I am a graduate student at UC Berkeley studying the diversity and evolution of whelks. This summer I was sponsored by the NSF (USA) and JSPS (Japan) to work with Dr. Seiji Hayashi at Nagoya University in Japan to collect buccinid gastropod (whelk) tissue samples and examine whelk shell collections at musems throughout Japan. Sugoi! Some of the snails that I study are pictured to the right.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Orchid Gardens

My Nagoya tourist guide listed the city Orchid Gardens (Ran no Yakata) as a desination of note. It informed me that Aichi Prefecture, of which Nagoya is the capital, is the number one producer of orchids in Japan. It also told me that the Orchid Gardens are "a new space born in a city that proposes a new life for people and flower with the theme of orchid." With such an endorsement I had to check it out! As you might imagine, there were lots of orchids. And lots of dragonflies and damselflies in an outside pond.
More pictures of orchids are below.

1 comment:

Appalachian Muse said...

you take wonderful photos. I'll try to follow your experiences. best wishes.