Fall 2011

A yellow water lilly Nymphaea is commonly known as the “Water Lily.”

IU Treasure:
The Cream and Crimson Greenhouse

Come for the Venus flytraps; stay for the chocolate plant. These are just two of the featured residents of IU Bloomington’s Jordan Hall Greenhouses, which are open to the public.

Built in 1956, the greenhouses include facilities on the first, fifth, and sixth floors of Jordan Hall. However, those 15,000 square feet of botanical treasures aren’t IU’s only haven for plants. There are also newer greenhouse facilities off of East 10th Street.

Within both facilities, there are teaching collections that serve the Department of Biology, as well as research projects for faculty members and graduate students.

But if you want the fun stuff, you’ll head to Jordan to see species from tropical and desert climes, all in the comfort of about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, even in winter.

View the slideshow

Make sure you see and touch the sensitive plants that close their leaves when tapped by a finger. Don’t worry, they don’t bite. There are also pitcher plants, which hold water like ... a pitcher. And the greenhouse is probably one of the few places in the Hoosier state to get fresh papaya and banana. We can’t promise samples.

Your tours won’t take you to the research projects. Still, it’s worth noting that behind the star attractions there are less exciting, albeit critical, greenhouse inhabitants that provide for outstanding IU education and research.

The Department of Biology is just one part of a rich network of scientific inquiry at IU. Housed within the College of Arts and Sciences, it offers donors a way to make significant contributions to research and education. For more information, contact David Ellies at .


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John Lemon, greenhouse supervisor: "Well, Jordan Hall was built in 1956 and the greenhouses are a part of Jordan Hall. We are open to the public, seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and we have a lot of visitors that walk through. We also give guided tours to groups. Well, we go from room to room. The greenhouses here are divided into a lot of individual smaller rooms and we just explain some of the more interesting plants in each room. We have things like cotton. We have some tropical plants like bananas, pineapples, coconut palm trees. We have a collection of desert plants in a desert room. They have a different form than a lot of other plants have, adaptations to survive in arid climates. We have a group of insectivorous plants that includes pitcher plants, Venus Flytraps. I like the insectivorous plants. They get a lot of their food from insects. They catch insects in different ways. And then we have plants called mimosa, or sensitive plants, that the kids especially like to look at because you can touch those and the leaves fold up, so that's probably a favorite of theirs." Video Produced by Hillary Demmon.

Transcript


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