Month: May 2009

If you feed them nectar, they will probably come. And if you are like many — if not most — of us, you will be enchanted by the antics of the tiniest of birds. Hummingbirds have been buzzing around St. Louis during the past month.

The ruby-throated hummingbird is the only hummer that nests in Missouri.

It is neither the biggest nor smallest of these American natives. But considering that it weighs in at about 3 grams (1/10 of an ounce), and is about the length of a finger, you won’t easily spot one unless it is sipping nectar from something close to you.

 

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This article was originally published in the St. Louis Beacon.

Madagascar. Far-away and exotic. Home of the lemur and the baobab tree. And desperately poor.

“It’s a race against the clock,” Armand Randrianasolo said when describing Missouri Botanical Garden’s research program in Madagascar. Only about 10 percent of Madagascar’s original habitat remains intact with more forests being destroyed all the time. As a result, many of the estimated 13,000-14,000 species of native plants may become extinct before they have even been identified.

 

Read the entire article (1MB PDF).
This article was originally published in the St. Louis Beacon.