Life Sciences Commons^™

Gender And Species Use In Amazonian Home Gardens: The Social And Economic Context Of Biodiversity Conservation, Leigh Ann West, David S. Salisbury, Ana I. Ríos-Sanchez, Jorge Vela Alvarado

Geography and the Environment Poster Presentations

Home gardens, “the peridomestic area belonging to the household where members plant and/or tend useful plants” (Perrault-Archambault and Coomes 2008), are found throughout the world. However, their use and importance vary from region to region. In the Peruvian Amazon, owners use home gardens for a domestic supply of foods, craft materials, medicines, condiments, and shade (Miller and Nair 2006). With this wide range in function, reflected in species content, home gardens are very biodiverse.

Home garden biodiversity may be increasingly important in a rapidly changing Amazonia (Betts et al. 2008). Thus, the sociocultural and economic factors contributing to home garden …

Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover: The Curious Case Of Wild Ginger Pollination, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

What pollinates wild ginger? This seems like an easy question. The inconspicuous little flowers are held close to the forest floor, often completely hidden by a dense canopy of ginger leaves above. Flower color is rather drab, dominated by brown and maroon hues. Wind pollination seems completely unlikely and flowers pollinated by bees, butterflies, moths, or hummingbirds are always much more showy and accessible to these flying creatures. Flies, however, given their natural inclination to seek carrion as a food source for their babies (i.e. maggots), are often attracted to brown and maroon flowers. And because their actual quarry, animal …

2010 Wildflower Of The Year: Wild Ginger, Asarum Canadense, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

Wild ginger is a low herbaceous plant. The stem consists of a branched creeping rhizome at or just below the soil surface. Soft-hairy leaves arise in pairs annually from rhizome branches. Petioles can be up to 20 cm long, elevating the 7—25 mm wide kidney-shaped leaf blades above the forest floor. Small flowers appear in the spring shortly after the leaves have expanded. Typically, one must push the leaves aside in order to glimpse the jug-like flowers. A single flower stalk appears between the paired leaf bases, but it is short and barely lifts the flower above the soil surface. …