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09 Åsa Krüger: Gothenburg Botaniska
81 Plays7 months ago
Botanist and curator Åsa Krüger discusses her practice in connecting audiences with plants and shares behind the scenes stories from the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, Sweden. Investigating the role of botanical gardens in the modern world, she shares how the living collection is engaged in active research and conservation, and the importance of putting names to the living world around us.
Bio:
Dr Åsa Krüger is a curator at the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, Sweden. During her PhD, Åsa studied the phylogeny, biogeography and evolutionary history of plants in the coffee family (Rubiaceae), focusing on species in Madagascar. During her PhD, she was introduced to the world of botanical gardens and she divided her time between research and the Bergius Botanical Garden in Stockholm, Sweden. Since moving to the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, her focus has been on outreach, teaching and curating the tropical collections. She is the host of the podcast Botaniska trädgårds podden and in 2024 she was the recipient of the Marsh Award for Education in Botanic Gardens.
Plant Kingdom is hosted and produced by Catherine Polcz with music by Carl Didur.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Plant Kingdom' Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
I'm Katherine Poults, and this is Plant Kingdom. I'm recording in beautiful Sydney on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and I pay respect to their elders past, present, and future. Plant Kingdom is a conversation series about plants, nature, and environment, featuring scientists, artists, researchers, and writers. We release two conversations each month and hear from people who have an intimacy with plants and nature.
Meet Dr. Osa Kruger
00:00:36
Speaker
Today's conversation is with Dr. Osa Kruger. I first met Osa years ago on an exchange program at Uppsala University in Sweden. Osa is a Swedish botanist and curator at the Gothenburg Botanical Garden. There she is charged with creating experiences that connect the public with the stories of plants, and she is also custodian to the tropical plant living collection.
Sweden's Plant Knowledge and History
00:01:01
Speaker
In our conversation, we spoke about the status of plant knowledge in Sweden, the looming figure of Carl Linnaeus and the famous botanist desire to know all the plants in the world, and her approach to creating transformative plant experiences and her passion for sharing plant knowledge. Here's our conversation.
00:01:24
Speaker
Osa, thank you so much for chatting with me. I've been really looking forward to getting to ask you about some of your research and connect with you again.
Osa's Ethnobotany Journey
00:01:34
Speaker
I guess off the top, this is maybe a a two-parter question or maybe one in the one in the same. We met many years ago now in a taking a very special ethnobotany course at Uppsala University, which I think was really transformative for both of us in our relationship to plants. I guess, can you just tell me a little bit about that that class and what it kind of meant for you and your kind of career trajectory into plants?
From Biochemistry to Botany
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, ah well, I love chat with you again. So the ethnobotany course in Uppsala, yeah, it was something special, it was something else. For me, personally, I i moved from Lund University in southern Sweden to Stockholm to be with with my my boyfriend. And I was new to Uppsala and I chose this course because it sounded nice. I was really into biochemistry and I had left the green part of my education two years ago and decided to go on the white track. But then I took this course and I was amazed that that led me to the botany track and to the following research that I later did then on on Ruby AC.
Fieldwork Adventures in Morocco
00:02:54
Speaker
I actually did my master's thesis with our course leaders there as my supervisor. So I continued with ethnobotany and this course that we took, it was also people from everywhere ah bringing what they had and the knowledge that they already have and sort of bringing up what you already knew um and talk about that to other people. and Yeah, I think it was we all learned so much from each other and we learned together and we got to go on this trip together. We was really a unique going back to Morocco, going back to the Medina, looking at the roots and the powders and everything. Yeah, the fieldwork and the the course to Morocco and the Atlas Mountains, pretty very special.
00:03:50
Speaker
It was incredible and taught by ethnobotany power couple. Amazing. and Yeah, I think for for me, i adjust yeah it was the second part of my my six months in Sweden, the second course I took after taking molecular cell biology and in the winter. and It was just such a big adjustment and I didn't really enjoy the the first course and then taking ethnobotany as it was turning from winter to spring. It was like such a beautiful, beautiful time. And I think for me, the the people and plants focus of the course in that relationship, I think, was probably something really unique in the kind of botany courses you could take, but a really good way to be introduced to this study of plants through people's relationship with them.
