The huntington: A Garden for your Senses and Mind Text and photos by Georgia Tasker fall 2016 37 Half of all the world’s aloe species live at The Huntington in San Marino, California. So does Thomas Gainsborough’s painting “Blue Boy,” the Ellesmere illustrated edition of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” and Shakespeare’s First Folio. This 207-acre institution in San Marino, California (east of Los Angeles), has a 690,000-volume library, a history of science gallery, European and American art collections, and a dozen botanical gardens that cover 120 acres. It takes days to see and absorb the artistic, intellectual and botanical wealth on display here. Half a million annual visitors enjoy it. Put it on your bucket list. The Huntington was the setting for the American Orchid Society’s fall members’ meeting, which itself included two floors of orchid displays and three days of talks. Against a backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains, attendees learned about the evolution of Paphiopedilum orchids, how to set up a terrarium for miniature orchids and the way Euglossine bees pollinate catasetums. In between, though, the seductive call of The Huntington was siren-like. The Huntington Family Henry Edwards Huntington founded the institution in 1919 for the “advancement of learning, the arts and sciences, and to promote the public welfare.” Huntington’s family history is interesting: His uncle Collis Huntington built not only the Central
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