Robbie Hart
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oreotrephes.bsky.social
Robbie Hart
@oreotrephes.bsky.social
1.3K followers 520 following 40 posts
Director, William L. Brown Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden -- plants for people (and vice versa). Programs in Himalayan climate change, mountain plant ecology, community based conservation in Madagascar, and ethnobotany.
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oreotrephes.bsky.social
SEB's 65th Annual Meeting will be in Montpellier, France, 31 May–4 June 2026. This year’s theme, Undisciplined Ethnobotany, reimagines the field by centering plant–people stories, cross-cultural insight, & hybrid methods.

#SEB2026

More information soon: ethnobotany.org/home/meeting...
A conference poster for the Society of Ethnobotany. The background shows dry thistle plants in front of a calm lake and clear sky. Large text announces the theme ‘Undisciplined Ethnobotany,’ with smaller text noting the 65th Annual Meeting, held 31 May–4 June 2026 in Montpellier, France.
November 17, 2025 at 8:42 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
WashU Kemper Museum was a perfect setting for scintillating conversation last night at the transdisciplinary
Incubator panel with Rodrigo Reis of
@washupublichealth.bsky.social, Tanslu Daylan and @otherrock.bsky.social of @washuartsci.bsky.social, and Lúcia Lohmann of @mobotgarden.bsky.social.
Four scientists sit before an audience in a panel discussion under the multicolored light of Tomás Saraceno's work "Cosmic Filaments"
November 12, 2025 at 2:14 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
I'm very proud to be part of the Bhutan-led, international team behind this new publication online now at the Society for Ethnobotany journal Economic Botany. Working with superb colleagues on ecologically important, sacred and beautiful mountains — what else could you ask for?
Colorful Buddhist prayer flags stretch across the blue waters of Omta Tertsho, a sacred lake in Bhutan that reflects the mountains above.
June 5, 2025 at 2:05 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
Delicate, fragrant blossoms of Edgeworthia chrysantha are opening in the @mobotgarden.bsky.social stumpery. This and other species in its family have long been staples of eastern hand papermaking traditions. For more on the #PlantsAndPeople stories of its relatives: ethnobiology.org/publications....
One pale inflorescence cluster of Edgeworthia chrysantha (paperbush) in the foreground, with yellow daffodils, the red brick of historical Missouri Botanical Garden buildings, and the blue sky of a sunny day in the background.
March 24, 2025 at 7:13 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
Yellow sunflower-field below the blue expanse of Yulong massif.
A central yellow sunflower stands out above a field of yellow sunflowers in the bottom half of the image. In the top half of the image, a background of blue-grey clouds and mountains. Taken at Yulong Xueshan (Jade Dragon Mountain) in Southwest China, 2010.
March 3, 2025 at 5:57 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
Fieldwork in macro.

(Pulling together a slide deck on our recent alpine plant ecology fieldwork in the mountains of China's southwest)
A roll of signal-orange flagging tape sits next to an open compass with reflecting mirror on the summit of an alpine peak in Yunnan, China which is covered in moss, orange lichen, and alpine vascular plants. In the backgrounds, roiling clouds and the distant peaks of the Hengduan.
February 18, 2025 at 3:41 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
What do we think, can these Tower Grove Park geese see their own shadows?
February 2, 2025 at 4:09 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
Even in midwinter, a changing year comes with plant phenology marking the season. The lemon-honey aroma of witch hazel flowers opening is a sensory signpost for me, and this year as in previous I'm grateful for the particular trees that scent and color Tower Grove Park's West Stream.
A witch hazel branch with yellow-orange flowers lit by a low winter sun shining through them grows in Tower Grove Park, Saint Louis; picture taken late December 2023.
December 31, 2024 at 4:03 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
Out now from IUCN! "A framework for monitoring biodiversity in protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures" (Dalton et al. 2024). We set forward a clear decision-making framework for managers doing:

