Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 3/20/08 Section: Features

Within the concealed garden between Duncan Hall and the Associated Students House, 20 students crowd onto a small path. They stare at a tree, then at their notes, then back at the tree.

Julie Martinez, a biology department lecturer, points out the tree's defining features and prods the students, hoping they'll be able to identify it. Her clues were finally enough to elicit a correct response: the California Buckeye.

"It's good to actually see what you're learning in the actual world," said Justin Yee, one of the students in Martinez's Plant Biology class.

Almost 22 years ago, San Jose State University built and began maintaining a manmade ecosystem full of prickly trees, brightly colored flowers, and waist high bushes open to the campus community, said Jennifer Cross, a biology technician and the caretaker of the garden.

"It's a resource for the biology students to be able to go out and see the native plants on campus," she said.

Martinez can still recall her days as a former graduate student at SJSU, walking through the garden and learning the intricate details about each species' life cycle.

"The California Frementia produces honey dew for birds," she said pointing at a tall, rangy bush with fuzzy leaves.

Continuing down the path, she pointed out an ash tree, as well as jojoba and toyon bushes.

For any visitors who aren't botany experts, small plastic black plaques are scattered throughout the garden naming the species of each plant.

At least six biology classes use the garden, Cross said, to study the anatomy and lives of bugs and plants and to watch as they all interact.

Classes visit the garden throughout the semester and often observe plants, which go from looking dead and barren, to becoming trees and bushes full of flowers and leaves competing for sunlight - or vice versa. Students also use the garden for long-term independent-study projects.

It was Fall 1986 when the botany department requested a 4,000-square-foot area of grass and pistachio trees on the south side of campus be converted into a botanical garden.

The year-long project was designed and constructed in-house by SJSU Facilities Development and Operations, said Dennis Suit, grounds manager. Crews implemented an irrigation system, hauled in dirt and poured the cement for the walkway.

Records of costs associated with construction have been purged, Suit said, but he recalls a little hiccup that ended up doubling the total cost of the garden. While trying to relocate the pistachio trees, two of four telephone lines that went to the university police station were accidentally cut.

Continued...

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