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Research
Frazier Point, Santa Cruz Island
Research at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden began in the late 1920s when the eminent plant ecologist Dr. Frederic E. Clements, who briefly served as the Garden's first Director and scientific adviser, established experimental plots to study climatic effects on native plants. During the 1930s, under the direction of Dr. Maunsell Van Rensselaer, the Garden became a center for horticultural research on Ceanothus.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, faculty at the soon-to-be University of California at Santa Barbara conducted research at the Garden, including studies of floral and wood anatomy, and the physiology of native plants. Several students who served as the Garden research assistants later became distinguished scientists. Among them were Dr. John Tucker, an expert on California oaks, and Dr. Reid Moran, long-time student of Dudleya and the flora of Baja California.
Dr. Frederick E. Clements
During the tenure of Garden Director Dr. Katherine Muller (1950-1973), new facilities were constructed to support an active research program. Research by the Garden's staff included studies of plant chromosomes by Dr. Marta Walters and studies of tree ring structure by Harold Gladwin. Dr. Walter's work analyzed the disruption of chromosome structure and function caused by radiation. Harold Gladwin's research, in collaboration with others, revealed fluctuating patterns of climatic change over the past 3,000 years, and contributed to understanding southwestern archeology.
Dr. Muller also initiated the Garden's long-term efforts to study the flora of California's Channel Islands. Staff members E. R. (Jim) Blakley and Martin Piehl began the first floristic inventories in 1953.
Beginning in the 1960s, Dr. Ralph Philbrick (Garden Director from 1974 to 1987) expanded the Garden's floristic research of the Channel Islands. For over 40 years, Garden surveys and inventories have significantly expanded our knowledge of these remarkable offshore terrains. As a result, the Garden's herbarium includes over 30,000 specimens of the Channel Islands' vascular plants and lichens, which are consulted by researchers throughout the world.
The current research program continues these efforts, which include Floristics and Systematic Botany, and Ecology and Conservation Biology.
Click here to see recent Garden staff publications.
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