A fragment of a leaf of a potato plant infected with Phytophthora infestans is implicated in the death of a million people in Ireland and the emigration of a million and a half more, in a far-reaching story that interweaves migrations of plants and the diseases that chase them; agrobiodiversity; germ theory; the defeat of a British Prime Minister; and the politics of science, bigotry, disaster relief, and cultural memory.
This July, join Dr. Doug Daly, B.A. Krukoff Curator of Amazonian Botany in NYBG's Institute of Systematic Botany, for an online discussion of how the aftermath altered the demography of many parts of the world.
