Native Plants at BBG
In 2011, in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the Native Flora Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden celebrates native plants. This yearlong tribute underscores the vital importance of plant conservation and offers practical ways for gardeners to renew and invigorate their local environments.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Native Flora Garden was laid out in 1911 by landscape architect Harold Caparn and the Garden’s first curator of plants, Norman Taylor, who selected for the garden a diverse collection of plants that grow within 100 miles of New York City. Today, visitors to BBG’s Native Flora Garden can roam through a miniature wilderness that displays an array of plant communities arranged by ecological habitat. As a century of urbanization and industrialization has made Brooklyn a metropolis, the Native Flora Garden provides visitors with a rare opportunity to witness New York’s many distinctive natural habitats and the biodiversity they support.
Fieldwork for Native Flora
BBG and the Greenbelt Native Plant Center often partner for joint scouting and seed collection trips to natural areas within the metropolitan region of New York City. Recently we headed to Harriman State Park on an expedition to find Carex appalachica (Appalachian sedge).
