ou with your family and the crystal city internment camp, if you will agree to go voluntarily and then, i discovered what the real secret of the camp was. what. they also had to agree to voluntarily repatriate to germany and japan if the government decided they needed to be repatriated. so the truth of the matter is the crystal city camp was humanely administered, but the special ward divisions and department of state used it as roosevelt's primary prisoner exchange and was the center of the prisoner exchange program. lack of a knife at 8:00 eastern -- sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific. >> each week american history tv american artifacts is it museums

and historic places established by congress in 1820, the united states botanic garden itself is garden in america. next, we will take a two or -- tour and learn about the collections of the plant museum originally proposed by washington in 1776. >> welcome to the united states spoke in article garden. -- botanic garden. >> my name is ari novy. i am the executive director of the united states botanic garden. we are standing on union square, which is the end cap of the national mall on the east side just before you arrive at the united states capital. i will introduce you to the stars and the other wonderful plants that we have here today. we are standing in a room called the garden court. i was like to orient people when

we come in. one of the most important elements are those that you see here in the front. very prominently displayed. the first thing you see when you walk into the botanic gardens. they represent a part of that historical collection. it came to existence as a permanent institution in 1842 when the united states x loring x edition, also sometimes called the will expedition returned from a four-year voyage in the pacific ocean at the behest of congress, mainly doing surveying but also picked up of really -- whole bunch of really neat national science artifacts. in 1842 when the expedition returned, they had about 150 fascinating tropical and subtropical plant species, many of which have never before been on north american continent. this was deemed very valuable.

this collection of plants was immediately recognized as important by congress. funds were incorporated near the old cat and office building to house them while it permanent u.s. botanic garden good the built. we still have to this day a couple of plants that are direct descendents come in many cases, vegetative prosecutable of the plants. the one on the left is one of the original wilk plants as we call them. it is subsequent to the introduction to the united states in 1800 is has become a relatively important tree species in terms of element -- elemental and the tropical parts of the united states and specifically southern florida. i will use some terms occasionally about how we grow and maintain plant lines as we are here. some are more technical and some are a little less technical.

vegetative propaganule are pieces of a plant that can be coaxed into growing into a full plant without going through see generation. site has look aloft like true palms, but they are a completely different family in order of plants altogether. they are conifers, where homes are more closely related to greater first. they look similar. one of the big differences between them, even though they look similar is the way in which they grow. a site cap is able to be grown into a full plant from a very all parts of tissue. you can take a cutting or section of the trunk and let that go dormant, and that is most likely have the plants were originally transported from the pacific to the mid part of the

united states in the early 1800s. you can then take the dormant peace and coax it as a growing root and growing leaves and turning into a full plant. by contrast, the palm right here we have the classic coconut palm , which gives us the coconut and the wonderful products from coconut. it has a very special growth characteristic in that it has a tip of growth. essentially once the plant loses that piece of growth, it cannot survive. you cannot take a cutting from the palm tree in the same way you could from acai cat and regenerate that tree. -- a zicade and regenerate the

tree. people are absolutely familiar with them. one of the most wonderful and something people are absolutely fascinated about is this beautiful tree right here. this, believe it or not, is the chocolate tree. all chocolate comes from this specific species. this is committed to the amazon region of brazil. commercial truck -- commercial chocolate production. the plant does not have any of the fruit or cocoa pods on it, which are harvested and processed in order to make chocolate, but you can see some really beautiful flowers that are forming. one of the most fascinating things about this particular tree is it produces lowers from this them or trunk, and that is called clippers. there are a few trees but when

you have them, they are quite interesting because it is a different presentation in terms of location for the flower. we love to pollinate the plant so it can produce wonderful chocolate pod. unfortunately we do not have the natural insect pollinator which is a mage and the topical environment. the gardeners act as little insects and will take flowers off of the other plants, take them over here and carefully touch from the other flowers to the stigma on this one and create wonderful fruit. typically we do that around the fall. they come to maturity in the late spring or so. in addition to chocolate, with many other iconic plant people would recognize. maybe even more exciting and useful to people other than chocolate, although it is hard to imagine is coffee. here we have the tooth he sees a

