Wild NYC - Wildflowers

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
Brian Lehrer on WNYC, White Snake Root, Sea Beach Amaranth, Seaside Goldenrod, Jewel Reed, Joint Reed, Rose Mallow. Any idea what I'm listing there? Those are all names of just some of the native wildflowers in this area. And wildflowers and native plants are the focus of this month's dive into Wild NYC, our year-long, once-a-month series, looking at the natural world so necessary, even for city dwellers, right? Urban botanist and ecologist, Marielle Anzelone, is back as she joins us each month in this series, and she usually brings a guest star, and today it's Clara Holmes, plant ecologist at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. So, hey, Marielle and Clara, welcome to WNYC.

**Marielle Anzelone** (0:59)
Hi, Brian.

**Clara Holmes** (1:00)
Thanks for having us.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:01)
So, Marielle, as founder of NYC Wildflower Week, I know this topic is really close to your botanist's heart, and I think this is sort of the impetus for this whole series, right? Wildflowers are a sign that what remains of our wilderness, the native plants and animals that need them to survive, that these flowers are still there?

**Marielle Anzelone** (1:23)
Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, I'm always trying to sneak in some wildflowers to any conversation I'm having. Also, I wanted to say how fun to follow up after your last guest, because now we have two women scientists on to talk about science.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:38)
So science communicated.

**Marielle Anzelone** (1:40)
Yeah, but native plants, so, you know, people think a lot about gardens in terms of plants. But what I love to remind people is that New York City has had plants for thousands of years, and these plants have adapted to the specific climate of our area and the soils, and the animals, the wildlife, the birds, the insects, especially fungi.
So they have a really important role to play in our environment. But mostly people don't really think about them. Maybe trees they do, but broadly, I think, yeah, they get overlooked. So it's really fun to remind people why they're so important and why they should be looking down all the time.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:23)
And we'll go through some of the particular ones that are common in the area, and we'll invite listeners in on this too. So folks, do you have a favorite local wildflower? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Or a little more broadly, are you involved in native species preservation in some way in our area? And of course, anyone with a question about finding guidance on native plant species and how to support them, or about any wildflower that you encounter, and you go, wow, that's really beautiful, and you just have a question. Call or text us, 212-433-WNYC-212-433-9692.
So Clara Holmes, in general, where do we find wildflowers in New York City, as opposed to planted flowers?

**Clara Holmes** (3:15)
Yeah, most of our wildflowers that are blooming right now are going to be in some open, sunny spaces. We've already sort of passed a period where we have a lot of wildflowers on the forest floor in our hardwood forests in the city. So I would suggest places like the Marine Park, Saltmarsh Nature Trail is a great place to see some things in bloom right now.
A little bit later in the season, parks like Van Cortlandt Park, Alley Pond Park, Helen Bay Park, those woods are great places to go check out some of our local wildflowers.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:53)
And urban areas, I think we can all agree, are defined by their buildings and people.
Wetlands have gotten filled in to make a place for more of both in recent times. So Marielle, what's gone wrong? I mean, I saw the stat on the Wildflower Week website that 40 percent of our native plants, is that right? 40 percent of our native plants are gone?

**Marielle Anzelone** (4:19)
Yeah, that's right. This is actually research that's been done by a couple of different groups over the years and most recently, by the now president of the Torrey Botanical Society, Lydia Paradiso, and this is part of her PhD research where she found that, yeah, it's pretty much held, it's like maybe 36 percent, 37 percent of our species have been lost. So when you think broadly about urbanization, what does that mean? How does the flora in New York City differ from the flora of Nassau County, Suffolk County, Westchester, New Jersey? We all have the same plants more or less, but why are our plants different? Because we have different pressures on our plants, and largely that's due to building, and a lot of what's happened in the 20th century was filling in wetlands. So because wetlands weren't seen as important, and of course now with all the rain and flooding, we're wishing we had more.