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah. And I guess, yeah, so you're kind of path since that time has gone a few different places with with
Research in Madagascar and Mauritius
00:04:50
Speaker
plants. I guess, can you tell me a bit about your research today or what have you kind of studied in the in the past maybe that has led you to where you're at today? yeah so Yeah, so after the ethnobotany class, I did my master's thesis continuing with ethnobotany. And through that, I met my PhD supervisor, who was actually in Stockholm. So I focused on Ruby AC from Madagascar. And he was from Madagascar. So we we traveled there and we did field work there and in Mauritius and trying to look at this really understudied tribe in Ruby AC.
00:05:30
Speaker
Rubyasis is a huge angiosperm family, like the fourth largest family, and it has true economic values in coffee and quinnen and a few timber trees as well, but these were really shrubs, small shrubs, out in the middle of nowhere in Madagascar.
Transition to Outreach Work
00:05:48
Speaker
We were really investigating Rubyasis and the evolutionary history of that, and that was the That was a really good experience looking into species and different species and undescribed species. So that was really a knowledge that I appreciate a lot. But doing that research was in a research group connected to the Botanical Garden in Stockholm.
00:06:07
Speaker
So I actually started working at the Botanical Garden at the same time because as I started teaching at the university and in feeling that outreach and species knowledge and getting to talk to people about plants and my passion for plants. So I really started during my the last years of my PhD to take another path and do more active outreach and working in the Botanical Gardens. And um yeah, we'll talk more about what you're doing in your role now. But yes, similar for me. I guess for me, I felt like I didn't have to do the research, but how could you stay engaged with the ideas was so interesting and try to
00:06:46
Speaker
connect people to it in different ways, and there's no pathway for that kind of work. is there You just kind of barge your own your own way, you bushwhack your own way through somehow. And I wanted to ask you too, you've done a lot of traveling with your research too, and I guess still recently traveling's a part of your job. where What kind of expeditions or places have you done field work, Madagascar, but also a few other places? is that Yeah, yeah we went to we went also to Mauritius, another island in the Western Indian Ocean. And that is quite close to Madagascar, but it's completely different. It's very little native flora left.
00:07:31
Speaker
So when you go there with botanists there and you said, oh, I want to see this species. And they're like, OK, I can take you to it. And then they know the individual of that species and where it grows in the special nature reserve because there is so much crop and an invasive species there. At least when I was there, they were struggling a bit um to keep the the native flora safe. And then we went to Vietnam for quite a long time looking at the flora there and also those are the closest relatives to the ones that we are looking at in Madagascar, for example.
00:08:10
Speaker
So going to Asia and that is special and and precious and a really nice experience and meeting all of these people invested in in botany in different parts
Biodiversity in the Atlantic Rainforest
00:08:25
Speaker
of the world. I think that opens up sort of a new universe and it's so I think truly important to to be there and and be part of the knowledge and also learn and have this exchange and you learn so much from being in field, both about yourself, but also about plants.
00:08:50
Speaker
The ones that is freshest in my mind now is this fall when we went to Brazil and to the Atlantic rainforest. And that is something that we we still continue to work with the data at the moment. So that is very on the top of my mind now. So so that's the latest field trip. And what was the what were you doing in the Atlantic rainforest? Were you like collecting plants or is there a research partnership there? What were you were you doing? but So there is a research partnership. The botanical garden here in Gothenburg worked together with a newly started project called Arasa, which is a project with a research station and this private nature reserve. They have different laws about nature reserves in bris Brazil. And this is one of the private owned. and So the project owns this. And the mission ah is to do an inventory
00:09:51
Speaker
of the biodiversity in the Atlantic rainforest. So there are scientists for every organism you can think of. ah going there, doing inventories and reporting on the biodiversity. And it's really amazing. It's not only collecting, like we did very little collecting actually, but we did a lot of inventory. And for us is also very interesting. We're building new greenhouses here in Gothenburg. And one of the rooms that we are planning is, and or land plant evolution, I should say.
00:10:26
Speaker
Yeah, so it's all of these four dispersed plants and the Atlantic rainforest is just packed with ferns and mosses and lycophytes. So it was a prime location to go to, to get inspired and also see how the the elements are built together and how much of this goes with how much of that and how can we create something that would really inspire curiosity. That's so fascinating. so youre yeah had you and How do you tell that story through yeah what living fossils are there? what Where on the planet was worth did they originate? It's so interesting.
