Carnivorous Plants - Kew Gardens

The quiet streets of Kew.

I had initially planned to begin my trip here but after scheduling conflicts, Kew now serves as a fitting conclusion to my journey of discovery. As perhaps the largest and most diverse single collection of plant species and specimens in the world, Kew has played an important role in the history of botany and carnivorous plants. Upon arriving at Kew Station, a short 30-minute train ride from my hostel to the outskirts of London, I walked over to the renowned garden’s main entrance. My first encounter with carnivorous plants at Kew was actually in their visitor's shop, strategically located at the entrance/exit area. Unlike the wild types on display, the plants for sale here have been bred to exaggerate their most interesting features (large traps, bright red streaks, etc.). But as I had found with the displays at Down and Cambridge, the very things that make them desirable as novelty purchases often lead to a premature demise. Signs warn against attempting to touch or feed the plants, as too much contact inevitably kills them. Kids convince their parents to buy them a cool living souvenir, but proceeding to poke and prod the plants’ sensitive traps, their new plaything rarely lasts long (I myself was admittedly guilty of this not too long ago).

I spent the entire first day of my visit exploring Kew’s most famous greenhouses. As one of The Royal Botanic Gardens ”Crown Jewels,” the towering two-story Palm House seems to come right out of a Victorian picture book; a massive glass structure bordered by a carefully manicured rose garden on one side and a flock of geese relaxing in a picturesque pond on the other. I was transported from a slightly brisk and cloudy afternoon to a tropical jungle with thick columns of vegetation towering above the meandering visitors. The Temperate House was even more gorgeous, with several interconnected glass wings and an ongoing blown glass exhibition by the artist Chihuly seamlessly merging with both the architecture and vegetation. It is also home to a new exhibit on the trade of rare plants on the black market, and Kew’s role in plant conservation. They remain deeply involved in preventing the illegal trading of plants (including those of the carnivorous variety) in England; working to examine, identify and occasionally adopt plants smuggled into the country (usually bound for elsewhere in Europe). They are also attempting to sequence the genomes of all tropical pitcher plants (Nepenthes) to better understand and protect endangered species’ natural habitats. Although carnivorous plants were front and center for this exhibit, the permanent carnivorous displays (some of the largest in the world) are held in two separate rooms of the Princess of Wales Conservatory; one for cool, temperate plants and one for those of the warm, tropical variety (almost exclusively Nepenthes). The cool room houses the most diverse display, with butterworts, temperate pitcher plants, sundews, and of course a number of Venus Fly-traps lining the glass walls.

The Palm House

Temperate House

Commonly smuggled plants

The Princess of Wales Conservatory - Warm Carnivorous Plants Room 

The temperate exhibit also expands upon and challenges common ideas about plant carnivory, including plants that employ a range of chemical and physical defense mechanisms to kill pests, but without a means to extract nutrients from their prey (unless you count them as soil fertilizer). Spending what probably seemed like an oddly long time in these rooms, I overheard plenty of interesting conversations about these plants (not in a creepy way, I promise)! Whether it was adults explaining how these plants work to their children, or more often vice versa, it was great to get exposure to the almost universal fascination with these plants amongst the many ages, languages, and backgrounds trickling through the exhibits. It was also interesting to hear some recurring myths about these plants, some of which were almost exactly the same as those addressed by Hooker in his speech nearly 150 years prior. For example, the idea that the lids of pitcher plants act in the same way as a Venus Fly-trap’s snap trap, tightly encasing prey in the digestion chamber. Of course, we now know this isn’t the case, and these are actually passive pitfall traps; but appearances can be deceiving, and it was so cool to see the same idea pop up in such different contexts.

A small sample of the collection.

Darlingtonia californica

Of the materials I checked out in the Kew Archive the one that stuck out most to me was a compilation of publications on plant carnivory by various people and from various sources between 1873-77. This document illustrates the explosion of international scientific work in the years immediately surrounding the publication of Insectivorous Plants. I think one of the most important documents was an address given by Hooker, during his time as director of Kew, to the Dept. of Zoology and Botany of the British Association. Darwin had spoken of his work with Drosera at the Royal Society nearly a decade earlier, and Hooker seemed inspired by his close friends renewed fervor for the subject, incorporating a broad range of historical sources in his speech and pointing towards the importance of future research with these plants. There was also a diverse range of studies on sundews in French, German, Italian, and English, accompanied by illustrations. Additionally, I found an extensive set of watercolor copies of Utricularia (bladderworts), along with a paper first describing the discovery of Darlingtonia californica, the California cobra lily, and some really cutting edge work at the time comparing the electrical impulses of Dionaea muscipula to those found in human muscles. Earlier work with carnivorous plants has been generally more difficult to find, but I’ve had some luck with accounts in early plant encyclopedias in Harvard’s Gray Herbarium Botany Library.

