Bright Heather. Ceratostema silvicola, Woodsy Horned-Stamen, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York, NY, USA
Ynes Enriquetta Julietta Mexia (1870-1938) was a versatile and highly energetic botanist. She'd started out her career as a poultry farmer, then became a social worker on the West Coast of the USA where she found her avocation as a lover of plants. Though she failed taking a degree, she was soon avidly collecting plants and exploring in Central and South America. Notably she was also an anthropologist of sorts, living for a number of months with the Peruvian Aguarunas of the Amazon. But always collecting and sending home to the USA her finds many of which ended up in the U.S. National Herbarium.
On April 20, 1935 Mexia found this amazing Ceratostema silvicola - more or less translating to Woodsy Horned-Stamen - a member of the Heather family in Napo-Pastaza, Ecuador. It was first fully described by Albert Charles Smith (1906-1999) in 1950. The genus had already been given its name by Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1830) in 1789. It has been said that our plant is of 'little economic importance'; regardless, today in Amsterdam's glum weather it is a happy reminder of Brightness.
Bright Heather. Ceratostema silvicola, Woodsy Horned-Stamen, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York, NY, USA
Ynes Enriquetta Julietta Mexia (1870-1938) was a versatile and highly energetic botanist. She'd started out her career as a poultry farmer, then became a social worker on the West Coast of the USA where she found her avocation as a lover of plants. Though she failed taking a degree, she was soon avidly collecting plants and exploring in Central and South America. Notably she was also an anthropologist of sorts, living for a number of months with the Peruvian Aguarunas of the Amazon. But always collecting and sending home to the USA her finds many of which ended up in the U.S. National Herbarium.
On April 20, 1935 Mexia found this amazing Ceratostema silvicola - more or less translating to Woodsy Horned-Stamen - a member of the Heather family in Napo-Pastaza, Ecuador. It was first fully described by Albert Charles Smith (1906-1999) in 1950. The genus had already been given its name by Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1830) in 1789. It has been said that our plant is of 'little economic importance'; regardless, today in Amsterdam's glum weather it is a happy reminder of Brightness.