00:11:10
Speaker
um yeah Really interesting. and Another thing I wanted to ask you about the expeditions and the traveling and doing field research is if it's you're interested in these kind of large scale trends in biodiversity and I guess even when you were looking at Ruby ACA, did traveling and kind of being in new environments and taking in totally different floors in these different places give you kind of a different perspective on evolution or did it inspire kind of different questions? Do you think seeing these differences? Of course, yes. Yes, I would say yes. And I think
00:11:51
Speaker
ah Living in Sweden and in the Nordic countries here, where I first came in contact with flora and fauna and everything, it's so different. I mean, to go to this mega-diverse, biodiversity hotspots, seeing how everything is buzzing with life and like the completely different from the temperate region where I live. So, of course, such an inspiration and and such an eye-opening experience. Every time you go somewhere new, I would say, even though it's rainforest or tropical climate, it's completely different if you go to the African continent or Asia or South America. They are built up with different species and they have different compositions and it's so interesting.
00:12:42
Speaker
so interesting to see what niches there are and who has taken that mission. Yeah, so interesting. when i When I was doing more field research and um field work in and I did a lot of that work in Southern Ontario where I'm from, and it was really amazing, you know, learning kind of opened up those plants to me and taxonomizing was kind of how I experienced the forest and nature. And then when I moved to Australia, it was just so humbling to not have that knowledge anymore and that like all the plants are different, the families that dominate are different. And it really, yeah, I don't know, I guess gave me an understanding of how science had really informed how I experienced
00:13:28
Speaker
nature, but also just all opened up all these different questions and interest in like plant migration and evolution and all these different different questions. But I'm also very humbling in that, yeah, where I could know a lot of the plants in Canada, there's like just 900 species of Eucalyptus genus alone here and how diverse it is. And yeah, never gonna know all of them. But Yeah, the Swedish flora. I don't, I was not taking that in when I was in Sweden very much at all. And what kind of, what's the Swedish flora like or what kind of, what kind of species dominate and what's, what
Swedish Flora and Carl Linnaeus
00:14:13
Speaker
but do you have there?
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, so so what do we have here? Well, when people think of Sweden, I think they think about forests and and big trees. and And so there is a lot of big trees here, but not not a lot of forest, I would say. it's We have a big ah timber export. So that's an important economical value of timber trees here in Sweden, so we have a lot of those. um The tree diversity ah in terms of species or families and and so on, it's not that big. The focus is more on the herbaceous flora. We have a lot of coryx, superacy family, and
00:14:59
Speaker
puesi and yeah a lot of herbaceous flora here so really it goes ah very seasonal. So when you come to spring here, it's such a different thing to be here than to be here during the winter, for example. And what we have is not many unique plants at all, but we have either we have the most northern distribution of a species or we have the most southern distribution of a boreal species.
00:15:31
Speaker
So we are in the in the middle zone there where the southern and the northern species meet, I think, for a lot of those. So we have red listed species here that ah perhaps is genetically red listed, but they are common somewhere else. But this genetic population or distribution, the most northern distribution is threatened here. Yeah, probably more similar to ah Canada. Carrocks was what my research was in, and there's so much water and cold and sense diversity in the north. There's like not many in Australia have come to the world.
00:16:10
Speaker
And yeah, oh I also was just wanting to wanting to say we've just been talking up you know the biodiversity of the tropics in the south, but the I guess the adaptations to the extreme weather in the north is they're doing amazing things there too, those plants. And did you did you grow up knowing your plants at all? Or is there much of a ah plant culture in Sweden? I guess this is something you're probably thinking about at work too. Well, I grew up with my grandparents sort of cultivating their food. So that's how I came in contact with plants. And we also had a summer house where we grew up running around in the forest. So I did know the most common species and I did know what my food looked like, but I sort of left that interest. And and then I would say I came back really to plants in the ethnobotanic course that we talked about.
00:17:08
Speaker
And another quite well-known Uppsala alum and taxonomist, Carl Linnaeus, of course, very famous Swedish scientist who, yeah, created systems and taxonomy and binomial nomenclature that we we still use today. Is he, I guess, can you tell me a bit about him and and is he someone that is really celebrated in Sweden? Yeah, I would say that we all learned about Carlimeos for sure, and he was on our money for quite some time. I would say most Swedish people know about
00:17:47
Speaker
colonlinear But I think as species knowledge and botany and biology is not getting that much attention anymore, I would say there's also less of a talk about colonias. But in Uppsala, of course, is super present. And you have visited his old summer house, Hammarbil, which is a really nice place. And I could recommend that to everyone. And I would really say go there during the Apple. exhibition in August. And is his garden there? Or is it kind of a restored garden? or is that I would say that is restored a bit, but they still have some plants that were that he planted there.
