Birds, Baseball, etc. -- Flora

These pictures were taken at the Orchids! Beauty and Beyond exhibit in the United States Botanic Garden Conservatory on January 31, 2004. The exhibit is co-sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution’s Horticulture Services Division.

The USBG was first proposed in 1816, but it wasn't until 1820 that Congress established it. The organization stopped holding meetings in 1837 and lay dormant until 1842, when the Wilkes Expedition to Antarctica, the South and Central Pacific Ocean, and the Oregon coast finally returned, bringing plants from many areas.