Daily Archives: October 30, 2021

Wednesday, November 3, 1:00 pm – Billion Dollar Bulbs: Tulips From the Ottoman Empire to Today, Online

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From its humble origins in the Caucasus Mountains over 1,000 years ago, Context Learning will follow the Tulip’s path via the Ottoman Turkish tulipomania to Holland’s billion-dollar tulip industry today.Join an expert on November 3 at 1 pm Eastern to learn how the magical charm of the tulip has ruined the fortunes of sultans and bulb speculators while its beauty, color, and form have captured our gaze for centuries.

The tulip industry in Holland is an important part of the Dutch economy, bringing in huge revenues along with millions of visitors every spring who come to see the amazing colors of the flower fields. Together we will trace the origins of this mighty economic force, from the courts of Ottoman sultans to the bulb’s arrival in the Netherlands. We will follow the fame and fortune of this flower through the nineteenth century and see how painters, potters, and other artisans captured its delicate form.

We will delve into the flower industry of today, to learn about the new varieties of tulips on display each year at the Keukenhof Garden festival. Not open to visitors this year, we will take a look virtually at this special garden. We will see how new hybrids are developed each year yielding ever more beautiful exemplars of the millennial bud.

Led by an expert on garden history, Alette Fleischer, this interactive seminar will bring you closer to the tulip; the flower, and the bulb. Designed to inform curiosity as well as future travels, participants will come away with increased knowledge about 1000 years of tulip history and the place of the tulip in our society today.  $36.50. Register at https://www.contextlearning.com/collections/seminars/products/billion-dollar-bulbs

Wednesday, November 10, 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm – Biogeography Across Broken Continents and Sunken Islands, Online

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Gonzalo Giribet, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology; Curator of Invertebrate Zoology, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, and Director, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, will speak online on November 10 at 6 pm as part of Harvard’s Evolution Matters Lecture Series, supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit. Free, but advance registration required at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Nu9A1HZZQvKx8IgISFXtyw

The major continents of the Southern Hemisphere—Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica—as well as India and islands in the Pacific, were once part of Gondwana, an ancient supercontinent that began to break up about 180 million years ago. How did this breakup influence the evolution of ecosystems and organisms found on modern continents and islands? This is one of the questions that biogeography, the study of how organisms are distributed across space and time, seeks to answer. Gonzalo Giribet will discuss how he uses biogeography and tiny invertebrate species to understand the biological and geological history of New Zealand and New Caledonia, two islands that were once part of Gondwana.