00:18:26
Speaker
Is that kind of the first garden where he's kind of grouping plants by family and relationship? I'm not sure, but I know he used that summer house to do more of an experiments with his more space there, and he could do more stuff with his plants. So I know at least that he did experiments and and had plants in a bigger area out there. But he was a special guy, huh? I think, you know, knowing about him and he was such a religious person. He grew up in a religious home and some of these knowers of Limi and they say that he thinks a bit about himself as the second Adam.
00:19:08
Speaker
ah Yeah, because you know in Genesis, in the Bible, Genesis chapter 2, God said to Adam that he should name all the the species or all the plants and animals. And that is something that Linnaeus actually comes back to in some of his writings. oh He's doing God's work. is So is that his mission from that? Wow. Yes, I was really a religious man. And and I think you can see that in a lot of stuff that he did, his his way of ordering nature.
00:19:46
Speaker
has helped us a lot. It's still presently being used, so I think he did. He did something great there. I know other researchers were also doing similar stuff as Linios at the same time, but he really got the message through and I think that's his big accomplish really. Yeah, and this is I guess what we're talking about is the kingdom phylum class order, like that hierarchy of relationships between not just plants, alls all species, and that's the system that you would be working with in the in the botanical gardens that scientists work with. That is how scientists are still mapping the relationship between species. It's incredible that it stood up even after, you know, there's no evolution when he was creating this in the 1730s, but it still works after that paradigm shift. Yes, no, no, he was only doing that work, really, but also the binomial system, like that he really made that stick also that we are using a genus and a species name. And that's how we talk about the organisms. And I think that's
00:20:55
Speaker
It's really valuable, so we know that we are talking about the same things. I heard something that he thought it was actually possible to know all of the plants ever. Oh, yes. He thought he almost knew all of them. Yeah, I guess he hadn't been to the Atlantic rainforest, had he? Yes, he hadn't. Yeah, no, yeah but I think, you know, he sent his apostles all over the world to collect plants and and he was like, okay, where we have to be almost done now. So I think that's fascinating. and
00:21:33
Speaker
And I think maybe that's the opposite of how, how we feel now when we go somewhere in a biodiversity hotspot and you are like humbled and see like, Oh, there's so much. I don't know. There must be so much more. I don't know. But he was like, Hmm, I'm collecting all of this knowledge. I knew so little before I know much more now. Now I almost know everything. he Yeah. It's a really nice thing about science is suppose, you know, if certain figures loom large and make big big breakthroughs, but really the practice of science is on the shoulders of the scientists who came before and knowledge is really shared and and passed down through through teaching how it's all disseminated everything, but it's it builds.
00:22:20
Speaker
And I guess from Linnaeus's garden now to ah another another one dear to you. So you have the amazing title of being a curator at the Gothenburg Botanic Garden.
Educational Role of Botanical Gardens
00:22:33
Speaker
I guess can you tell me a bit first about the Botanic Garden and and its history? Yes, yes, I can. um And I would say Gothenburg Botanical Garden is a rather young garden. So it inaugurated in 1923. So we had our 100th ubli last year. And what happened was that just a boy or Gothenburg was not a university city. In Sweden, that would traditionally be Lund in the southern part of Sweden and Uppsala, where you need to study. So those were the big
00:23:10
Speaker
university cities and they had botanical gardens but Gothenburg was the second largest city in Sweden. It's a harbor city and it's a lot of merchants and so on and it's also called the big city of donations. So a lot of the institutions built here in Gothenburg were based on donations and there was this one merchant who left a lot of money for the city to be more beautiful and that there should be a so logical and potential garden in the city. And at the same time, the the schools of Gothenburg where there is no fields for
00:23:50
Speaker
botany, we can teach our pupils about the importance of plants and the food and the medicine and stuff like that. So there was a petition to the town to build a botanical experimental field. And that actually merged together with this donation about the botanical garden. So the city went to Uppsala and asked the professor there to come help them and and place the garden somewhere. And the person they asked was Rutgesch Nander, who was part of the nature protection movement in Sweden. And what he found in Gothenburg was actually a big piece of land close to the city, which the city owned. And he said, like, this land must be protected. We should build the botanical garden next to it and then just fence in this area around and keep that as a nature reserve.
