Photos From New Camera, Florida Keys Birding & Wildlife Festival

Starting this past Thursday, I've been dedicating a tour per day 'til Sunday the 25th to registrants of the Florida Keys Birding & Wildlife Festival, which means six tours (including the two for guests) in four days!  The tour is listed as one of many activities of interest to naturalists in a schedule that involves numerous walks, talks and tours taking place throughout the Keys.  Needless to say, I've stocked up on Gatorade and all those hours in the gym are paying off as I near the half-way mark of this mini-marathon of tours.  Ok, so it's not THAT bad, and in fact, it is quite enjoyable for me to be able to educate so many people about the importance and value of plants.  Specially for the Festival, I spent some time brushing up on avianbotany, a little-known field akin to ethnobotany that hasn't really...taken off (cue half-hearted laughter).  In all seriousness though, I did some research on our collections and tried to find out any connections our plants might have with birds and other wildlife so that I could present them to anyone registering for the tour through the Festival.  I was able to come to a greater appreciation about how not only humans, but all animals, depend on plant life for their survival.  Birds and squirrels use plants as a source of food and nest material, insects use plants as homes and for food, and lizards use plants for cover and apparently for enjoyment as props for parkour runs, as they are always bounding acrobatically across the landscape.

The Botanic Gardens recently made the exciting purchase of a new digital camera that has more features and takes higher quality images than our point-and-shoot, so I thought I'd show off some of the sights this week's tour participants are seeing in our gardens through this new lens.  My skill as a photographer needs quite a bit of work before I can produce some truly high-quality photos that will hopefully allow me to effectively capture and present the beauty and complexity of plants, but everyone's got to start somewhere!

Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) was used in this bird's nest and has now begun to grow down the silver buttonwood (Conocarpus erectus var. sericeus) in which it was built.

Ants (bottom-right corner) have made a home in the trunk of an old gumbo-limbo (Bursera simaruba).

A brown anole atop a leaf of one of our pineapple (Ananas sp.) plants keeps watch or, more likely, scopes out his/her next parkour sequence.

Bromeliad inflorescences (left) and the unmistakable flowers of the royal poinciana (Delonix regia).

So ends another picture-perfect day at Kona Kai...

Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

A Tour Through Our Gardens, But Not A Garden Tour

Over the past several months, among other things, I've been spending time honing the tour of our Gardens that we offer to guests and the public three times each week.  I described in an earlier post about how I was encouraged by the enthusiastic responses from those who agreed to a tour.  I'm very happy to say that responses and feedback from tour participants continue to be extremely positive.  No doubt one of the major reasons for this is because I've especially been working on my technique when it comes to pointing out bromeliad flowers, so that it's pretty much flawless by now.  Here's a rare look at the technique in action during a tour, though a photo doesn't do it justice:

Now you might say, "Rick, no offense meant to you at all because I know just how ridiculously awesome you are (aw shucks : P ) but people on the tour might just be saying that they loved it, especially if they're talking directly to you...I mean they're not just going to tell you straight up that it was boring."  Good point, friend.  I acknowledge that feedback given directly to me may or may not be genuine, but after almost every tour Tracey and Denise, who work at the front desk, are able to corroborate.  Now even if you might be skeptical about that, the most objective evidence of enjoyment I can offer is that I will sometimes reach the hour and a half we have allotted for the tour without covering everything, so I'll inform them of the time and ask if they'd like to keep going, and unless they have activities scheduled, the answer has always been an enthusiastic "yes."  Keep in mind, too, that this is precious vacation time and I am competing with some pretty impressive offerings, such as relaxing on the beach, cooling off in the pool, swimming with dolphins, going snorkeling/diving/fishing, yodeling on the pier (or is that just me?), etc.  The fact that these folks end up being happy to spend more than an hour and a half of that precious time with me on our tour is quite wonderful to see and a concrete affirmation that people are really getting a lot out of it.  Both the front desk and I have collected quotes from our tour participants, so you can get an idea of what people are saying:

"I've stayed at Kona Kai in the past and the Gardens and Tour are why we'll be staying here in the future."
"Well beyond any of our expectations."
"I'll never look at plants the same way again."
"My wife had to drag me along but now I'm really glad she did."
"This was a major highlight of our vacation."