copy that are commonly front for the commercial coffee production. this particular plant right here is the erotica -- arravica copy. it is very high quality. the plants need to be grown in full shade. they are grown with other plants to provide the shade. shades provide the right condition this plants need to produce delicious coffee beans. in contrast, even though the plant it tells looks white similar, this is a full grown full sun plant. it can be grown under full sun conditions. no shade plants required. as such it has a higher yield. but because human beings and consumers are so discerning and what case we prefer for coffee even though this coffee produces a higher yield, we still have

about 80% of world production because that is what the market demand. being in a tropical conservative regrowth mostly tropical. everybody has had bananas but every few people have seen what they look like growing on a banana plant. here we have a wonderful, sweet and edible banana. you see the tree itself is not a true tree or trunk. the large stem coming out is really a pressed stock holding the beautiful leaves in the air. it actually has no woody parts. the cluster of bennion escrows from the top of the cluster of leaves down.

the purple flowers you see there, they begin to open. in nature they would be pollinated by plant -- by bat. they would begin to open. behind them the clusters of bennion as was formed. one of the most important functions of the botanic garden is to provide a safe environment for rare and endangered plants that need to be maintain out of the natural environment because they may be under threat or stressed. these are plants that are out of their natural environment. because of challenges to these plants out in the environment, whether it is through human development or changes in climate or whatever else is happening to change the stability of the ecosystem there are plants that need help in order to survive so that they will not going inc.. we can tell the wonderful stories of the plants and help the public learned what they can

do to protect them and what we are all doing to protect these kinds of plants by telling their stories here. one of my favorite stories is the plant behind me. it is called the wallaby pine. it is a neat story. a positive story about how sometimes plants we think are lost are not lost and can be -- and can be rebound. it was known only from the fossil record. it was thought all species were extinct. in fact, in the 1990's there was a hiker in australia name -- named david noble who found the plant teeth outlook strange and called an expert -- who found the plants and thought it looked strange and called an expert and found it was a still living fossil species. it is named nova list after the last name noble of the gentleman who does ever the plant. the australian government was able to save guard the plant.

there are areas where they grow tall, beautiful, healthy and strong. now that we've relicensed a our life and here on earth, we are working hard to preserve them. they are being preserved in the national environment and disseminating them by propagating them throughout the botanic garden and other conservation unities to make sure the unique's e she's is known and certainly not lost. it is really exciting for us to present plants to the public that have a long history of human use and have become indispensable plants for human beings to survive. one of the things that illustrates that is the sugarcane. sugarcane is something we associate today maybe with tropical brazil. certainly baked goods and confectionery. file fuels you associated with ethanol. it is an old plant utilizing ancient times.

originally we believe it was found in archipelagoes and moved around in southeast asia. then it was able to find its way probably overland to europe by around the middle ages. anecdotally we believe christopher columbus brought it to the new world on a second voyage to the new world. it ended up being an important plant economically and plantations, grown predominantly by slaved laborers. first in the caribbean island and then later on in south american mainland and gulf coast of the united states. so it is fascinating and reflective and solemn to think about the history of the plant and wonderful resource in terms of sugar it was capable of providing us but also the dark and sordid history of how human beings chose to cultivate the plant in terms of utilizing it

as one of the main pillars of the slaves and really having it be a resource that drove this very what we would call now negative aspect of human history where we utilized slave labor to cultivate the plants that we need. it is important and sobering to recognize how the plant history affected in this case back demographic shift of people coming to the new world. emerging economies of the new world and how we have moved hopefully beyond that some of the negative practices in the growing of plants to new and better practices as we still require the resources the plants provide us. people interested in the usage of plant since the memorial.