00:24:44
Speaker
and then we build a botanical garden next to it, and that would be the best place in Gothenburg to build it. So then they hired the first director, Carl Skotspal. He was a young researcher, fresh out of Uppsala in Stockholm, doing research on algae. so So he came here and he really took this to heart, and and he was a very ambitious man. He went to the Southern Pole expedition when he was 21 years old. and he went to South America traveling there for many many years doing botany and maps and geography and but I think yeah and what he brought to the botanical garden was that he felt it was extremely important that this should be the people of Gothenburg's botanical garden. A lot of and botanical gardens around the world or specifically in Europe you would see are connected to universities and are really
00:25:39
Speaker
garden. It was built for scientists to study plants. This botanical garden was built for education of the general public. This should be a place where it was beautiful. You should want to come here. You should learn about how to cultivate your plants. You should also learn about horticulture. and you should learn about the systematics and and botany and and get fascinated. So he did a lot of this education for the general public. He wrote so many articles, popular science articles and books and everything. I think if you want to know what Karl Skotsberg thought,
00:26:26
Speaker
he probably wrote it down so you could read about it. That is my my sense of him and how he built this garden. And I think the topography of the garden is helping a lot as well. It's easy to create different areas or rooms in the garden that really has a unique sense to it. And then you walk somewhere else and it looks completely different. So I think this was a good place to have it. And today, I think it's a great thing that we are open 24-7. Everyone is welcome and it's built to be here. Yeah, amazing. And to have the the interplay, I guess, of the protected... Is it ah is it a woodland? ah A forest? Or the nature reserve and the garden? Yeah.
00:27:14
Speaker
yeah Yeah, so the nature service right outside of the garden and we have the arboretum in the nature serve and the nature service actually going all the way into the next city. So it's quite a large nature service. So yeah. Oh, wow. And is it still so the garden was created in the 1920s ish? is it Is it still kind of his design and plants that he's planted or has it changed a lot if you're if you were to go to it today. I would say he would probably recognize most of the garden if he were to come back today. The first thing that he saw here was the what he called Alpinertum, which is now the rock garden, where we still have plants from alpine areas all over the world. That is in the same place and it's
00:28:08
Speaker
it's really ah us still a true beauty and I think that is the place that he will recognize. and But the things that he planted that would still be here is in another part of the garden which is called the Pinilla Tum today where we keep a lot of the pines. We still have a lot of individuals there from 1916. We got a bit of ah a preview but what kinds of plants are there in the garden? Like does Are they kind of grouped to tell different stories? It sounds like there's plants from all over the world, not not particularly focused on Swedish plants. What kind of what do you have there?
00:28:47
Speaker
If you come from the entrance and you you where you sort of meet the garden, there you will find we have this horticultural, really beautiful entrance. We are part of a program for cultivated diversity, so all these old cultivars from different parts of Sweden. We have a clone archive. of those as well so we could show also the cultivated history or the horticulture history on the biodiversity and then as you move upwards we come to my and domain which is the greenhouses and tropicals collections and in there we have an orchid collection
00:29:26
Speaker
which I'm very proud of and and it ah draws a lot of attention to the visitors here. Orchids are always popular and that's a ah great thing because then you can talk about biodiversity and the importance of that when they're still dazzled with the beauty of the orchids. ah And moving on there, you have in the colder part of the greenhouse, we have a collection of Dionysia, which is a primalesi genus from the mountains outside of Iran and Afghanistan. And i we have the largest collection of species.
00:30:02
Speaker
And we also have active research and research collaborations on that collection. Are those kind of like cushion plants? What do those look like? Yeah, they are. They are. When they flower, they are like a hat, like a cap you have when you swim. they they look like real heads in the sand bed with those flowery heads. They are really cool, cool plants, extreme plants. Yeah, and do they can be quite old too, right? And they kind of create their own warmth by their shape. Is that is that right? Yeah. Yeah. they
00:30:45
Speaker
What they do, yeah, with this cushion shape, it's really like they they they create their own microclimate. They are in such a harsh environment, so they have to create something that that can make them thrive. So they are experts on climbing, I would say. Hi. and And there we also have a really nice geophyte collections. And it's amazing how once you collect something for taxonomy, for example, so you want to have all the tulips of Greece, for example, because you're doing some taxonomic work. And then like 40 years later, Greece is actually trying to do a restoration project on their tulips because they have been threatened in some way.
00:31:32
Speaker
and then we can send the material back to them and so that could be part of the restoration with genetic material that is no longer in Greece but we have it here so it can be used. So that is really nice and the geophyte collection is still very active in that way as well. And then moving up, oh we have, of course, large tree collection. The arboretum is also very big. We have have had different scientific curators extremely interested in in trees. And right now our tree curator, he's working with trees in urban environments. And what trees should we plant?
