Boston Lights is back again, illuminating Franklin Park Zoo’s 72-acres with a stunning array of all-new lanterns and lights. Experience the rich cultural history of China through traditional lantern scenes including a 200-foot-long display of pagodas, cranes and lotuses, as well as a glowing walk-through dragon tunnel spanning over 80 feet. 6:00 pm – 10:30 pm. $22.95 For more information visit https://www.zoonewengland.org/engage/boston-lights
The Essex Gardens Trust, in association with the Gardens Trust, presents Garden Hunting in China with Timothy Walker on March 19.
China, with its abundant variety of both sophisticated and traditional horticultural methods, has long been recognized, not only for its lovely gardens, but as a serious contributor to global horticulture and plant conservation. In his talk, Timothy Walker will give us an entertaining and fascinating view over centuries of gardens and gardening in China. We will be taken on a tour of some of the 35, uniquely beautiful sites he visited while on a seven week Churchill Traveling Fellowship tour in that country. As a plant scientist and gardener, he will enrich our visit with his own experiences and extensive botanical knowledge
Today, as the world warms, plant and seed conservation becomes increasingly important. In his talk, Timothy will also introduce us to how modern gardens in this fascinating country are contributing to global conservation by successfully safeguarding the thousands of plant species in China. Timothy Walker is a renowned lecturer, botanist and gardener. From 1988 to 2014, he was the director of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden & Arboretum; during this period, their show gardens won four gold medals and a number of silver medals at the Chelsea Flower Shows. Since 2014 he has been a College lecturer and tutor in Plant Sciences at Somerville College Oxford. His particular interests are euphorbias, pollination, and plant conservation. For more information on Timothy, please visit his website Timothy Walker – horticultural lecturer. £5 Register through Eventbrite HERE.
Valued for its rich diversity of temperate flora, Hubei, China has long been a destination for Arnold Arboretum explorers, from the time of E. H. Wilson on his first Arboretum trip, to the 1980 Sino-American Botanical Expedition, and in more recent times, the 1994 North America-China Plant Exploration Consortium (NACPEC) expedition to explore the “Horticultural Heaven” of Wudang Mountain. Among Hubei’s botanical fame includes holding the remaining living wild-populations of dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) in the province’s southwest county of Lichuan. Please join Andrew Gapinski and Peter Zale on January 29 at 6:30 pm in the Hunnewell Building of the Arboretum as they share the history of exploration of the Province and tales of the their three-week Western Hubei plant collecting journey as part of the 2018 NACPEC expedition. Andrew Gapinski is Head of Horticulture at the Arnold Arboretum and Peter Zale, PhD, is Associate Director, Conservation, Plant Breeding and Collections, Longwood Gardens. Impatiens omeiana pictured below.
Fee Free, registration requested. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.
Hidden Treasures Tours presents a spring tour of the Imperial Gardens of China on April 9 – 16, 2018. Arrive in Beijing, then tour the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, followed by a visit to the Summer Palace. You will see Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, take a full day excursion to Chengde-Imperial Summer Mountain Resort, and then fly to Shanghai. While there, you will tour the 16th century Yu Yuan Gardens, the Shanghai Museum, and enjoy a full day in Suzhou Gardens before flying home. The land coast is $1,895 per person based on double occupancy, with a $450 single supplement. Visa cost is $175. Your tour guide will be Mary Kroening, the founder of Hidden Treasures Tours. For complete information go to http://hiddentreasurestours.com//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/GARDENS-OF-CHINA-2018.pdf
A beloved and well-known garden plant, paperbark maple (Acer griseum) is endangered in its native habitat in China. Kris Bachtell, vice president of collections and facilities at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, will speak at the Polly Hill Arboretum, 809 State Road in West Tisbury, on Wednesday, August 9 at 5:30 pm about the Paperbark Maple Conservation Project that is helping to secure its future. Kris has traveled worldwide collecting samples of the species, from public gardens in the United States and United Kingdom to the wilds of the People’s Republic of China. These expeditions are helping scientists understand the plant’s genetic diversity to help guide its conservation. Get a botanist’s perspective on the history of paperbark maple in the wild and in cultivation and learn how this project can serve as a model to help conserve other threatened species. Sponsored by Bartlett Tree Experts. $5 for PHA members, $10 for general public. For more information visit www.pollyhillarboretum.org.
