A day at the New York Botanical Garden

During a recent vacation in New York City my girlfriend and I decided to leave the turmoil of the city behind for a day and head for the more tranquil environment of the New York Botanical Garden. I had great expectations for the visit, partly because the garden was established by Nathaniel Lord Britton (of Britton and Rose fame) and partly because of the NYBG Virtual Herbarium, a great information source on the Cactaceae family. As it turned out, the garden’s collection of live cacti is rather sparse; fortunately a handful of flowering Mammillarias saved the day ;-)


Mammillaria bombycina (western central Mexico)


Mammillaria rekoi (Oaxaca, Mexico)


Mammillaria elongata (Hidalgo, Mexico)

Even though the number of cacti plants is limited, the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is a spectacular place and we spent hours exploring it – also, the orchid show was on during our visit, making it a lot easier to convince “She Who Must Be Obeyed” that we should examine the different plants in detail ;-)


A view of the NYBG cactus house (and a random visitor)


The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory

The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is the largest Victorian glasshouse in the US and the beautiful structure is in itself worth a visit.


The NYBG also has an outside bed with cold hardy cactus species.

Huntington Botanical Gardens

Saturday (March 05, 2005) I visited Huntington Botanical Gardens with high expectations. Initially I was a bit disappointed by the Desert Garden – the focus seems to be more on gardening than on botanical aspects, i.e. the plants were primarily grouped by appearance instead of by biotopes, many of the plants were unmarked etc. I should have been warned by the welcoming sign saying: The garden before you is hardly a desert ;-) Also a lot of the paths were closed with “do not enter” and “no admittance” signs! That being said, I ended up spending more than 3 hours studying the various species of cacti.


An impressive group of Echinocactus grusonii

Unfortunately very few of the cacti were blooming – I would like to return in a month or two when the flowering is in full swing.


Flowering Ferocactus echidne var. victoriensis

I took a lot of pictures. As time permits I’ll process and upload them to a photo gallery.