partially because they have curative properties and people have always been interested in the curative properties of plants. certainly as long as there have been people there have been diseases and ailments we have been investigating all sorts of plants to help us deal with the problems. plants have provided one of them -- some of the many wonderful ancient and traditional and modern medicines. this particular bed right here there are several plants that have importance today or in the past. one of my favorite stories is this particular plant that looks like a garden-variety parry winkles but a very special and rare. wrinkle that grows -- para legal that grows only in madagascar. it has given us to very important chemotherapy drugs. these have been really important chemotherapeutics while working

against several different types of cancers and fascinating different conservation story. the plant is found only in madagascar. in order to save hard this great therapeutic against the horrible disease of cancer, we have had to live how to preserve and care -- learn and preserve the plant for cancer. another really fascinating plant in this set is this tree. so for those who like gin and tonic, this plant rings you the tonic. certainly important from a recreational perspective. it is even more important in history for being the first very well functioning anti-malaria medicine. it comes from ecuador. the local peoples knew the park could be used to create a potent anti-fever compound.

colonial, especially the british were interested in looking for them, especially the combat issues that they were having in different parts of the world such as south asia with malaria issues. this plant has a very important history and that it was adopted by colonial powers like the british and dutch and learned how to grow this halfway around the world in order to provide medicine for the phone to safeguard them against the ravages of malaria. there are many other drugs that exists today. quinine is still used, still effective and a very poor and in some cases relatively cheap drug available for protection against malaria. we like to think of the botanic garden as a museum of living plants, collection of living things.

one of our primary responsibilities is maintaining the collections. we're collections that are too large to be displayed to the public at any one time. what we do is occasionally put on shows that allow us to highlight asked its of the collection to help the public understand the breadth diversity and usage of the various parts of the kingdom. in this room, which we call the south transition we gladly change the display to highlight some really exciting and unique hearts of the collection. currently we have a display of plants and a specific genus. in addition, we have other plans from the family, and we are pleased to be able to show them in all of their strange diversity and fun forms for the public. so we will make our way to the

u.s. botanic garden house of world dennis. we have a wonderful collection of those are areas and succulent plants. these are wonderful to show people because they show how plants have adapted to live in a specific environment. plants are responsive to the environment for which they live. we have all seen kinds of succulent plants, but we do not always think about why they looked away they do. one of the prime goals is to explain almost the child is question of why didn't plants look away they do. it is a fascinating story looking at the desert plants. this is the old man cap this. we can see a couple of really fascinating and common features of doesn't plant. we see in many cases there are no or very few or small leaves.

they are green. what they are going on there is the plant is trying to operate and live in an environment with very little water availability. leaves create a large surface area for the plant to lose water through of operation and transpiration. they have reduced or eliminated those and transferred photosynthesis to the green stem in order to conserve on water. it has thorns and tears and in many cases they are protected. the hairs in many cases are creating a boundary layer of air. an airflow where it moves more slowly next to the body of the plant and reduces evaporation title of the water from leaving the plants. you will see all of the common themes in the plants of the desert so they are able to live in the very harsh tough

conditions of desert but thrive and be wonderful and unique in their solution to being able to live in the environment. the u.s. botanic garden we do have a few of the plant from the original 1842 collections that established the collection. the one is very aptly name. the leaves are sharp. they are ferocious. the plant is horrible to touch so it is not commonly used because it is so painful. this was brought here in 1842. the specimen is likely a little outgrowth of the original plant from the base that we are able to coax into throwing roof and developing to a full plants. they are closely related to find. what you see is a cone having

formed from the base of the plant, and now it has split open revealing scene that would be within the cones. it is how plants often serve to define space and place for the environment and the human being. human understanding of the environment. this is a collection of plants that are all made of and are endemic to the hawaiian islands. certain plants are found only in only restricted ranges of geography. when that happens, those become very rare, important plants to conserve because of the unique qualities and the evolutionary relationship to the environment and ecosystems in which they

