Local author and Hoyt Arboretum neighbor Phyllis Reynolds will be interviewing Hoyt Arboretum’s staff over the coming weeks to introduce you to the people who make up Hoyt Arboretum’s team. This week, we’d like to introduce you to Anna Goldrich, Executive Director at Hoyt Arboretum Friends since 2017. A native of Eugene, Oregon, Anna spent … Read more
The Nature Equity Educator position was created to help Hoyt Arboretum provide more programmatic opportunities to communities throughout the Portland metro area. In the past few years, our youth education programs have reached students across the region and the most recent Nature Equity Educator role has expanded that work. With the help of people like … Read more
Inequities run deep in the natural sciences, and it’s apparent in the racist and xenophobic nomenclature of some trees and plants. Even within the last 30 years, anti-Black slurs were commonly used to describe plants. There are many examples, including Echinocactus polycephalus and Bertholletia excelsa (Brazil nuts), that carry ugly colloquial names that only recently … Read more
Today. Right now. Or within the next two weeks or so (early August), we have a couple of marvelous examples of Malvaceae (the mallow family) in bloom for you to examine and enjoy at Hoyt Arboretum! The Malvaceae includes well-known showy flowers such as hibiscus, hollyhocks, and checkerblooms, a few weedy members like velvetleaf and … Read more
Why can’t we just use common names for all plants? Wait a minute… We often do use common names for plants here at Hoyt Arboretum! If you are a hiker, gardener, or just a general lover of plants, using common names for most plants is totally fine and appropriate. Really, there is no plant shaming … Read more