00:32:15
Speaker
in the coming or the future climate and doing modeling and and seeing what kind of clones or populations are best suited for the climate that we have in the future in the cities. Because trees will probably play an extremely important role in cities. um ah So that's his focus. um So that is a good collection. And the Rock Garden is also a place where people come to look at these all pine plants. um So those collections draw a lot of attention here, yes.
00:32:51
Speaker
Yeah, amazing. They're all really special plants you, a lot of people won't encounter. I remember seeing, I saw a cushion plant in the wild in Tasmania and it was just, it was like seeing a celebrity, right? Like they're very famous. Like, did you see like, it was very exciting. Lots of pictures. No one else cared. That's the problem with being a non-botanist. I know, yeah. It's amazing stuff and you need to photograph and document and everyone's like, what are you doing? We haven't left the parking lot. Plugging their ears. Don't want to speak Latin with you. Yeah. And can you just, can you just describe what the geophytes look like?
00:33:35
Speaker
Yeah, the geophytes. Well, those are the bulbs and the bulbs and friends. So that's your tulips or your crocus. Yeah. So those geophytes are very special here in Sweden. Everyone loves them because that's they they are the sign of spring. So after like six months of darkness, which is the reality here, you both the people and the bulbs wake up and the hope of spring. So geophytes are very close to heart here. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that's so interesting, the the plants being used for conservation too in that botanic gardens are places of science, places of work, but every plant that a lot of plants are wild collected and they are either descendants of or a clone of an individual
00:34:31
Speaker
that's lived in the wild, wherever that was. And that exchange is so interesting. And I think, yeah, we're probably more used to thinking about zoos as being sites of conservation and people understanding the significance of the work that live animals are doing in terms of genetics and what they hold. But yeah, it's the exact same. Yes, and I think this is awesome now that Botanical Gardens are going into this focus really in conservation because the collections are amazing and they were not collected with the focus in conservation, but they could now be used in conservation in such valuable ways.
Conservation Efforts at Gothenburg
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah, I saw you a video of you talking about one of the plants, the Easter Island tree. Is that something that's in the garden?
00:35:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's in the garden. That's that's a cool plant and a cool history where actually, Kalskotspe, the first director, he was there in in Easter Island, the Rapa Nui, looking at this tree a long time ago, and he was describing it as a new species. And he was like, this tree doesn't feel very well. Hmm. And then he went back to Sweden. ah But later in the fifties, the Norwegian explorer Turejedal went there on one of his return expeditions. and he saw the same tree, but he saw also the seeds, so he
00:35:54
Speaker
He took them and he was like, this tree is not feeling very well. I will send these seeds back to the scientists. And they ended up here in Gothenburg and we managed to grow a few of the seeds and they were happy and growing. And 20 years later, one of the curators went to a conference talking with a scientist there who was talking about the extinct Easter Island tree and how that was extinct now. And that was too bad. And it was such an important part of the culture on the Rapa Nui. And he was like, yeah, but we have them. We have our trees here in Gothenburg. And that's how a collaboration started for restoration and and conservation of the Easter Island tree back in Chile again. So that is amazing work that could be done when you share what you have. Yeah. And as a as a curator at the Garden, are you what are you what are you doing in your role? Are you choosing
00:36:51
Speaker
which plants might be on display or tell, yeah, but tell us tell us a bit about that. So what I did do is I manage the the collections and the collections of old also to see what should we keep, what things could we change for something else or something of a better provenance or is it correctly, determined, is it really the species that says on the label and all of these unknowns that came from expeditions trying to get them a name, but also communicating knowledge and science to the general public and to do that with the story of the plants that we show in our public displays. What we do here in Gothenburg is that we try to keep everything on public display to
00:37:46
Speaker
really show what a collection could look like and not only showing flowering, nice specimens, but showing showing them when they're resting as well and and how different one species could look at the same time. So I think that is an important thing that I'm working on to get everything on display and to talk about that in a good way and also to keep the collections current and and keep them or try to frame them in a current setting like now where we talked about the land plant of a evolution. Maybe that is not current.
00:38:21
Speaker
But we're also working on a ah fire and desert ah room to show fire adaptation. And fire is something that is very much, I mean, in Australia, of course, you're you're used to the yeah the talk about fire, but in Sweden, it's coming more and more now, the fires and the fire studies. But in Europe, in general, and people get affected if there are big fires in Greece, for example. But then to talk about fire as something that plants have adapted to and the ecological aspects of fire and plants and what is happening now when and so on and and to keep it current. And also to talk to kids, I would say. I mean, the most important thing is to get the kids interested or to keep their curiosity and I love it when they come to the carnivorous room.
