Boston Flora

Tag: Harvard

  • Wednesday, February 29, 6:00 pm reception, 6:30 lecture – Phytotechnologies: A Productive Planting Approach

    Phytotechnology, the ability of plants to uptake and remove contaminates from soil, is gaining attention in the fields of sustainability and landscape architecture. From gas stations burdened with fuel spills, to brownfields contaminated with heavy industrial pollutants, cost-effective, natural cleanup methods can be an effective strategy in mitigating pollutants. This Wednesday, February 29 presentation at the Hunnewell Building at the Arnold Arboretum will cover the basic fundamentals of phytotechnology, advantages and limits of plant-based cleanup, and implications for future integration in design and planning. Current case studies will also be presented by Niall Kirkwood, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Technology, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Kate Kennen, Principal, Kennen Landscape Architecture.
    Fee: Free to Arnold Arboretum and BSLA members; $25 nonmember. Register online at www.arboretum.harvard.edu. Offered with the Boston Society of Landscape Architects.

  • Thursday, March 8, 6:00 pm – A Great Green Cloud: The Rise and Fall of the City Elms

    Decades before Olmsted parks, Yankee villagers planted elm trees on their streets and commons to forge a union of rus and urbe, i.e. the rustic and the urban. The trees brought about “a kind of compromise between town and country,” observed Charles Dickens, as if each had met the other halfway and shaken hands upon it. The result was that lost masterpiece of American urbanism, “Elm Street.” Thomas J. Campanella, Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the University of North Carolina, will explore elm culture in the U.S., and how our love affair with this giant nearly brought it to the edge of disappearance, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s New Directions in EcoPlanning Annual Lecture on Thursday, March 8, beginning at 6 pm . Reception to follow, free and open to the public.  Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking available in the 52 Oxford Street garage. Supported by a gift from Michael Dyett (AB ’68, MRP ’72) and Heidi Richardson.

  • Monday, March 5, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Art as a Source of Information on Horticultural Technology

    Jules Janick, James Troop Distinguished Professor of Horticulture at Purdue University, will speak in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum on Monday, March 5, from 7 – 8:30, as part of the Director’s Lecture Series. Works of art from antiquity to the present constitute an alternate source of information on horticultural technology and science, providing significant information on subjects such as the history of technology, crop evolution, lost traits, and crop dispersal. Sources include ancient mosaics, sculpture, illustrations of medieval manuscripts, renaissance paintings, and illustrations from illuminated and printed herbals. The uses of art as a source of horticultural technology will be illustrated using examples of Paleolithic sculpture and painting, Egyptian and Mesopotamian sculpture and painting, ancient Greek paintings, Roman mosaics, Medieval illuminated herbals, and Renaissance art in its many manifestations including illustrated prayer books, fresco ceilings, paintings, drawings, sculpture, and woodcuts from printed herbals. The program is free but registration is required at 617-384-5277, or sign up on line at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

  • Spring, 2012 – Sakura Festival in Boston Will Include Planting of Cherry Trees in Boston

    2012 marks the 100th Anniversary of the original gift of cherry trees from Japan to the United States in 1912. Planted at the Tidal Basin of the Potomac River in the nation’s capital and supplemented with more cherry trees over the years, the blossoming cherry trees of Washington DC have become a national treasure and attract hundreds of thousands of viewers to the “Cherry Blossom Festival” along the Potomac each spring. Japan will mark this Centennial with new gifts of cherry trees to Washington and to a number of other American cities, Boston among them. The Consulate General of Japan in Boston will arrange ceremonial cherry tree plantings in many Boston parks and public places. To accompany the new cherry trees, planning is now underway for a rich festival of Japanese cultural events in Boston, beginning in March 2012 and spanning more than three springtime months. Highlights of this festival include the events listed below. Many, many more festival events will be added during the coming weeks and months. For detailed information, schedules, details, and ticketing, please keep checking this website: www.japansocietyboston.org.

    An Evening of Kabuki Dance
    March 27: Paramount Theater, Boston
    A spectacular presentation of classic dance pieces from the
    Kabuki repertory, featuring Kabuki star performer Kotoji Bando.
    (Presented by The Japan Society of Boston)

    Anime Boston
    April 6-8, Hines Convention Center, Boston
    New England’s Largest Annual Celebration of
    Japanese animation, comics and pop culture.
    A not-to-be-missed festival and trade show of Anime art and publications.
    Thousands attend, many in incredible anime costumes!

    Boston Gagaku Concert
    “From Centennial to Millennial Spring”
    April 9, Boston Symphony Hall, Boston
    The Kitanodai Gagaku Ensemble and
    Members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra
    will perform music by Tchaikovsky, and Gagaku
    traditional Japanese Court Music.

    Japan Society Annual Dinner
    April 18, Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel, Boston
    The Japan Society of Boston’s single largest annual gala event.
    Keynote Speaker: Mr. Kazuo Inamori (Chairman of Japan Airlines and Founder/Honorary Chairman of Kyocera Corporation). Other guests of honor will include Japan’s internationally acclaimed wheelchair marathoner Ms. Wakako Tsuchida.