Experiments with Utricularia

1597 illustration of a sundew

After some phone tag and scheduling conflicts, I ended up meeting with Tomas Pickering, the supervisor of the temperate nursery and carnivorous plant aficionado, on my second day at Kew. He showed me around the huge nursery collection, which houses the majority of species at Kew. It is home to many species of both temperate and tropical carnivorous plants, most of which don’t make it to the public displays. Some of the more interesting examples included Nepenthes lowii, a tropical pitcher plant that supplements its carnivorous diet with tree shrew droppings, and Nepenthes hemsleyana, which acts as a highly adapted roost for a specific species of tropical bat. I learned about the great lengths Kew goes to in order to ensure that these specimens are coming from responsible sources, and discussed the ongoing Nepenthes genome sequencing project. Having led many Kew-funded research expeditions to Madagascar, Mr. Pickering was also able to relay a bit about the fascinating myths surrounding a fictional man-eating tree used for human sacrifice by native tribes. Entirely fabricated by colonial Australian explorers in Madagascar, this tale may actually be based on a real-life tree, Pisonia brunoniana, known to ensnare birds in its sticky foliage.

In case my photography of carnivorous plants at Kew isn’t up to scratch, there are some beautiful pics of the nursery collections on his Insta @pickleplants

But carnivorous plants exist beyond laboratory greenhouses and the enthusiasts’ garden as a social phenomenon. From the famous sci-fi musical Little Shop of Horrors to John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids, these plants have enjoyed their share of the limelight. Of the countless organisms we share our planet with, few have permeated the public’s consciousness in the way the Venus Flytrap and its insectivorous brethren have. These plants violate deeply inscribed knowledge about the natural order of the food chain, and that shock factor alone makes them an indispensable tool for the modern greenhouse in engaging with the public interest. This experience has allowed me to better understand the scope of these plants’ impact on botany, and the huge cast of characters involved in global scientific efforts to understand these curious contraptions of nature. But it has also offered a glimpse at their past, present, and future potential to captivate audiences around the world. I look forward to continuing my exploration of something that so perfectly represents the strange and beautiful possibilities of the natural world.

Carnivorous Plants - Down House and Cambridge

Like many areas of evolutionary biology, it’s almost impossible to think about the origins of our study of these plants without turning to Darwin. The publication of his book Insectivorous Plants in 1875 saw the birth of carnivorous plant biology as we understand it today. Criticisms by prominent authorities on botany (i.e. Linneaus) had led to many accounts of plant carnivory being largely dismissed by European scholars. Like most scientists that come into contact with these plants, Darwin was enthralled. After encountering the Venus fly-trap he proclaimed it to be “one of the most wonderful plants in the world.” I explored Darwin’s study of these plants by visiting two sites closely associated with him: Down House (where most of the work that went into Insectivorous Plants took place) and Cambridge University (home of the Darwin Correspondence Project and Christ's College, where Darwin studied as a young man).

Down House - The Darwin family home.

The trip to Downe from central London was a pretty straightforward train and bus ride away. Public transportation has been way more convenient than Boston, in my opinion, and I was lucky enough to enjoy clear blue skies on the trip after an overcast first few days. Before making the short walk from the small bus station to the Darwin family home I wandered around the nearby St. Mary’s church and cemetery, where I found the graves of Darwin’s wife, Emma, along with several of his children and a modest memorial to the man himself. I later found out that Darwin had wished to be buried there, but instead rests in Westminster Abbey at the request of his countrymen. I attended mass at Westminster the following Sunday to check it out.

Specimens from Darwin's work.

The house itself is picturesquely nestled in the countryside, and after entering I took a self-guided audio tour of the estate. Now a property of the English Heritage charity, the house is an eclectic combination of preservation efforts to keep it as similar as possible to its original living conditions, and museum exhibits displaying Darwin manuscripts and family artifacts alongside information on the history of biology.

