Botany in Action (BIA) is a unique and important conservation program
supported by Phipps Conservatory.  BIA awards multiple- year grants of
about $3,000 annually to support graduate students’ field work in botany,
ecology, and ethnobotany – the study of how people use plants.
These researchers work with indigenous
cultures while studying in some of the most
remote and botanically rich areas in the
world.  From Guyana to China to Costa Rica
to Thailand to Western Pennsylvania, Botany
In Action researchers have been
documenting the uses of important and often
endangered plants and identifying the
medicinally active compounds.
Botany in Action grantees are involved in
grassroots conservation where they record
traditional plant knowledge, analyze complex
plant families for the scientific community,
measure the decline of a plant species, and
work with shamans, farmers, villagers,
midwives, and other keepers of medicinal
plant information.
BIA grantee Christiane
Ehringhaus with a
Brazilian Healer in 1995


Through her work for Botany in
Action, Paula Cook Sculley was
awarded in 2005 the Margaret
Douglas Medal by the Garden Club
of America.