The Great Cypress Swamp: Rewilding for People and Nature

The Great Cypress Swamp: Rewilding for People and Nature

At 10,800 acres, the Great Cypress Swamp, also known as the Swamp, is statewide land trust Delaware Wild Land’s largest land holding and the state’s largest contiguous block of forestland. I recently had the pleasure of rediscovering a plant in the Great Cypress Swamp...
Two Rare Trees: Botanic Exploration in Belize

Two Rare Trees: Botanic Exploration in Belize

Although it is fun to collect new plant species records for Belize, second or third records can be just as exciting and illuminating. They often deepen the mysteries of these species, the discovery creating more questions than answers. Some of Belize’s tree species...
Trees of Belize: Discovering logwood

Trees of Belize: Discovering logwood

The diversity of plants can be easy to miss, especially when related species look alike on the surface. For example, many Belizeans are surprised to learn that there are seven species of prickly yellow (in the genus Zanthoxylum, literally “yellow wood”) in the...
Botanic Field Report from Rwanda

Botanic Field Report from Rwanda

When I was a small boy, my best friend and I would go to the woods near my house and play in the jungles and forests of our imagination. My exposure to places such as Africa and Central America was through TV shows and magazines. I dreamed of thick jungles filled with...
Where Do Trees Grow? Answers from the Bald Hills of Belize

Where Do Trees Grow? Answers from the Bald Hills of Belize

The Bald Hills of the north-central Maya Mountains in Belize are sometimes viewed as a mystery. Their high-elevation features are nearly treeless, yet the adjacent hills are covered by pine-oak forests surrounded by broadleaved rainforests. The Bald Hills are uniquely...