We know from his correspondence with Hooker at Kew that Darwin’s interest in this peculiar realm of botany began as early as 1860. Darwin’s ”kitchen-sink” style experiments were carried out almost exclusively in his home and personal greenhouse in Down. With an ample indigenous supply, he focused mainly on Drosera rotundifolia. However, the greenhouse now contains a plethora of carnivorous plants from around the world. I was unable to meet with the greenhouse curator, Ray Heaton, in person. But after my visit, we set up a phone call and discussed his decisions to mix the plants Darwin focused on (Sundews - Drosera, Venus Fly-trap - Dionaea muscipula, and bladderworts - Utricularia) alongside many more popular species (like the pitcher plants Nepenthes, Sarracenia, and Cephalotus) to enhance the educational value of the space, and to make it more engaging for visitors. His work with the estate also focuses on recreating some of Darwin’s more DIY experiments for visiting groups, and we even discussed the potential of recreating some of the work with sundews that went into Insectivorous Plants.

Darwin's personal greenhouse.

Following the publication of Insectivorous Plants, there was an explosion of scientific excitement and experimentation with various species. Some of which had been described centuries ago and the nature of their appetites had simply been overlooked, while others were relatively new to European eyes. Darwin certainly didn’t know everything about these plants, but with the use of modern techniques and continued interest in plant carnivory across the scientific community, we now know that many of his speculations have been proven true. His work laid the theoretical foundations for modern botanists to explore these fascinating organisms with technological innovations only now becoming available (genome sequencing, electron microscopes, etc).

Sarracenia display at Cambridge.

After my day in Downe I hopped on a bus up to Cambridge, where I spent some time exploring the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens, the university library’s extensive rare books collection (also home to most of Darwin’s correspondence), and the many historic sites that make up the campus. It was on a slightly overcast but otherwise pleasant day that I went to check out the botanic gardens. Although not quite as exciting as Kew Gardens, which I’ll be talking about in my next post, they are an incredibly peaceful place to spend an afternoon, read a book, and eat a sandwich on a park bench (which is the bulk of what I did). Which pretty much sums up my wanderings there. I was especially excited to find a modest collection of carnivorous plants at the entrance to their greenhouse, which despite ongoing renovations housed some gorgeous tropical species of Nepenthes pictured here.

Nepenthes

The first illustration of a Venus Fly-Trap.

From there it was a short walk to the university library, where I obtained a reader’s card and dove into some of my materials. I was most excited to find John Ellis’ published letter to Linnaeus including the first known illustrated description of the Venus Fly-trap, connecting back to the Ellis letters I had found at the Linnaean Society. Additionally, the bulk of Darwin’s correspondence on insectivorous plants is kept here and can be accessed online through the Darwin Correspondence Project: https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/insectivorous-plants-0

The letters cover Darwin’s communications with a broad range of actors in this 15-year-long saga of blood, sweat, and tears (most of which were fed to his precious plants at one point or another). This cast includes his long-time friend Joseph Dalton Hooker at Kew Gardens, geologist Charles Lyell, and the American botanist Asa Gray at Harvard. His language throughout the letters reveals a man absolutely devoted to the topic at hand. Despite taking several extensive breaks from his work due to both personal and family health problems, he never stopped using glowing language about his work with Drosera. To be fair, he took this approach with many of his projects at Down House, including nearly a decade spent with his “beloved barnacles.” Like most of his post-origins work, I found that he was especially fascinated with seeing how carnivorous plants are related to one another, and how the accumulation of many small adaptations over time created bizarrely specialized organisms that perfectly illustrate his theory of evolution by natural selection. If you’d care to dive deeper into Darwin’s own words about these plants, here’s a song composed from his real letter excerpts: https://vimeo.com/316587632

Cambridge University Library Card (so official!)

Before heading back to London I spent some time wandering the campuses and occasionally pretending to be a prospective student to gain access to university buildings; almost stumbling into a graduation ceremony at King’s College (along with several reunions and choir practice). Although not directly related to my trip, I also stopped by the university art and antiquities collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum. All things considered, this was a fruitful leg of my journey and a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of the city!

King's College, University of Cambridge

Researching Mental Illness and Forced Sterilization at the California State Archives #3

Dear Readers,

I have greatly enjoyed my time in Sacramento; it is a historic city, with great farm-to-table food, and warm weather (sometimes way too warm!). I have also found my research experience meaningful and engaging. Yesterday, I went to a coffee shop after the archives closed and I struck up a conversation with the barista. She asked me about my trip to Sacramento and I explained to her my research project. She listened actively and intently and once I finished, she began to tell me about her family history of mental illness, specifically, her grandmother. She recounted a story about how her grandmother was committed to a mental hospital for “hysteria” where she was abused. Not only was she not mentally ill, but she also greatly mistreated in this institution. She thanked me for the research I was doing and for all those performing research to uncover the history of these institutions. Although it was sad to hear her grandmother’s terrible experience, it felt empowering to hear about the impact of my research.