00:39:11
Speaker
And we have made new signs there, so you don't have to be able to read. You could just look at the pictures to understand how the plants work. So they will tell their grownups what the plant does, instead of them having to stand there and wait for the grownups to come and ask them, like, what what does this plant do, and how does it work? And can you tell me? Instead, they can be the storytellers. Yeah, it's so interesting. The carnivorous plants are kind of gateway plants, aren't they? Get people noticing. Yeah, they truly are. Yeah, super important. counts Yeah, I think we're just yeah, don't really, you know, ah many, you know, my me growing up is like this, like you don't have the language to really talk about plants or see them and
00:40:03
Speaker
to have those early experiences or to notice. You don't even, you might not notice. You kind of have to be taught how to notice and see and see the differences. And it's, um, yeah, it's amazing to try to create those experiences in your, in your role that can open up those conversations and build that reconnection to plants and to the questions you might think about plants and life. Yeah. Yeah, yes I love I mean that is something that I am truly passionate about this really something we work towards like in Sweden and in most countries you can see a decline in knowledge really about species knowledge, plant knowledge,
00:40:50
Speaker
But also, if you look at the school cook curricula, you could see that it's not taught in the same way as it was before. I know my parents made their own school Herbaria in the summer. So we had to collect a hundred plants and hand in that and determine that. so And that is not at all a ah requirement in schools anymore. And I think in Sweden, there is when you are 12 years old, there is in the curricula that you should know the most common species in Sweden, plants and animals.
Decline in Plant Knowledge
00:41:27
Speaker
But there is no more requirements about species knowledge.
00:41:33
Speaker
and And when you go to the university, not all the universities, even in the green biology program has ah you going to a course. It's not mandatory to go to the course of floristics, for example. So you can become the biologist of a town or and then you don't even have had to take in the course of floristics. And I think that is a problem. We put a lot of emphasis on the biodiversity crisis and a lot of money as a society into that? And how can we work with the crisis and the effects and what is the most effective way? And if you don't know what's in the biodiversity, if you don't know the species, the building blocks of the biodiversity, how could you possibly? Yeah. Or if you think it's elsewhere, you think it's somewhere else, not where you live. Yeah.
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah, and but also how can you appreciate what biodiversity is to put in the correct measures if you don't know what the biodiversity is built up of? And I think we're pouring a lot of money into ecology, for example, and they're doing great stuff. They're amazing researchers. They have to build their research on this primary science, which is floristics and species knowledge, really. And that is something. Yeah. Natural history. Yep.
00:43:00
Speaker
Yeah so that is something that we are actively working on here and we have tried different ways and we are trying into new exciting projects but now in May we are actually having the ah bio blitz here in Gothenburg for the first time and we are collaborating with the Natural History Museum, with the university and We're hoping, and 19 other organizations, so we're really hoping that we can get some attention to species knowledge, um get the people out there and to meet them and get the general public to meet the experts and see that it's not so hard. It doesn't have to be this threshold of, oh, it's so hard to know the different species of grass, for example, or even that there is different species of grass. Grass is hard. Yeah, but just opening like that possibility, like that there is actually like five classes where you stand. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. And if you were to stand anywhere and try to look at the like you would you could recognize different forms or different colors or different shapes, different textures, like, yeah.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah. And I think we we knew we do it subconsciously, like, oh, I will sit over here. This is softer. I will not sit here. It's harder. and And so on. So we have made these differences already, but we haven't put a name on it. And I think that's lacking. Like we should give it give everybody the language to talk about the plants. Key to seeing. is naming, like there's such a relationship there to the language to then talk about them. Yeah, I had a professor that his just advice to everyone in biology was just to get field guides and to just try to learn what's there locally, which was really, it was unique even in, you know, you're studying biology, you're studying famous case studies of
00:45:10
Speaker
Darwin's finches, places that, you know, these universal kind of famous studies, you're not, well, in my case was not learning locally anything about the connection of ecology and biogeography and geology. Like it's all broken, broken all apart, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, I think also that's history, I mean, and and history of what you want to tell someone, you want to tell something something unique. And in Sweden, I mean, the kids know a giraffe, a lion, and all of this the the animals of the savanna. But that's in every kid's book now, and they hardly know the names of the birds outside the window. So yeah, tricky.
