEARS AGO”

“Dragonflies with 28-inch

wingspans zoomed through
hot, steamy air. Scorpions, 2
feet long, hunted the tropical
swamps. Dinosaurs wouldn’t
appear for another 70 million
years. But cycads, the plants
in front of you, were there
growing in the sunlight.

“By the time stegosaurs

appeared, cycads had
spread across the planet.
Now dinosaurs are gone and
we are the preeminent
animals on Earth. Only about
250 cycad species remain;
and flowering plants, possibly
300,000 species strong,
dominate the world’s
vegetation.”
- Marie Selby Gardens
EPYPHYTES

“Look up.

“On tree trunks and

branches, you’ll find
another set of gardens.

“Epiphytes are plants

that live on other plants
without harming them.
They belong to many
groups including
orchids, bromeliads,
cacti, and ferns, but they
live very different lives
than their terrestrial
counterparts.

“Their roots anchor them

to the their host, instead
of the ground, where
they absorb water and
nutrients from mist,
rainfall, and decaying plant and animal material.

“There are more than 30,000 species of epiphytes and nearly 100
are native to Florida.”
-- Marie Selby Gardens
“I associate the garden
with the whole
experience of being
alive, and so, there is
nothing in the range of
human experience that
is separate from what
the garden can signify
in its eagerness and its
insistence, and in its
driving energy to live –
to grow, to bear fruit.”
– Stanley Kunitz, poet
(Marie Selby Gardens)

Koi Pond