As I mentioned in my last post, the state hospital records introduced me to the concept of rehabilitation of “feeble-minded” individuals. For example, I found a pamphlet from the superintendent of Stockton State Hospital that described the hospital’s mission to the relatives and friends of the patients. His sentence, “those of us who are responsible for the care and treatment of hospitalized patients see them as individuals like ourselves who can, through better understanding and treatment, be brought back in most instances to useful living,” struck me. After “defectives” were institutionalized, mental hygiene officials were interested in reintegrating some of them into the “normal” population in an organized and intentional way. Although some of the records that I mentioned in the last post helped me to better understand the process of rehabilitation, I was still confused as to what role forced sterilization played. 

I began to look for evidence of sterilization and then rehabilitation. Based on my previous research on institutionalization and rehabilitation, I began to think again about the movement of populations. I suspected that given the reports of the overcrowding of hospitals, perhaps sterilization would be cited as a means of “quick” treatment. That is, instead of hospitals taking care of patients full time for their entire lives, they could sterilize these patients and then place them back into society. However, the records I looked at showed no such correlation.  

Moreover, unlike the countless records that showed the process of institutionalizing and rehabilitating the “feeble-minded,” state hospital records about sterilization were sparse. For example, there is a ten-page document from the Superintendent that details how to keep track of the movement of patients in terms of admission, length of stay, and discharge, but there is no mention of how to track sterilization or other procedures.  Before I began my research, I suspected that there might not be a method of tracking patients after they were sterilized, however, I was surprised to find that few records from state hospital officials about sterilization existed at all. 

I also looked at public health records and found little evidence of sterilization as an established practice. For example, within public health records of the “Community Health and Resources Program” on how to care for the mentally ill, there was no mention of sterilization. Although the records show no evidence of policies in place to sterilize people, it is known that over 60,000 individuals across the country, most of who were Mexican-American and black women, were forcibly sterilized. Where did this discrepancy come from?

In the few instances where sterilization came up, it seemed as if those in administrative or policy roles did not want to involve themselves in this issue. For example, in a 1943 report of the “Minutes of the Superintendent” the topic of sterilization of minors without parental consent was addressed in one paragraph. The decision was passive, however, which was to stick to the existing policy. Anything else would “raise a question as to the constitutionality of the whole sterilization law.” This is one example of administrators' lack of engagement in this issue. In my opinion, this was a huge mistake and showed great cowardice.

My next thought was that the decision making and tracking of forced sterilization procedures was restricted to the doctors. However, when I looked into the surgical and medical reports from hospitals and that outlines the yearly surgeries carried out and there was no mention of sterilization procedures. Although gynecological procedures were tracked, the records did not specify if they were sterilizations. This final research left me with unease, because if hospital administrators and doctors did not keep track of sterilization, let alone discuss in depth the policies and regulations surrounding it, who did?

I left the archives with many of these lasting questions as well as ideas for future research. First of all, I hope to visit more archives that hold the secrets of institutionalization and sterilization practices during the 20th century. For example, I recently discovered from a professor that there is an archive at California Institute of Technology in Los Angeles that holds records of the Human Betterment Foundation, which was a private organization that was integral in promoting eugenics ideology and sterilization. Therefore, even if I did not find evidence of how sterilizations were tracked California State Archives, perhaps there is more to the story elsewhere.

Although I was disappointed to find little about the records of sterilization procedures, I have learned a great deal from my time at the California State Archives. Perhaps most importantly, I learned the extreme care, focus, and tenacity it takes to do archival research. I have an even greater appreciation for all of the scholars who have spent countless hours performing the meticulous archival research, and I hope to have the opportunity to perform this type of research again in the future! 

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my blog posts. I’m looking forward to seeing all of you soon in History of Science tutorial!

Researching Mental Illness and Forced Sterilization at the California State Archives #2

Dear Readers,

It’s me again, Kristina, here to tell you more about my experience with archival research at the California State Archives. In this blog post, I’m going to discuss more about my project and some of the records that I found. But first, I wanted to mention that even though the room was fairly empty during this week, I sat at the same desk every day, like at school- funny how that happens! It is a beautiful room in my opinion, and not a bad place to spend a week researching.

