During the years 1900-02 while experimenting with kites, gliders, and a wind tunnel they built to test wing design, the two brothers developed the first effective airplane, and made the first flight of a powered, controlled, heavier-than-air airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. The original Wright Flyer is now housed at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

In 1905, the Wright brothers built an airplane that could fly for more than half an hour at a time. In 1908 Orville made the world’s first flight of over one hour at Fort Myer, Virginia, in a demonstration for the U.S. army, which subsequently made the Wright planes the world’s first military airplanes. That same year Wilbur made over 100 flights near Le Mans, France; the longest one, on Dec. 31, a record flight: 2 hours, 19 minutes.

This sweetgum is a seedling from a tree at the site of the Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk. As a tribute to the awesome quest for flight and the remarkable advances of the Wright brothers we chose to create a garden that could thrive in the air rather than on the ground. Thus, our Wright Brothers Sweet Gum now has a garden of airplants!

Tillandsias are members of the bromeliad family found in North and South America in many regions from deserts to deep forests. Tillandsias are ephiphites and do not need soil to grow.

Ephiphytes are defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “. . . a plant that grows upon another plant (as a tree) nonparasitically or sometimes upon some other object (as a building or a telegraph wire), derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and sometimes from debris accumulating around it, and is found in the temperate zone (as many mosses, liverworts, lichens and algae) and in the tropics (as many ferns, cacti, orchids, and bromeliads) — called also air plants.”

Those from the Tampa Bay area are probably already familiar with two very common Tillandsias particularly Ball Moss (Tillandsia recurvata) which is often seen growing on trees and even power lines and also Spanish Moss (Tillandsia usneoides). Although often thought to be parasitic to trees on which they host, these tillandsias only use their hosts for support and collect all of their necessary nutrients through their own leaves.

What’s in a name?

The genus Tillandsia was named by Carolus Linnaeus after Dr. Elias Tillander (1640-1693) who was a Finnish physician and botanist who published the Catalogus Plantarum in 1673. Carolus Linneaus (1707-1778) is the father of modern binomial nomenclature or ‘Latin name’ which utilizes a genus and specific name or epithet to create a full scientific name for a creature. Binomial nomenclature gets us around the sticky problems of one species having many common names by providing a scientific term by which we will always know which species is being referenced.

Our garden:

The Tillandsias chosen for the Wright Brothers Sweet Gum Air Garden were mounted to two pieces of fallen tree from the MOSI backwoods so that they would be well supported as they grow. At their base are planted several colorful bromeliads. Many tillandsias are known primarily by their scientific names.