Bananas and Gingers

 

As a botanist and horticulturist I am interested in cultivated tropical plants.

 

I received formal training in botany at Cornell’s Bailey Hortorium - the major United States center for studying the systematics of cultivated plants.

 

I work with plants in the order Zingiberales, which contains important food plants including bananas, ginger, cardamom, and turmeric, as well as showy ornamental plants including Heliconias and Birds of Paradise.

 

As a horticulturist I study varieties and diseases of bananas and plantains (family Musaceae) an important staple food crop for small-scale farmers in the tropics.