James G. Kaskey Memorial Park – Home of the BioPond and Biology Greenhouse

The James G. Kaskey Memorial Park honors its past as the first Botanic Garden of the University of Pennsylvania, bolsters research and educational opportunities within the Department of Biology, and enriches community well-being by creating a verdant oasis for plants and people.

This month in the park:

A frothy combination of Celosia 'Pink Flamingo', Chrysanthemum 'Hillside Sheffield Pink', and Calamagrostis brachytricha fills in a newly expanded flower bed.
A great blue heron, Ardea herodias, stops along it's route to cool off at the pond.
Plectranthus 'Mona Lavender' while not hardy, is easily propagated via cuttings every fall for the next year.
This year Dahlias were grown from seed, providing this beautiful plant with flowers whose color is difficult to describe.
The view of the pond from the Woodland Garden allows for an appreciation of the park's mature canopy.
A comparison of Chelone glabra (white) and Chelone lyonii (pink), side by side.
Camellia sasanqua is one of the most hardy Camellias and is the first to bloom.
This desert rose, Adenium obesum, was grown from seed in the Biology Greenhouses, and is flowering now.
Sometimes the calyx left behind are more beautiful than the flower the precede them. This is certainly the case with seven-sons tree, Heptacodium miconioides.
Caryopteris x clandonensis catches the autumn light.
True blue flowers are very rare in nature, Ceratostigma plumbaginoides happily grows in our region.
In the pond a cray fish tries to hide under a leaf.
A detailed view of the toad lily flowers, Tricyrtis formosana.
The showy fruit on this native Euonymus, Euonymus americanus, gives it the common name American strawberry bush.
Eriocapitella hupehensis, the Japanese anemone, bloom in a spectrum of pinks and whites.
Cyclamen hederifolium flower buds unfurl themselves as the prepare to bloom.
The fruit of winterberry holly, Ilex verticillata, ripen in the fall and will persist on the plant throughout winter, unless the birds get to them first!
Aster cordifolius, with a profusion of tiny blooms, is supported by Rosa 'Meiggilli' PEACH DRIFT.
This Chrysanthemum with spooned and quilled petals contains a spectrum of fall colors.
Blue drop-like flowers of Rabdosia longituba cascade down the waterfall slope.

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