Botanical Research Institute of Texas Announces 2012 Ian Leese Fellowship in Horticulture Recipient

Megan Proska, long-time BRIT volunteer and graduating senior of Texas A & M University, selected for summer internship at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK.

Fort Worth, TX (PRWEB) May 08, 2012

The Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) announced today that Megan Proska of Fort Worth, Texas, is the 2012 recipient of BRIT’s annual Ian Leese Fellowship in Horticulture. Proska will work and study at the renowned Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK, for a three-month period from July through September 2012.

Megan will participate in Kew’s Voluntary Horticultural Internship Program where she will be assigned to Kew’s Great Glasshouses and Training Section. She will provide plant maintenance in the Tropical Nursery while furthering her botanical studies.

World's first night-flowering orchid is discovered

Botanists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis have described the first night-flowering orchid known to science on the island of New Britain, near Papua New Guinea.

For one night only

Bulbophyllum nocturnum, from the island of New Britain near Papua New Guinea, is the first known example of an orchid species with flowers that consistently open after dark and close in the morning. Its flowers last one night only. The discovery is published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

"…it is a race against time to find species like this that only occur in primeval tropical forests. As we all know, such forests are disappearing fast.
Kew orchid specialist, André Schuiteman"

There are only a relatively small number of plant species that have flowers which open at night and close during the day. Up until now, no orchids were known to be among them, despite the fact that many orchids are pollinated by moths. However, these moth-pollinated orchids all have flowers that remain open during the day, even if they are mainly pollinated after dark.

Read full article: Kew Royal Botanical Garden