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Word from the Smokies: How Oconee bells created a 200-year wild botanical goose chase Frances Figart © Courtesy of Jim and Leslie Costa French botanist André Michaux failed to clearly record the location where he first found Oconee bells (Shortia galacifolia), creating a two-centuries-long search before the plant could be officially discovered and documented in its native habitat. This is the time of year when visitors flock to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to see a plethora of wildflowers such as bloodroot, hepatica, phlox, rue-anemone, spring-beauty, trillium, trou...

Nature News: Crumpled rag lichens grow high in the forest Susan Pike I took a rather harrowing walk out back on Sunday. Snow squalls were threatening and the wind was tossing the tops of the giant spruce, hemlock and pine back and forth.  Occasionally branches would crash down. This is the time of year when some of our more subtle neighbors, the lichens, really stand out ... often they are the only hints of color against the snow, gray rocks and monochrome tree trunks. Raining down along with the pine and spruce branches came one of my favorite lichens - the crumpled rag lichen (Platismat...

When Hernando Cortes brought his army to Mexico in 1552, he was looking for more than Montezuma’s gold. The most durable treasure carried back to Europe by the conquistadores was plants. The invaders ransacked Montezuma’s famous gardens, in search of new varieties of vegetation that could feed their people back home. Crop failures and food shortages were a regular feature of European life at that time, and anyone who could allay those inconveniences would be rewarded. The Mexican marigold (Tagetes lemmonii) was one of those plants. Along with potatoes, peppers and corn, it went to E...

The War That Never Was: Evolution and Christian Theology, by Catholic philosopher Kenneth W. Kemp, charts the recent history and arguments that brought about this peculiar paradigm, in which many in the West came to view science and religion as diametrically opposed. As Kemp skillfully argues, much of this conflict has more to do with scientists and the faithful overstepping their respective authority or expertise, by believing that science (or the Bible) answer questions they are not capable of answering. He writes: [T]he ideas of creation and evolution are answers to fundamentally different...

The history of many things on the Monterey Peninsula is wound up with the legend of Hotel Del Monte, one of the most luxurious resorts in America for 62 years, starting in 1880. Our tourism industry, golf courses and tradition of conservation can all be traced back to the development of Del Monte, whose splendor included a 20,000-acre private pine forest. It would seem that the timeline ended when the resort was commandeered during World War II and stowed away behind the guarded perimeter of what became the Naval Postgraduate School. But in truth the Del Monte Hotel never really went away. Gu...