Palms appear everywhere these days in art, logos, and advertisements, usually as a symbol of exotic, far-away places, but what do they mean when they appear on symbols of state? Official seals, emblems and coats of arms are the heraldic representations of nations. They are typically chockablock with symbols that evoke the country’s political or […]
The International Palm Society held it’s third free webinar last week. Thanks to the amazing support out of Colombia, over 400 people registered to listen in on The Palms of Colombia with Dr. Rodrigo Bernal – making it our most popular one yet!. Dr. Rodrigo Bernal has studied and grown palms for most of his […]
The International Palm Society held it’s second free webinar last week. Over 200 people registered to listen in on The Palms of Cuba with Paul Craft. Paul Craft is a horticultural consultant with over 40 years of experience in the nursery, landscaping, and landscape design industry. Palms are his passion, having worked with over 1500 species […]
Last week The International Palm Society invited you to our first free webinar. Over 150 people registered to listen in as palm expert Jason Dewees presented a slide talk about designing gardens with palms, showing examples of spectacular, well-designed landscapes from Hawai’i, California, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, all beautifully photographed by Caitlin Atkinson. If you […]
Date palms are littered throughout the central Florida landscape. While not native, they are certainly ubiquitous and have adapted well to Florida’s climate. I’ve often wondered how the original specimens were introduced. Perhaps it was a plant pioneer like David Fairchild or Henry Nehrling. These palms certainly occupy an important part of Florida’s landscape, particularly […]
The IPS supports palm education, research and conservation. Through grants to individuals from the Endowment Fund, the IPS furthers education and research-based conservation. You can read about some of our grant recipients by clicking here. #GivingTuesday While the IPS runs fundraising all year, #GivingTuesday is a special one for us. #GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement, unleashing […]
If you are truly interested in conservation, then chose to protect one of our most unique plant species, the genus Pritchardia. If you think that coconut palms, kukui, bananas, taro and ti are natives and seem to grow easily, then it is time to rethink! These plants are alien, non native species brought to Hawaii […]
The Apalachicola River basin is one of the most biologically diverse regions in the United States. It’s also where I spent part of my childhood; now that I have my own kids, I relish every chance I get to both visit family and share this biological gem with my wife and boys. The 4th of […]
One of the cruel ironies of the Tropics is that the soils that support magnificent rainforests are notoriously infertile. If tropical soils are so nutrient-poor, how can they support such diverse, towering forests? The paradox of rich and complex forests growing on infertile land was not resolved until the mid-twentieth century, when ecologists shed light […]
In 2016 myself and my Vietnamese collaborator, Dr. Nguyen Quoc Dung, received a grant from the International Palm Society. Part of the grant was to record one of our palm collecting trips along the Ho Chi Minh Highway in Vietnam. This relatively recent highway connects Hanoi in the north to Ho Chi Minh City in […]