The Garden’s Love for Arizona

February 10, 2021

The Garden’s love for AZ Garden researchers travel the world to study desert plants and their environments, but their greatest love is for what is right in their backyard. The Garden’s mission focuses on “desert plants of the world with emphasis on the...

Celebrating Black History Month | Marie Clark Taylor

February 8, 2021

Marie Clark Taylor (1911-1990) Marie Clark Taylor was the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D in botany from Fordham University. She also served as the department head at Howard University for many years. During her career, Taylor created science institutes...

A Backstop to Extinction

January 26, 2021

This article ran in the Winter 2019 Sonoran Quarterly issue Those infatuated with the Sonoran Desert recall the allure of towering saguaros, the herbal smell of creosote and verdant trunks of palo verde trees. The unfortunate truth is that this fragile biodiversity is...

Urban landscaping for a cooler future

January 13, 2021

The heat island effect is extreme in the arid Southwest and are poised to increase in intensity due to population growth and climate change. With collaborators at the School of Earth Sciences and the Environment at Arizona State University, the DPEL is combining...

Plant responses to heat stress