Ben Snyder's Gympie Gympie Plants

While at first glance, the Ambler Campus Greenhouse may look like a lush jungle full of tasty tropical fruits and fragrant flowers, there are some more sinister residents as well. Ben will highlight some of these, including the Gympie-Gympie and Giant Corpse flower, discussing their unique ecological interactions, the important educational and research roles these plants play in our collection, as well as the practical aspects of caring for these special inhabitants.

Benjamin Snyder is the Manager of the Tyler School of Art and Architecture’s Greenhouse Education and Research Complex located on the Temple University Ambler Campus, a position he has held for the past 8 years. In this role, Benjamin oversees the day-to-day operations of a tropical greenhouse collection comprising of over 1,900 unique taxa of plants, a one-acre deer-fenced research garden containing orchard and food crops, along with various hardy and seasonal display beds surrounding the Greenhouse Complex. He also coordinates the horticultural aspects of Temple’s annual award-winning exhibit at the Philadelphia Flower Show, working with students to select, prepare and install plants to bloom out of season for the display. In addition to his staff role, Benjamin is also an Adjunct Instructor for the Landscape Architecture and Horticulture Programs teaching Herbaceous Plant Identification I and II as well as being a faculty member for Horticulture Directed Studies. Outside of these daily roles, he also regularly gives guided tours for the Ambler Arboretum, as well as presentations to local horticultural organizations and garden clubs and has been featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer multiple times and interviewed on BBC. Benjamin is a Suma Cum Laude graduate of Temple University’s B.S. in Horticulture Program, Dec. 2016.