live. hawaii has a high degree because it is an island, a series of islands that are very isolated in the pacific ocean. it is hard for new plants and animals to get there. when they have arrived in the hawaiian islands, they have often set out on their own unique, evolutionary trajectories in isolation from plants on the mainland and has created a great and wonderful radiation of adaptations and really neat, fascinating types of plants in large quantities and can't and transient in the hawaiian islands. the rooms we are coming into noun we call regarding primeval. the plants in here represent ancient lineages. plants that are similar to plants that existed before the earth became dominated by flowering plants. this could be thought of as a

type environment that maybe we would have seen during the time of the dinosaurs. fascinating to note the predominant plants were different from the plants of today. first of all, a different climate. it was whether. they all have parts of the lifecycle that required a significant amount of moisture in order to complete the part of the lifecycle. plants that associate with wet places like ferns, mosses, tree ferns. these are all plants we currently associate with wet places. in the past, they were plants that were more dominant. one of the things we really love pointing out about his plans is the do not reproduce with flowers. they do not have them. pollination. insects and birds is not something that would have been a part of the plants in this particular group. you see in the lower plants like ferns, they in fact are not

pollinated at all. they produce something called spores. they often grow on the bottom of the lease of the ferns and can see them right here you if we lift up this fern and see underneath, you will see a row of two, brown strips. these are the structures that contain spores. these will fall to the ground. they will produce growths and eventually they will grow into the full plant for you see here. endangered plants are very important part of the botanical garden. you can find the relative losing election. writing out looking at a very rare plants that is only found in one section of florida. sometimes it is called the florida array of -- terea. there

is a state park in the panhandle where you can go and visit these types of land. currently in a courtyard space we call southern exposure. we call it southern exposure because we are taking advantage of the microclimate created by being reared surrounded by shiny, green hat that creates a warmer environment relative to the natural climate of washington, d.c. area. this allows us to grow plants that are native to southern united states that in most conditions were not able to survive in washington, d the area. some wonderful examples are ashes magnolia. it is like magnolia on steroids. it has huge leaves and very large magnolia flowers. it is in fact a bit of a rare plant that sounds further south

than where we currently are. we also like to take the opportunity to show here some wonderful david carnivorous plants. we're always trying to reach out to a young audience and we find out that young people get excited about plants the grotesque asset -- aspects of plants that eat insects. here we see a venus fly trap. not many americans realize this venus fly cap is only made of 2000 -- north and south carolina. it feels excited -- exotic but it is from our backyard. it is endangered so we have to make sure we have to watch the populations in the wild, but keeping them in botanic garden senate is a very important part of what we do. we are currently in the u.s. botanic garden jungle. historically the smallest room

in a conservative -- conservatory is called upon how. it was meant to be a place where you could show the diversity of tall and tropical thing is in terms where you would not be able to see them otherwise. that was the historical usage at the botanical garden. more recently in order to reflect a growing understanding of ecology, we are recapped the room to showcase not only really interesting tropical tall things but show them in a way that is indicative of the ecosystem of tropical rain forest. as you look throughout the room you will see multiple layers of plants. you will see a ground long -- ground layer cover, higher layer as well as plants growing up. he will see a canopy layer of the tallest plant that create the canopy of the forest.

as with most things in life, it is often quite instructive -- constructed to change one's perspective. in order to achieve that, we have made sure to create a candle the wall in the higher levels of the jungle house. it is wonderful to get up among the top of the trees in the canopy and see the wonderful and interesting plants that grow at this level. see at the leaves and the leaves and flowers and trees and provide a really interesting environment that is different from what you would see from the ground level. i want to thank you for taking the time to visit us here at the u.s. botanic garden. the u.s. botanic garden is an absolutely wonderful resource area where hundreds of the five days per year. we're always free from 10 :00 until 5:00 every day. if you come to think, these the it is a wonderful place to visit

the matter what time of year, time of day there is always something in bloom and something to the. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> up next, american history tv, pastors, historians, church choirs and and after picturing abolitionist. reflecting on the passage of the 13th amendment that abolish slavery. the event is held at the new york avenue presbyterian church where president link when frequently worship. this group marking the 130 -- 50th anniversary of the passage of the 13th amendment is two hours.