Approximately 100 visitors attended the opening reception for the “sLowlife” exhibit at the United States Botanic Garden (USBG) October 26. The exhibit, developed by ASPB Immediate Past President Roger Hangarter, USBG and the Chicago Botanic Garden, is on display continuously at USBG through March 26, 2006. This will be a traveling exhibit that will be installed at other venues during the next several years, including a showing in the Chicago Botanic Garden in 2007.

Using time-lapse imaging, Roger and colleague Dennis DeHart, accelerated the time-scale of plants in a series of movies that demonstrate the extraordinary movements of plants to visitors. At the entrance of the exhibit, along side a traditional still life painting, framed movies of cut tulips in vases beckon people to the exhibit with their dancing movements. The movies demonstrate how portraits of plants aren’t really “still-life” images. Roger speculated that many an artist has experienced frustration in painting mysteriously moving floral arrangements in what they thought was a “still-life” painting.

Interactive plant biology education experiences are offered to visitors to the Darwin experiment re-enactment. Individuals can chart the movement of plants the same way Darwin did in his landmark study of plant tropisms.

Plant movement above and below ground are topics of other time-lapse movies filmed by Roger, including below-ground, close-ups of roots as they snake their way through their underground environment. Plant biology educational lessons are weaved into the exhibit in an entertaining manner, such as with the “Microprocessing” display of time-lapse microscopy. The microscopy presentation “reveals a fascinating choreography in cell growth, cell division and the movements of cellular components,” as a full-color exhibit catalog explains.

The exhibit was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, ASPB Education Foundation, USBG, Chicago Botanic Garden and Indiana University. Roger submitted the grant proposals that supported the exhibit. This marks the first joint project by ASPB and the ASPB Education Foundation with USBG and the Chicago Botanic Garden to explain plant biology to the public. The Botanic Gardens hope to engage in continuing cooperative efforts with ASPB. NSF and Indiana University support were instrumental in making this joint effort possible between ASPB, USBG and the Chicago Botanic Garden.