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 […]
MARCH 2020 NEWSLETTER: One of the great joys of all palm lovers is visiting palms in habitat. This is why the International Palm Society Biennial meetings are so memorable. This exhilaration clearly resonates with our mandate of palm and habitat preservation. The Southern California desert hosts the only palm native to the western United States […]
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 […]
Did you know that you can support the International Palm Society every time you shop on Amazon? Through Amazon’s charitable giving program, AmazonSmile, you can select the IPS as your designated charity, and Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchase prices to the IPS. If you shop on Amazon (and don’t we all?), why not […]
Before we had a Journal … In January 1956 shortly after the establishment of the Palm Society in 1955, our founder, Dent Smith, prepared the first part of a Bulletin that was circulated to all subscribing and prospective members. The Bulletin was mimeographed on 8½ by 11 in. paper, simply stapled in one corner. The […]
The following notes from Endowment Award recipients illustrate some of the progress made in palm research, education and conservation with support from the IPS. Dr. Roxaneh S. Khorsand, Department of Biology, University of Northern Colorado, USA. “While I was a graduate student, I had support from the IPS to study the reproductive biology of Mauritia […]