The Missouri Botanical Garden, known for its horticultural display and scientific research, is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Making it the nation’s oldest botanical garden in continous operation, it opened to the public in St. Louis on June 15, 1859.
The garden continues to be a center for botanical research and science education, offering 79 acres of horticultural display and Henry Shaw’s original 1850 estate home.
Shaw, who wanted to give a gift to
St. Louis, retired a wealthy man before the age of 40 thanks to a successful business selling hardware and cutlery on the Mississippi River. Inspired by the great gardens found around Europe at the time, Shaw decided to include a herbarium, or collection of botanical specimens, in his
botanical garden.
Today, the Missouri Botanical Garden operates one of the three largest plant-science programs in the world, with researchers in 36 countries, spanning six continents. Its herbarium contains more than six million specimens of mosses, ferns, gymnosperms, and flowering plants, with some specimens dating from the middle of the 18th century.
Worldwide Discoveries
Peter Raven, described by Time magazine as a “Hero for the Planet” is the president of the Missouri Botanical Garden. He champions research to preserve endangered plants and is an advocate for conservation and sustainable living.
“We have a staff of more than 40 Ph.D.’s doing research on plants all over the world, with concentrations on the northern Andes, Central America, Madagascar, Africa, and Vietnam,” Raven says. “Our knowledge of plant diversity will be increasingly important in informing decisions in plant cellular and molecular biology.”
Raven says the diversity of the garden’s work is fundamental to understanding the basic physiological and development processes of plants and improving them.
Advancing Plant Science
The William L. Brown Center for Plant Genetic Resources at the garden is dedicated to the study of useful plants, understanding the relationships between humans, plants, and their environment, and the conservation of plants for future generations.
There are about 10,000 species of edible plants, for example, yet only about 100 species make up the vast majority of the world’s food supply, says Rainer Bussmann, director of the center. He adds that nature’s bountiful diversity has barely been tapped for potential alternative crops that could help improve today’s important food plants.
Close to one third of modern prescription medicines contain a plant-derived ingredient, Bussmann says. Yet only a tiny fraction of the 250,000 or more known plant species have been evaluated with modern methods for potential use. Plus, most of the plant species that have been studied have been tested against only a few diseases.
Cataloging Plant Species
Bussmann describes the Missouri Botanical Garden as a reference library. “Without our collection, it would be much harder to identify plants,” Bussmann says.
Botanists from the Missouri Botanical Garden recently discovered a plant in Peru that is very efficient at breaking down kidney stones. Bussmann says there are around 35 related species, but only two of the plants work for breaking down kidney stones.
“The only way to make sure that whatever pharmacological company or any herbal company uses is the correct plant would be to compare the material they got to our collection to make sure they have the right plant,” Bussmann says, adding that he often sees plants that are bought and sold, often on the Internet, that are not the right ones.
“This is of course is very dangerous for the consumer,” Bussmann says.
Promoting Conservation
The Missouri Botanical Garden strives to apply the knowledge of plant diversity it has accumulated over the years. “We are able to pull everything together and use that information to try and understand why certain areas, for example, are richer than others in plants,” says Olga Martha Montiel, vice president for conservation and sustainable development at the garden. “That is one of the basic questions we are asking.”
In addition to studying plants from around the world, the garden has started a Midwest conservation program. Montiel says there are currently around 30 plant species that are endangered in the region. “We collect seeds of those species and then we are conducting tests in labs to try to understand how the species are growing,” she says.
“We are also doing population studies to understand why species grow in a given area and why they do not grow in other areas.” The Missouri Botanical Garden is working in collaboration with Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis to study the plant species from the Midwest.
Missouri Botanical Garden collaborates
with Sequoia Sciences
The Missouri Botanical Garden is collaborating with Sequoia Sciences to discover new plant compounds that can be used to fight infections that are difficult to treat.
The garden first started supplying plant material to Sequoia Sciences last decade. The collaboration between the two was one of the main reasons why the firm decided to move from San Diego to St. Louis in 2006, says Rainer Bussmann, director of the William L. Brown Center for Plant Genetic Resources at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
The research is timely because of the recent ecoli outbreaks that have threatened the nation’s food supply and the spreading of multi-resistant staff infections, Bussmann says. “This is very important research for our country,” he says. “We are trying to find plant compounds that we can use to treat infections that are very hard to treat otherwise.”
Sequoia Sciences is now embarking on pre-clinical development programs.
