Saturday, May 28, 2022

GardenDC Podcast Episode 106: Ancient Plants

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Richard Olsen, director of the U.S. National Arboretum, all about Ancient Plants. The plant profile is on the Gladiolus and we share what's going on in the garden as well as some upcoming local gardening events.


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Show Notes: 1:19 Meet Dr. Richard Olsen, director of the U.S. National Arboretum! 2:17 Dr. Olsen talks about gardening as a child in Wisconsin and North Carolina 4:33 Working outside over sitting in an office at a desk as a career 6:03 PhD in plant breeding 8:06 Joined the USNA directly out of PhD program 10:00 Dr. Olsen explains growing meadow plants in his home garden with prairie like environment 14:27 Some mosses, grasses, etc have been around for 500 million years 14:37 Ferns are some of the earliest vascular plants 15:37 Cycads are one of the earlier families that are still extensive in gardens today 17:57 Ginkgo trees are an early seed plant that saw its peak 150 million years ago that is now relegated to one species 19:09 Cycads and Ginkgos are primitive and intertwined in our earth’s biological history 20:42 Extinction of Ginkgo in Northern Hemisphere from last Ice Age 23:00 “Stinky ginkgo” 24:03 Paleobotany: study of ancient plants 24:55 Pollen stays well-preserved in fossils, while other parts of plants fall away 25:20 “Potomac Group” is one of the most important historic fossil records 26:00 Genus of angiosperm named “Anacostia marylandensis” after this area 27:00 Evolution of conifers 28:30 Waterlilies are from a lineage dating back to the dawn of flowering plants 32:28 Chloranthus has 14 species only found in East Asia but the Arboretum houses some! 33:40 Chloranthus lineage unclear 35:01 Magnolias are also an ancient family with pollination structure based on beetles 37:30 Calycanthus aka Sweet Betsy is also considered an early angiosperm 38:24 Dinosaur-themed gardens 40:20 Boxwood family is very primitive 42:05 U.S. National Arboretum as a research institute with long history of plant breeding 44:10 29,000 accession plants at the USNA 45:05 Visitors are important and valued to the USNA community 45:50 700,000 visitors per year 47:58 Get in touch with the U.S. National Arboretum through their website and with Dr. Olsen via email or call the front desk! 49:24 Learn all about gladiolas in this week’s plant profile! 50:41 New this week in the garden: lots of rain, strawberry harvesting, flowers on the snap peas, thornless blackberries are abundant, self-sowing zinnias and celosias, peony blooms, cutting flowers, and more! 52:08 Summer garden reading recommendations 53:33 Local garden events: Valley View Farm Q&A Garden Book Party, Patuxent Nursery talk by Kathy Jentz If you liked this episode, you may also enjoy listening to: ~ GardenDC Podcast Episode 85: Camellias https://washingtongardener.blogspot.com/2021/12/gardendc-podcast-episode-85-camellias.html ~ GardenDC Podcast Episode 94: Magnolias https://washingtongardener.blogspot.com/2022/03/gardendc-podcast-episode-94-magnolias.html

We welcome your questions and comments! You can leave a voice mail message for us at: https://anchor.fm/gardendc/message Note that we may use these messages on a future episode.

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Episode Credits:
Host and Producer: Kathy Jentz
Show Notes: Tori Vandergriff

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