If I had any negative feedback, I would present it, but honestly I don't.  And while the original tour focused almost exclusively on ethnobotany and economic botany, it has evolved to incorporate a number of other areas including history of the Keys and the Resort property, botany at microscopic levels, chemistry, ecology, spirituality, ethics, conservation, biodiversity and global environmental issues.  After the tour, we not only hope that participants will leave with a dramatically new perspective on plants, but also how intricately and actively connected they are with the rest of the world, humans in particular.  That being said, this is much more than what one might call a "garden" tour and I think I've found a better name for it that is much more intriguing and descriptive: a "plants-and-people-but-also-much-more-including-history-chemistry-ethics-conservation-connection-spirituality-biodiversity-environmental-issues-etc.,-and-you'll-learn-so-much-and-be-really-glad-you-took-the-time-because-it-is-ridiculously-mind-blowingly-amazing" tour.....well, maybe I'll see if I can cut out a word or two.


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

The 4th Quarter

Over the past five months I have been down here in the Keys, it has rained for a total of about ten hours, bringing only a couple of inches of rain.  I'd like to call up Lloró, Colombia, which receives about 43 FEET of rain per year and ask if they might kindly pass on one percent of that rain to the Keys during our dry season.  Spread that 5 inches of rain out over six months and we're golden.  43 feet is just an average amount of rainfall for that Colombian region, too.  A town close to Lloró called Tutunendo has received over 86 FEET of rain during its wettest year.  Tutunendo, that is eight stories worth of water falling on your gardens.  Share the wealth!  : P

It amazes me how many of the plants we have here at Kona Kai can do so well despite the severe lack of water during what is aptly called the "dry" season, the last part of which I like to call the "4th Quarter" for the plants, when they really have to give it their all to not only survive but look good as well.  We do irrigate the grounds to help them make it through, but not heavily.  As I discussed in my previous post, it is to our advantage to choose plants that have evolved to deal with annual drought periods.  For example, some plants, such as our pineapple plants (Ananas sp. - photo on left), along with many succulents, have an alternative way to photosynthesize (a plant's way of making food), which allows them to divide photosynthesis into two parts, one taking place at night and the other during the day; this is called CAM photosynthesis.  CAM plants can open their stomata (pores for gas exchange) at night to fix carbon dioxide and close them during the day, thereby significantly reducing water loss over the more common method of photosynthesis (C3 photosynthesis), which requires stomata to be open during the day.  Plants that use the C3 method can lose over 95% of the water they bring in through their roots to transpiration out of stomata, thereby giving CAM plants a big advantage in dry environments.  Elephant bush (Portulacaria afra - photo on right), of which we have two plants, can even switch between these types of photosynthesis depending on the conditions; now that's pretty smart!

Many bromeliads are also able to do without water for some time because of their water storage techniques.  Water is stored at the bases of their overlapping leaves and, in some species, in specialized "tanks" designed to hold water for use during dry periods (photo below on left).  Bromeliads also have microscopic structures covering their leaves called trichomes, which are cells designed to reflect sunlight, absorb moisture and limit moisture loss.  Trichome density varies from species to species and the presence of many trichomes results in the grayish color frequently seen on air plants (Tillandsia - photo below on right).

One of the ways in which succulents combat drought is by storing water within their leaves.  Below is a photo of a succulent, desert cabbage (Kalanchoe thyrsiflora), in our Gardens.  Many plants, including succulents, have root systems that are shallow rather than deep to rapidly absorb water after short periods of rainfall typical in drier climates/seasons.

Despite all these modifications, plants adapted to dry conditions can be pushed to their limits, but the plants here at Kona Kai are still doing very well considering the lack of rain.  Even though the grounds at Kona Kai are as great a place as any plant could wish to be, they still have to play hard, especially in this dry 4th quarter, if they want to stay on the team.  If you find yourself at the Resort near the end of the dry season, don't be surprised to be startled out of your hammock by what seems to be Bobby Knight on a motivational tirade (without the profanity of course): "Sweat it out!  Come on, this is the last stretch!  Finish line's in sight!  It's the fourth quarter, baby!  You're Eric Dickerson, not LeBron James...Mr. 4th Quarter, not 75 Cents!  You gotta keep goin' - rain's coming soon!  This is what you've been training for your whole life!  Now show these guests what kind of photosynthetically efficient, water-conserving, drought-tolerant monster you are!"  Pay no mind, it's just me - an impassioned botanical coach inspiring his team of plants to sweet summertime victory.


