Science in the Garden

I enjoyed reading this week's New York Times' editorial regarding the New York Botanical Garden merging with scientific interests. Will universities and botanical gardens around the world find symbionic common ground?

Twenty years ago, the future of the botanical garden was anybody's guess. It could have settled into being a pleasant afternoon outing, a slightly dowdy botanical experience. Instead, it has become what no one quite expected — one of the leading institutions in plant science — and it has done so in a way that has only enhanced the public's enjoyment. Seeing the science behind the garden makes the rest of the garden, the living collections we know so well, seem all the more remarkable.

But the dynamic of scientific research at the botanical garden will change with the official opening tomorrow of the Pfizer
Plant Research Laboratory, which will house programs in molecular systematics and genomics.

Read more about the dynamics of horticulture and science.