MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE ANNUAL SPRING FLOWER SHOW
TO FEATURE "TULIPOMANIA"

Expert and author Bill Cullina to speak on Northeast native plants

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. -- The annual spring flower show at Mount Holyoke College Botanic Garden will begin Saturday, March 2 and run through Sunday, March 17 in the Talcott Greenhouse. The popular annual spring flower show will feature hundreds of spring-blossoming bulbs and plants, all gathered into the main show house. The greenhouse is wheelchair accessible and the show is free and open to the public.

This year’s theme, "Tulipomania," will showcase representatives from the fifteen horticultural divisions of tulips, highlighting the botany and history of the tulip. Visitors will also find fragrant hyacinths, narcissus, pansies, anemones, ranunculus, daffodils, crocus, scilla, muscari, and primroses, as well as the brightly-colored, daisylike cineraria and the red and yellow-hued calceolaria, or "Pocketbook Plant."

Visitors can also stroll through other areas of the century-old Victorian-era Talcott Greenhouse complex. The complex displays a permanent, living collection of plants from around the world, including ferns, orchids, bromeliads, aquatic plants, cacti and succulents, as well as other tropical, subtropical, and temperate plants. The warm conservatory, which contains larger tropical specimens such as bamboo, figs, calabash, palms, and banana plants, is especially popular with visitors.

In conjunction with the 2002 spring flower show, native plant expert Bill Cullina will present a slide lecture on "50 Great Natives for the Northeast" on Wednesday, March 6 at 7 PM at Gamble Auditorium, Mount Holyoke College. Cullina, an expert in the field of native plant cultivation and propagation, is the nursery manager and propagator at The New England Wildflower Society’s botanic garden, Garden in the Woods, and author of the recently published The New England Wild Flower Society Guide to Growing and Propagating Wildflowers of the United States and Canada. The lecture is free and open to the public, with a reception immediately following in the illuminated Talcott Greenhouse.

The show will run daily from March 2 to 17 from 10 AM to 4 PM. It takes place at Talcott Greenhouse, at the Mount Holyoke College Botanic Garden in South Hadley. Groups are welcome with advance notice. For more information or directions, please call 413-538-2116 or visit http://www.mtholyoke.edu/go/botanic on the Web.

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