July 8-21, 2016, join the New England Wild Flower Society’s Ted Elliman as we explore forests, meadows, alpine communities, and the culture of the traditionally nomadic Tibetan people who inhabit the eastern edge of the Roof of the World. The Tibetan highlands of Sichuan are home to a spectacular array of landscapes, flora, and wildlife, with mountains soaring to 20,000 feet and an extraordinary diversity of plants, including many species of rhododendrons, primroses, orchids, gentians, and numerous other plants. Little wonder the region has been a magnet for plant explorers for over 150 years. The spruce, fir, and hardwood-forested slopes of the mountains, often with dense understories of bamboo, are among the last strongholds of the giant panda. Want to learn more? Download the brochure at http://www.newfs.org/images/learn/FINAL%20FLYER%20NEWFS.Tibetan%20Highlands%202016.pdf or register now! Please note: This tour will be a deeply rewarding experience for passengers who enjoy travel on scenic, winding mountain roads. There will be frequent stops, and most days do not require excessively long drives, but there will be travel most every day. Most nights will be spent in valley locations at elevations below 11,000 feet, and there will be one night in the town of Litang, which is more than 13,000 feet elevation. Lodging will be “best available,” which means basic amenities everywhere, but some hotels may reflect local rather than Western standards of opulence. Some days we will drive and take short walks at elevations that may exceed 14,000 feet, although we do not intend to spend long periods of time at these elevations, nor engage in sustained activity this high. The higher elevation areas will come later in the trip, after you have had some time to acclimatize. And yes, there will be pandas. Trip fee $3,995 per person double occupancy, plus $1,595 airfare from Boston to Chengdu, round trip, and $295 in tour air.
Each year, Director William (Ned) Friedman and the Arnold Arboretum present the Director’s Lecture Series, featuring nationally recognized experts addressing an array of topics related to Earth’s biodiversity and evolutionary history, the environment, conservation biology, and key social issues associated with current science. Lectures take place in the Hunnewell Building Lecture Hall. Parking will be available in front of the building and along the Arborway. These free lectures become completely subscribed early, and right now, through December 15, Arboretum members may register online prior to general registration thereafter. Visit http://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=1 to sign up.
The schedule is as follows: On Monday, January 12, hear Ned Friedman himself discuss Mutants in Our Midst: Darwin, Horticulture, and Evolution. Photographer Rachel Sussman speaks on Monday, March 2 on The Oldest Living Things in the World, Peter Raven, PhD and President Emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden comes on Monday, March 23 to lecture on China, Biodiversity, and the Global Environment, and finally, on Monday April 20, hear Richard Lazarus, Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law at Harvard University, who will discuss Environmental Lawlessness.
Ethnobotanist Dr. Selena Ahmed, co-author of the book Tea Horse Road, tackles the origins, culture and diversity of tea on Monday, March 26, from 7 – 8:30 at the Weld Hill Research Building at the Arnold Arboretum. Camellia sinensis is a species with a long history of cultivation, trade and consumption for well being. Hear about Selena’s discoveries of tea’s journey from the birthplace of the tea plant along the oldest tea trade road from a historical and contemporary perspective. Enjoy some of the beautiful photographs of southwest China by co-author, award-winning photographer and writer Michael Freeman. Sample a variety of teas traded along the ancient tea route, tea-infused gin, and tea candies presented in collaboration with botanist Rachel Meyer, Brooklyn Gin and Strawberry Hill Confectionery. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Read about Selena and view a slideshow of images by Michael Freeman. Free, but registration requested at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.
Dr. David Bouford of the Harvard University Herbaria will speak to the New England Botanical Club on Friday, February 4, beginning at 5:30 pm in the Haller Lecture Hall, Room 102, of the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, on the topic Hengduan Mountains, China: Characteristics and Biodiversity. Open to the public. For maps and parking information, log on to www.rhodora.org. Below is a Hengudan Mountains meconopsis.
The New England Wild Flower Society, with the Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture, announce the upcoming tour The Secrets of Sichuan, to take place May 14 – 29, 2011. This unique expedition to explore the flora, fauna, and culture of Sichuan will be led by Ted Elliman, leader of NEWFS botanical forays to China for many years.
The rhododendron will be in flower during this visit. This is good news because China, a global center of diversity for many plant groups, supports more than 400 endemic species of rhododendron. Most of these grow in the Hengduan Mountain region, where the tour will be based. You may not see them all, but if this is your first trip to southwest China, you will probably see more than you ever have before. Wild mountain nature reserves are the focus of the journey. Natural areas on the itinerary include Emei Shan, a revered and sacred 10,000 foot mountain with spectacular flora, Tanghiahe Nature Reserve, with dense broadleaved forests and a rich bird fauna, and Wanglang Nature Reserve, where subalpine conifer forests of spruce, larch and juniper grow up through understories of tall rhododendron and a sparkling array of forest wildflowers. In Wanglang, at 11,000 feet elevation, the high elevation wildflowers will be blooming at and above timberline. Tangjiahe and Wanglang are also home to wild populations of giant panda.
A major highlight will be a two day visit to Jiuzhaigou National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of incomparable beauty, that is another great place to view and photograph spring wildflowers. Jiuzhaigou is a valley complex of crystalline lakes and streams, connected by a superbly designed network of boardwalk trails. Accessible parts range in elevation from 7,000 to 11,000 feet, and it is an ideal place to explore on foot. Frequent shuttle buses provide ready access to the boardwalk trails. Other stops will be Leshan, where a seated Buddha image 200 feet tall, carved from red sandstone, overlooks an auspicious river confluence, Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, and Sanxingdui Museum. For a complete itinerary, log on to http://www.wellesley.edu/WCFH/Courses/Sichuan%20Brochure.pdf. Trip fee is $3,945 per person, double occupancy, plus air fair of $1,195 from New York, round trip, through Betchart Expeditions, Inc. Call Renee Apostolou at 800-252-4910 for additional information.
