Thanks to Bert and Betty Feingold, generous donors and Desert Botanical Garden members since 1983, the Garden’s research, conservation and collections staff were able to make three expeditions in 2023 to the Arizona Strip, San Luis Potosi, Mexico and Puerto Rico.
During these trips, researchers were able to help the Garden advance its goal to build the most complete collections of the cactus and agave families. The three trips, funded by the Feingolds, allowed the Garden to strengthen collaborations in Mexico and establish new contacts in Puerto Rico.
In addition to finding and collecting more than 450 herbarium specimens, 260 tissue samples for DNA and more than 160 seed packages and live plants, researchers also garnered new knowledge to support the International Union for Conservation of Nature conservation assessments of Caribbean agaves.
The Feingolds also funded expeditions to Central Mexico in 2019 and to Durango, Mexico in 2021.
As part of the Garden’s Strategic Plan, researchers have added new species of cactus and agave to the Living Collections. That involved a collecting expedition through the states of Guanajuato, Queretaro and Michoacan, Mexico. The research trip was a collaboration with staff from Instituto de Biologia and the Botanical Garden UNAM in Mexico City.
In August of 2021, five Garden botanists joined staff from Herbarium CIIDIR in Durango for a 20 day joint-collecting expedition. The team visited the cen20-daytral, eastern and northern municipalities of the state of Durango and collected more than 200 specimens of Cactaceae and Agavaceae in areas with desert scrub, tropical deciduous forest and pine forest.