00:45:51
Speaker
And I guess what are the kind of different projects you're you're working on? So you do you have the gardens, you have exhibitions, you have a podcast. Can you tell me about some of the different mediums that you get to work with to try to connect people? So we work with the collections then, of course, and have exhibitions with the collections as a foundation. And then we try to keep current and keep to the ah topics that are buzzing in society. And then I do guided tours.
00:46:24
Speaker
quite a lot of guided tours and I think that's also a nice way to connect with people. They they come here because they want to see something beautiful and to have somewhere beautiful to be and you can really see that it's eye-opening and it's fascinating. and They often say that when they go out of here, they they know so much more than they thought they would just have a nice day in the park. So I think that that is also a very important thing to to be in person. But then, of course, also to work with the texts and the signage and and how people can interact on their own when we are not there to guide them.
00:47:02
Speaker
Yeah, and you're doing that on the experience you have of actually seeing how people react to the tour and to the individual plants. I think that is quite rare insight to have when you're creating in these other mediums too. Yeah, yeah and also the gardeners here, they meet visitors every day, have asking them different things. And then you can also sort of like, so in your in your area, what what are people asking you every day? or And maybe that's also something that we can do an exhibition or a a day of asking the gardener or have a coffee with the gardener and to get people to
00:47:39
Speaker
to get out of the garden and what they want to get out of the garden. and But then, I mean, the podcast is really nice way of showing what we do behind and the scenes, sort of say. So looking at how how do we sow the seeds or what are we doing to get things to look like they do? And what do we do as researchers when we went to Brazil, for example, we brought our ah gear for recording and climbing a fig tree 30 meters up and talking to the listeners during that climb and what we saw and just bringing people to places maybe where they are not able to go themselves.
00:48:22
Speaker
and reaching a broader audience than the ones that are coming here to the physical garden. And I think that is the main challenge, really, that the public that we have coming to the garden, they already know that they want to come to the garden. But we also want to talk to people who doesn't come to the garden. We want to be seen and heard elsewhere talking about botany and the importance of plants. So that is something that we are working on in different projects right now? How can we reach even more people? Yeah. And has your practice in engaging people with plants, do you think that's kind of changed or matured or evolved over time since you started doing though that work?
Connecting People to Plants
00:49:10
Speaker
yeah Yeah, for sure. I'm hoping that at least. I'm hoping I'm still evolving in that and changing and and getting better better at it and having different angles. When I started out in back in Stockholm, going being a tour guide and being Also teaching a lot of school children. We had more of lessons that were following the school curricula. So I have like the manuscript that I was following more or less for those, most of those tours. But here it's more based on
00:49:46
Speaker
experience and what people are interested in and also I'm i'm taking from from everyone I meet. I try to go on tours wherever I can and and pick up good things that other people are doing, reading articles about how do deaf people actually take in information and what is crucial if you want to communicate with kids or and we have great pedagogues employed here in the garden that we work closely together with and trying to exchange knowledge and tricks.
00:50:22
Speaker
who Yeah, it's so interesting. there's no um There's no right way to write every different approach and different artists, institution, researcher is getting connecting with people and in different ways. This is my last question for you, and it's maybe a bit broad. I guess for for you, what kind of draws you to doing this work or why do you think it's really important to connect people to plants. Yeah, on the broader scale I think it's for our own survival. The ultimate thing is for our own survival. And I think there are ah many
00:51:06
Speaker
many, many reasons for why this is important. But I think primarily, I think to it is crucial to know what you have around you, what you see every day, if you don't have a name to it, if you don't know what it is, how can you appreciate it? How can you feel like you should care about it? And We need to care about it for our survival, but we also, you could see in the studies that if you are out in the forest, your heart rate goes down. You feel much better and just to get people to appreciate where the food comes from, how everything is connected, how we are part of something bigger, that the plants are not entities that stand on their own. We interact with plants every day.
00:51:58
Speaker
And they interact with us every day. ah We are part of nature and the big biodiverse planet that we live on. I think that is crucial for the future generations. i I couldn't agree more. And I think what you were saying about connection, like that resonates so much with me and what, what I get thinking about plants too. It's not just, connection it's not connection to plants. It's kind of connection to, yeah, oxygen, time, evolution, earth, it's everything, isn't it? And plants are such an interesting way to have that open that gateway.
00:52:49
Speaker
That was my conversation with Osa Kruger. Thank you for listening. Huge thank you to Osa for sharing her work. Plant Kingdom is hosted and produced by me, Katherine Poults, and our music is by Carl Dider. Listen to us wherever you get your podcasts and check out our website at plantkingdom dot.earth.
00:53:36
Speaker
you