DonateChristina Varnava Romo
“The wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin
Christina Varnava is the Living Collections curator at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. She helps make decisions about the plants that are added to the Living Collection and manages nearly 100 years of records for the thousands of plants that are part of the Collection. The information in these records is vital to the Garden’s mission. It allows staff to make informed decisions about new acquisitions, propagation, and plantings — and allows the Living Collection to be used as a tool for conservation and research
Christina studied botany and received a master’s degree from Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and Claremont Graduate University. For her master’s research, she worked on a floristic study of the upper Sespe Creek watershed in the Los Padres National Forest in Ventura County, allowing her lots of hands-on experience with the diverse plants of the western Transverse Ranges. Prior to that, she attended California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and received a bachelor’s degree in biology with a concentration in botany. Christina has a strong connection to natural history collections. Prior to graduate school she worked in the herbarium at RSA-POM, which is one of the largest herbaria in the country.
Christina is passionate about almost everything that photosynthesizes and even a few things that don’t. She loves the varied and beautiful landscapes of California and is an advocate for conservation of chaparral, one of the most misunderstood and under-appreciated habitats in California. Additionally, she is passionate about fighting human-caused climate change and addressing its devastating effects.
When not at the Garden, Christina enjoys many activities including getting lost in a good book, playing tabletop games, baking, and going camping with her dog, Hollyhock.
Insights
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Dudleya | Celebrating California’s Star Succulent
What is a Dudleya? Dudleya, sometimes commonly called liveforevers, is a genus of about 65 species and subspecies. Members of the stonecrop family (Crassulaceae), these succulent plants are closely related to garden center staples like hens and chicks (Echevaria species). Dudleya often grow in marginal habitats that are difficult for other plants to colonize, such…
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Stanley Smith Plant Establishment Trials
Why Study Native Plant Gardening? California native plant horticulture is an open frontier. There are still lots of basic questions that we haven’t been able to test scientifically yet. Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is tackling one of these questions with support from the Stanley Smith Horticulture Trust. Through horticultural research are still learning a lot…
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Oaks of Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s Living Collection
Have you ever appreciated the shade of a towering oak tree on a hot day? Or enjoyed watching the flash of black and white and red as a busy Acorn Woodpecker stores food for winter? Oak trees are an iconic part of landscapes across California. Anywhere you travel in California you will find oaks: from…
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The Torrey Pine: Conserving California’s Rare Pine
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s horticulture team just returned from a successful trip to Santa Rosa Island to collect seed from the island subspecies of Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana ssp. insularis). Torrey pines are one of the rarest pines in the world, and only occur in two places: on Santa Rosa Island off the coast of…
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Keeper of the Collection
Hello Ironwood Readers. I’m your new Living Collections Curator, Christina Varnava. As a recent graduate of the California Botanic Garden in Claremont, I completed a floristic study of the plants found in the upper Sespe Creek watershed in the Los Padres National Forest, a botanically diverse area. I’m eager to continue to deepen my knowledge…