🌱🐛🦙👩‍🌾⛰️ biodiversity monitoring 👀🔍📈🔁✅

portals.iucn.org/library/node...
The joint team from Tribhuvan University, Missouri Botanical Garden, and Manang, Nepal survey a subalpine-alpine plot above Manang for monitoring biodiversity response to climate change. Behind the three people holding measuring tape on a grassy alpine summit the Marsyangdi River valley is visible.
December 17, 2024 at 3:17 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
I was just enjoying this inspiring manifesto for the importance (aesthetic but also otherwise) of scrub and shrub lands
December 14, 2024 at 8:18 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
Every day should be #InternationalMountainDay, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a day late. 😉
A rainbow above a high valley between two mountain ridges at Meili Xueshan in Yunnan, China was appropriately celebratory as it appeared just as we finished the final survey of a permanent plot where we monitor alpine plant responses to climate change as part the PEAKS project at Missouri Botanical Garden, in collaboration with Shangri-La Alpine Botanical Garden.
December 12, 2024 at 7:47 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
It's hard to overstate how fundamentally specimens underlie our work. The RSI project is critical innovation in the pipeline that leads from a plant collected in the field through to identification and sharing that data with the world to support the understanding and protection of life's diversity.
A team of Missouri Botanical Garden scientists in Madagascar work to collect, take data on, and press in newspaper plants from the Garden-managed community conservation area at Ibity Massif in Madagascar, which is known to host 304 plant species, including 217 found only in Madagascar and 37 found only in Ibity. Specimens like these are part of a pipeline of collection, curation, and data-sharing that allows the discovery and better understanding of species and their traits and underlies global efforts to conserve biodiversity and address climate change impacts.
December 10, 2024 at 5:08 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
Major new initiative at Missouri Botanical Garden will revolutionize plant species identification and allow global access to big biodiversity data.

6 million newly digitized specimens = manifold uses and stories for botany, conservation, and history.

www.globenewswire.com/news-release...
The label of one herbarium specimen from the Missouri Botanical Garden Herbarium collected in 1869 by George Engelmann, the first scientist at the Garden. The Garden's herbarium collection is now close to 8 million specimens and will be comprehensively digitized as part of a new initiative called Revolutionizing Species Identification (https://mobot.org/RSI)
December 10, 2024 at 4:38 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
St. Louis may be cold, but Missouri Botanical Garden is beautiful outside and in on these winter days — snowy branches and cardinals 5m away from the balmy temperatures and heady scents of the Climatron.
A cardinal in silhouette flying on a winter day outside the Missouri Botanical Garden Climatron, a large hemispherical greenhouse. The interior of the Missouri Botanical Garden Climatron, a large hemispherical greenhouse, with winter sun shining on the foliage of a diversity of plant species; red cycad cones, pale purple flowers, and interpretive signage.
December 3, 2024 at 8:59 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
The weather’s usually more like this.
Fang Ye of Shangri La Alpine Botanical Garden and Robbie Hart of Missouri Botanical Garden work together to resurvey an alpine plant ecology monitoring plot in the rain. They’re both quite wet despite the umbrella Fang Ye is holding.
December 1, 2024 at 3:33 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
A fleck of sun and moment of calm during our survey of Summit Three this fall. Fang, Eric and Natalie are compiling plant lists to compare against those from 2016 and 2009, and microclimate changes during these periods.
Three ecologists sitting on a rocky peak in SW China looking at field notes, mountain slopes and clouds in the background. Yunnan, China, 2024, collecting data as part of the Plant Ecology and Adaptation Knowledge Systems program at Missouri Botanical Garden.
December 1, 2024 at 3:29 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
Gentiana decorata in flower this fall at the mountain in SW China where we work to monitor climate impacts on high elevation plants and on they way they are used by local people. Circa 4500 m.
Sun glowing on a deep blue gentian flower (Gentiana decorata) in flower in an alpine meadow surrounded by mountain ridges, photographed Fall 2024 at the mountain in SW China where we work to monitor climate impacts on high elevation plants and on they way they are used by local people.
November 30, 2024 at 9:24 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
Ginkgo is a #PlantsAndPeople icon, and one of the reasons is surely its ancient association with sacred sites across Asia. This bond is a way it survived local extinction across its former global range and a way it thrives today. I met this old ginkgo tree in the courtyard of Yulong Temple, Yunnan.
Foreground is a ginkgo branch with golden leaves decorated with a red tassel in Yulong Temple outside Yunnan, China, photographed in 2011. At 2600 meters above sea level, this individual tree has grown and thrived much higher in the mountains than usual for the species, even in cultivation. Background is a banner in dongbawen, the ideographic script used by ritual specialist in the Naxi community indigenous to this area. A ginkgo branch with golden leaves in Yulong Temple, Yunnan, China, photographed in 2011. At 2600 meters above sea level, this individual tree has grown and thrived much higher in the mountains than usual for the species, even in cultivation.
November 27, 2024 at 6:50 PM
oreotrephes.bsky.social
The first freezing weather at Missouri Botanical Garden means we’ve reached ginkgofall, a favorite botanical seasonal indicator for me.
Ginkgo trees with falling golden leaves line a path at Missouri Botanical Garden in November 2024.
November 27, 2024 at 12:49 PM