The Library in Bloom (or Selfie Sticks in Action)

YOUR Alexandria Campus Library is home to a beautiful collection of plants. One of the star members of YOUR Library garden is a two story tall(!) flowering cactus (cereus peruvianus) that has been in the library longer than any current staff or faculty member. Librarian Anne Anderson and Reference Specialist Melanie Medina set off to capture one of the beautiful blooms that popped up on YOUR giant cereus peruvianus. The task was a tricky one - the cactus is over 35 feet tall; both blooms were above the second floor railing; and, both blooms were wedged between the cactus and the window. YOUR Library staff is here to help you find and use all of the appropriate tools to solve any of your academic problems, and this task was no different. First, we set out in search of a selfie stick.

Just like research, the adventure did not go exactly as planned...

Anne and Melanie figured out the selfie stick!
They don't teach you this in library school.

Even with some support from Melanie,
our cereus peruvianus could not master the selfie.

What we really wanted to show you, was that once per year, YOUR cereus peruvianus sports one or two beautiful blooms that look like this:

Whether you just inherited your first houseplant, you want to understand how plants grow, or you want to see beautiful illustrations of unusual flowers, YOUR library has lots of great titles to help you discover all that plants have to offer.

SB419 .M314 2015

QK711.2 .C425 201

QK98.3 .N48x 2014

Want to learn more about plant life cycles, anatomy, morphology, taxonomy, and evolution? Enroll in Biology 110 General Botany (4 cr.) on the Alexandria Campus in the spring!