    The Kioi Sinfonietta
    May 1, Sanders Theater, Cambridge
    Japan’s celebrated chamber orchestra will present a single concert appearance at Harvard’s beautiful Sanders Theater
    (Presented by The Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard, & The Japan Society of Boston).

    The Beauty & Mystery of Japanese Textiles
    May 2, Remis Auditorium, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
    Reiko Sudo, Japan’s brilliant textile designer and founder
    of the world famous NUNO textile shop will speak on the transformation of traditional Japanese textiles into
    contemporary works of art.
    (Presented by the MFA and The Japan Society of Boston as the 2012 Rad Smith Program in Japanese Art)
    ________________________________________

    Many other “Sakura Festival” events in Spring 2012 will include exhibits, performances, demonstrations, receptions, concerts, film programs, and symposia.

  • Saturday, February 18, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Aviflora: Plants and Birds That Love Them

    The quantity and diversity of trees and shrubs in our area provide shelter and food to a wide assortment of birds throughout the year. Three fantastic bird photographers have combed their portfolios for images that capture both floral and avian organisms in tandem. By giving a measure of parity to the plants, these images invite the viewer to consider the vital interactions between all living things. The Arnold Arboretum hosts the show Aviflora: Plants and Birds That Love Them from January 14 – March 11, 2012, in the Hunnewell Lecture Hall at the Arboretum, with an artists reception on Saturday, February 18 from 1 – 3. For more information visit www.arboretum.harvard.edu, or call 617-384-5209.

    Aviflora: Plants and the Birds that Love Them

  • Sunday, February 12, 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm – Glassblowing Flowers and Hearts

    Give your sweetheart a special gift – learn basic glass blowing theory to produce brilliantly colorful glass flowers and hearts.  No experience necessary to take this Boston Center for Adult Education class on Sunday, February 12 from 2 – 6, taught by the instructors at the Diablo Glass School.  The $145 session will take place at Diablo Glass and Metal, 123 Terrace Street in Roxbury.  To sign up, visit www.bcae.org.  The antique glass flower bouquet pictured below was a gift to Elizabeth C. Ware and her daughter Mary Lee Ware from Leopold Blaschka in 1889.  Photograph by Hillel Burger, copyright President and Fellows of Harvard College.

  • Tuesday, February 14, 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm – Christian Rabeling Lecture

    On Valentine’s Day, The Cambridge Entomological Club will host Christian Rabeling, Junior Fellow at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, as the speaker for its February meeting.  Christian’s studies include the evolutionary biology of social insects, genetic evolution and speciation of social parasites, and the natural history of ants.  CEC meetings are held the second Tuesday of the month from October through May. The evening schedule typically includes an informal dinner (6:15 to 7:15 PM) followed by our formal meeting (7:30 – 9:00 PM) in MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street, Harvard University. The latter begins with club business and is followed by a 50 minute entomology related presentation. Membership is open to amateur and professional entomologists.  For more information, email CEC President Jessica Walden-Gray at jessisoutside@gmail.com.

  • Wednesday, February 1, 6:00 pm – The Origin of Cellular Life

    The amazing diversity of life is a result of billions of years of evolution. But how did the process of evolution begin? Nobel Prize winner Jack Szostak, a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, will describe how efforts to design and build very simple living cells are testing our assumptions about the nature of life, generating ideas about how life emerged from the chemistry of early Earth, and offering clues as to how modern life evolved from its earliest ancestors. Free and open to the public, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking available in the 52 Oxford Street garage. Part of the Evolution Matters lecture series at The Harvard Museum of Natural History. Supported by a gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit.  For more information, visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

  • Wednesday, January 18, 6:00 pm – Strange New Worlds: From Meteorites in Antarctica to the Search for Life Beyond Our Solar System

    Renowned astronomer Ray Jayawardhana, University of Toronto and current Radcliffe Institute fellow, will give a lively talk on cutting-edge science of today’s planet hunters, the prospects for discovering alien life, and the debate and controversies at the forefront of extrasolar-planet research, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History on Wednesday, January 18, beginning at 6 pm.  Jayawardhana will also discuss his recent travels to the frigid ice of Antarctica where he went to look for meteorites—and found them. Following the talk, he will sign copies of his recent book, Strange New Worlds. Free and open to the public, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking available in the 52 Oxford Street garage.  For directions, visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

  • Monday, January 23, 2:00 pm – Soil: Where Geoscience Meets Botany

    Soil has been called “the bridge between life and the inanimate world.” Join Janet McDonough, Senior Instructor of Biological Science Laboratory at Wellesley College, to gain a new appreciation for this backbone of our landscape. From its origins in the glacial era, explore the characteristics of soils in New England and how that character is represented by the plants in our landscape. How is soil made? What are the components of a good soil, and what easy methods can gardeners use to tell what amendments are needed? From geology to biology, Janet will give us all the dirt on soil. This Monday, January 23 presentation is offered by the Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture in collaboration with the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, the Boston Junior League Garden Club, and the New England Wild Flower Society. Register on line at www.wellesley.edu/WCFH, or call 781-283-3094. Members $10, non-members $15.