Photo of the Day: Bottle Palm, Phipps Conservatory, Pittsburgh PA

Much like the last decade, 2019 contained a multitude of moments of unsurpassed personal ugliness. But I could not say goodbye to the past year without taking note of beauty that went against the grain. 

That beauty was physical rather than emotional, in the form of the species popularly known as the “Bottle Palm.” But any group that can maintain this and the other specimens on display at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh can’t be all bad.

(For more on the conservatory, a gem of the city of Pittsburgh, please see this prior post of mine.)

Photo of the Day: Mexican Palm, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY

No, the formal name of the plant you see here is not “Mexican palm.” But really, are you going to read a headline with “Chamaedorea glaucifolia” in it?

Didn’t think so. But this plant does come from Mexico—a Mexican rainforest, actually. 

This slender palm can range up to 5 meters tall. It thrives in warm, sheltered and moist cultures.

This was part of my trip a few weeks ago to the New York Botanical Garden. This doesn’t even begin to exhaust the variety of different plant life I found there when I visited last month.