At the archives, I started my research by looking at the “big picture.” To me, this meant viewing state hospital records from five out of the 13 hospitals that were under the authority of the Dept. of Mental Hygiene. The Dept. of Mental Hygiene was established in 1945 and lasted into the late 20th century. It was a result of the reorganization of other departments, so the hospital records include information from the late 19th century to the late 20th. Overall, the goals of the department were to provide the mentally ill with treatment and rehabilitation and to educate communities about “mental hygiene.”

To reiterate, I am interested in the institutionalization and sterilization of the mentally ill during the 20th century, and what happened to them after the state “treated” them. In order to better understand this topic, I looked at the records of the most prominent hospitals under the Dept. of Mental Hygiene, which included DeWitt, Mendocino, Modesto, Sonoma, and Stockton State Hospitals. Although these hospitals had varied histories, patient demographics, and day to day operations, they shared similar missions: to care for and treat the “feeble-minded” and “insane.”

Another mission of these institutions, which I have learned from past research, was to separate the “feeble-minded” from the rest of society. In line with the eugenics ideology, many officials believed that it was for the benefit of the to prevent these individuals from marrying and reproducing. This was an effort to eliminate “unfit” genes altogether. However, who was classified as “feeble-minded” was extremely biased, namely, this system targeted non-wealthy, non-white people.

I did not find this agenda overtly outlined in the records, however. What I did uncover were instances of separation of male and female patients. For example, I found several postcards that depicted what Stockton State Hospital looked like in the early 20th century. Specifically, one postcard showed the male department and the other showed the female department. In addition, many of the director and superintendents’ budget and annual reports detailed the different needs of the two departments. Records like these show that separation of male and female patients was common and perhaps was a means of preventing relationships and procreation between these “unfit” individuals.

Something else that struck me about these postcards was how beautiful the buildings were, or at least how beautiful they appeared on the postcards. This brought to mind an eerie sense that they were advertised as palaces or fancy hotels, almost as if to lure in patients to a caring, therapeutic environment. In direct contrast to these beautiful cards, however, the next folder that I opened painted a less pleasant picture. In a monthly report, the director of the Department of Mental Hygiene detailed the chaotic and overcrowded nature of these hospitals. “Due to the danger of fire hazards the acceptance of new patients on one of our cottages, which was being too overcrowded, has been stopped.” Or another that stated, “the overcrowding in the Institution has become so acute that it is adversely affecting our ability to give adequate care to our patients.” Clearly, these institutions were not as beautiful as the postcards suggested.

One proposed solution for this overcrowding was rehabilitation. The concept of rehabilitation of “feeble-minded” individuals in the 20th century was something that I was not familiar with before my trip to the archives. I thought that these individuals remained as patients for their entire lives, no matter the severity of their mental illness. However, hospital records showed me that there was actually “a concerted effort… by our psychiatrist and our Social Service Department to place as many of these people back into the community as is possible.” I began to think that answers about what happened to institutionalized individuals after they underwent “treatment” in hospitals might lie in the history of rehabilitation.

 

I was surprised to learn that there was even a department under the Dept. of Mental Hygiene called the Department of Rehabilitation. In the administrative files of this department, I found many “Rehabilitation Bulletins,” which displayed the department’s ideas, research, policies, and current events. Therapies to rehabilitate individuals included group therapy, picnic therapy, music therapy, singing, and cooking, among others. Overall, records like these bulletins showed the efforts to place individuals back into their communities.

Other records showed a different method of rehabilitation and a desire to expand mental hygiene services beyond state hospitals. For example, a 1953 report on the “Community Services Plan for Outpatient Clinics” detailed plans to open mental hygiene clinics around the state. These clinics would provide low-risk patients, who would otherwise go to a hospital, with short-term treatment. They would also provide educational services to educate communities on mental illness prevention and care. Moreover, these clinics would help to track patients who were discharged from state hospitals. One estimate was that this plan would reduce the number of patients at full-time state hospitals by 25%. 

These records provided me with a more nuanced picture of what mental hygiene institutions looked like during the 20th century. Although I had originally thought that these institutions aimed to remove “feeble-minded” individuals from society for their entire lives, the records demonstrated that this was not entirely the case. Instead, there was actually a large emphasis placed on rehabilitation and short-term community-based mental health services. Yet, questions remained in my mind. Were these initiatives only due to the fact that hospitals were overcrowded? What determined when these people were “placed back into the community?” And did rehabilitation only occur when individuals were past their reproductive age?  This last question enticed me the most, and I began to think more about the role of forced sterilization in the mental hygiene system. 

Tune in next time to hear more about what I discovered next!