Rare plants and habitats can be hidden or found among landscapes in all kinds of places, and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources designates some of those places Wild Plant Sanctuaries … https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/Conservation/WildPlants/WildPlantSanctuaries/Pages/default.aspx
Landscapes and habitats and the plants among them are all firmly intertwined, and “the more time you spend looking for plants, the better you become at predicting what types of habitats are likely to support the plant species you’re seeking”, as Uli Lorimer wrote, in 2010: https://www.bbg.org/gardening/article/harriman_state_park
Every plant has a history, but some have a bit more than others do, as you can see and read, by clicking on this link: https://www.bartramsgarden.org/franklinia-series-finding-franklinia-alatamaha-part-one/
History is embedded in landscapes and waterscapes and persists through time, though generally only partially, and the marks that are left are different in different places:
Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia is an arboretum, and a virtual tour of the trees is available: https://www.woodlandsphila.org/arboretum
Urban environments are highly variable and therefore not only can have but need to have a diverse botanical palette to draw on, to build their ecological landscapes: https://www.ecolandscaping.org/08/designing-ecological-landscapes/landscape-design/urban-landscape-inspirations-from-native-plant-communities/
“Cities are constantly changing”, as Dr. Brenda Lin writes, and green spaces are always integral to the fabric and the history and the people in urban environments: https://blog.csiro.au/green-spaces-urban-environments/
Ned Barnard and Pauline Gray write a regular column, focused on trees, for the Chestnut Hill Local:
https://www.chestnuthilllocal.com/category/tree-talk/
Their writing gets at the biology, the history, and the culture surrounding the trees, and so much more.
And for more about some trees, and other plants, of Northwest Philadelphia….
https://www.chestnuthilllocal.com/2014/07/17/mt-airy-environmentalist-gives-lawn-wildlife/
Plant communities persist through time and record the history that they’ve lived through:
On the evening of Thursday the 27th of February (tonight), beginning at 7:30PM, the Philadelphia Botanical Club will have its monthly public meeting, and Max Piana, of University of Massachusetts Amherst and the US Forest Service, will talk about urban plants, in a lecture titled ‘Forests in the City: Understanding Urban-driven Changes in Plant Recruitment Dynamics’.
For more information, see here: http://darwin.ansp.org/hosted/botany_club/meeting.html