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

In The Keys, No Showers Needed To Bring Spring Flowers

It is said in the Keys that fall is spring and spring is fall.  Trees such as the mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni) and gumbo-limbo (Bursera simaruba) are dropping their leaves now, not due to cold temperatures, but a seasonal lack of rainfall during the winter/spring months, which has been especially lacking this year (I believe it has only rained thrice in the past three months I have been down here).  Dropping leaves limits a plant's water loss because transpiration occurs primarily through stomata in the leaves.  However, no small number of plants are always to be found in bloom in the Gardens here at Kona Kai, even while the mahogany and gumbo-limbo are shedding their leaves to limit water loss.  It's much different from up north in temperate regions, where seasons are more delimited, most plants do not flower in fall and the dead of winter, and the majority of plants in the landscape lose their leaves for almost half the year; I'm still trying to figure things out down here with regards to flowering/fruiting/leaf-drop patterns.

If you have ever been to the Keys, you might understand that the phrase "dead of winter" doesn't exactly apply here and that flowering in the winter months can occur in a number of plants, despite the fact that there is a shortage of water during this time.  It seems as though there has been an increase in the number of plants in bloom around the property in the past few weeks, likely in anticipation of the rains which usually fall with greater frequency in the summer and fall months.  If plants complete their flowering in the next couple months, then they will begin developing fruit, a process requiring elevated amounts of water, in months when rain is more plentiful.  Many plants on the property also come from other regions of the world and when plants are moved from their home ranges to different latitudes, their original flowering/fruiting patterns do not change dramatically, so some of the plants in bloom now might be used to flowering in the spring months in their native range, even though this time might not be an ideal time for flowering in the Keys.

Photo on left - Plumeria alba (frangipani), photo on right - Strelitzia reginae (bird-of-paradise).

I recently traversed the Gardens armed with a point-and-shoot digital camera to document some of the springtime beauty at Kona Kai.  From the pictures taken (some of which are included in this post for those who do not have Facebook), Gardens Director/Owner Joe Harris put together a photo album for Facebook in celebration of spring, which you can check out by following this link: Spring Flowers at Kona Kai.  I was new to the camera and as many of you may know, the auto-focus feature on many point-and-shoot cameras is by no means perfect.  It seems like every time I want to take a picture of something, the camera finds a way to focus on anything but the subject of the photo, seeming to think that I can't possibly want to take a picture of the beautiful flowers dominating most of the screen, and that I must certainly mean to focus on obscure objects far in the distance.  So, instead of an excellent, sharply-focused close-up picture of an orchid flower, I find that I have a picture that looks like an orchid flower jumped in front of the lens at the last minute like an obnoxious child ruining a photo just as I was snapping a picture of a piece of potting soil in the distance.  For his own reasons, Joe chose to include some of my out-of-focus masterpieces in the album, which doesn't bode too well for upholding my Ansel-Adams-level reputation as a photographer, but perhaps it will start a new movement in photography, starting with my own first exhibit, which I'll call something like "Flowers Through The Eyes of Great-grandparents Sans Spectacles."

Photo on left - inflorescence of an unidentified bromeliad, photo on right - Bougainvillea spectabilis (paper-flower).


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

The Everglades and Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

Ok, so more catching-up to do.  Early this past week I drove up to Sarasota with Ethan to visit the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, which specializes in epiphytes, such as orchids, bromeliads, and air plants (tillandsias).  Driving through the Everglades and Big Cypress National Preserve on the way there was certainly a neat experience.  The land is very flat but there is so much life and beauty in the landscape if one takes the time to look (often from a new perspective); unfortunately, much of this goes unseen to cars speeding by.  Upon arrival at Selby, Tom Buchter, who worked for six years as the Director of Horticulture at the Holden Arboretum and is currently the CEO of Selby Gardens, greeted us.  He gave us a great introduction to the Gardens and saw that we were well taken care of during our stay by arranging time for us with a number of different staff.  We learned all about orchids from Angel Lara, the greenhouse manager; Laurie Birch showed us how plant records are kept and how plants are inventoried; and Bruce Holst, the Director of Research and Collections, gave us a tour of the herbarium (a collection of pressed identified plants) and spirit collection.  The spirit collection is quite interesting because it consists of hundreds of glass bottles containing mostly orchid flowers that are preserved in a mix of alcohol, water, and glycerin.  This is useful because making classic pressed herbarium specimens squashes all parts of a specimen from 3D to 2D.  The staff were all extremely knowledgeable and kind; they have a beautiful place in Selby Gardens, and if you are in the area and have some time, I would highly recommend stopping by.  The trip provided me with a lot of ideas for the Gardens here at Kona Kai, including the development of labels and signs for our collections, care for our orchids, resources for plant information, and the possibility of developing a small herbarium.

Rick Hederstrom

Associate Director