Finally, we arrive at the main attraction of my back-up visit, The
Conservatory itself.
I think it can be difficult to compare one conservatory to another,
especially when I have such limited experience with them. I do also love Phipps
Conservatory in Pittsburgh and really enjoyed my visit to the Volunteer Park
Conservatory in Seattle. The Cincinnati Conservatory in the park on Mount Adams
in Cincinnati is also lovely, if small. I'm sure there are many others of
extraordinary design awaiting my discovery, but this one is MINE. And I love it
because it delivers what a good conservatory should: An experience that
requires one to look carefully and then the opportunity to imagine worlds
tropical, arid, primordial, and in so many ways altogether unlike the one I
inhabit on a daily basis.
One of my favorite aspects of the U.S. Botanical Gardens and
Conservatory is found the Garden Court when you first enter. Lining the
exterior wall on either side of the entrance to the Garden Court are six
magnificent murals honoring six of the great domesticated plants of the world.
They are an eclectic bunch that, moving from right to left in the grand hall,
include:
CACAO (Chocolate), Thoebroma cacao, earliest known consumption by humans
was circa 1900 BCE in the Yucatan peninsula of southern Mexico and Guatemala.
COTTON, Gossypium var., simultaneously used circa 5500 BCE in both
present day Mexico and Iraq to create clothe.
TEA, Camellia sinensis, legend attributes its discover to Shennong in
2737 BCE in China.
MAIZE (Corn), Zea mays var., first domesticated in Mexico circa 8000
BCE.
RICE, Oryza var., first domesticated circa 11500 BCE in the Pearl River
region of China.
CITRUS Fruits, Citrus var., Origins have most recently been traced to
Australia, New Caledonia and New Guinea, date remains ambiguous.
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