For the first time in decades, the Missouri Botanical Garden’s extensive arid plant collection is on display for the public in the newly-opened Arid House.
What are arid plants?
Arid plants are plants that have adapted to survive climates with little water. This includes cacti and other succulents. Arid ecosystems and the plants that inhabit them cover a third of the earth’s surface.
What’s unique about the garden’s collection?
Arid plants have been a key part of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s living collection for more than 150 years.
George Engelmann, the Garden’s first scientific advisor, described and named species of arid plants, and willed his plant collection to the Garden. Dr. William Trelease, who became the Director of the Garden in 1889, published many papers on desert plants, including yucca and agave.
The arid collection was displayed in the Desert House, which opened in 1913, until its closing due to disrepair in 1994. The arid plant collection was then moved to the Garden’s greenhouse.
Creating an arid House
Peculiar plants with a distinct appearance, cacti fascinate plant enthusiasts around the world, including Garden visitors. Since the Desert House closed in 1994, visitors continue to ask when the collection will return to the public eye. The Garden has displayed some arid plants in the Linnean House on and off over the years. But the only way to display the entire, expansive collection is in a dedicated conservatory.
The Garden decided to convert the Shoenberg Temperate House into the Shoenberg Arid House. This is the glass conservatory just north of the Climatron. It is connected to the Climatron through the Brookings Exploration Center.
How did the temperate house become the Arid House?
Garden staff spent countless hours converting the Temperate House to the Arid House over the course of three years. Labor included increasing rainwater capacity, adding new irrigation and grow lights, digging out soil to replace with a custom mix, designing the landscape and of course moving plants.
In addition to physical labor, the team spent much time contemplating landscaping design. They evaluated the collection and sorted plants into habitat groups. Staff created drawings to illustrate what the plants would look like together. Staff first physically placed most of the plants in the landscape and then evaluated for visual appeal.
what are some unique plant species that will be on display in the arid house?
The Arid House is one of the Garden’s most botanically diverse displays concentrated in a small area. Visitors can see many unique and interesting plants. A few special species in the Arid House include:
- Karomia gigas: One of the world’s rarest trees, fewer than two dozen Karomia gigas are left in the wild in its native Tanzania. The Garden has been working to save this species from extinction, and first saw it flower in 2021. This will be the first time this plant, a member of the mint family that can grow up to 80 feet tall, is on public display anywhere in the world.
- Welwitschia mirabilis: A botanical oddity that only grows two leaves in entire life, Welwitschia mirabilis can live to be more than 1,000 years old.
- Stapelia: Also known as carrion flowers, stapelia smell like rotting flesh to attract flies and similar pollinators. Several species of foul-smelling stapelia will be on display in the Arid House.
Where are the plants from the temperate house now?
The majority of the Garden’s temperate plant collections are now in the Emerson Conservatory. This Conservatory is climate controlled and houses plants from Mediterranean regions including the Mediterranean, South Africa, California, and Australia.
Catherine Martin
Senior Public Information Officer
Many thanks to Ben Thomas, Supervisor of Arid Plant Collections, Charling Chen, Landscape Design Manager, and Andrew Wyatt, Senior Vice President of Horticulture and Living Collections for providing information for this blog post.lture & Living Collections
Leave a Reply