June 30, 2000

The Ecological Revival of a Reviled Landfill

By MALCOLM G. SCULLY

It is a long way -- physically and aesthetically -- from the spectacular landscapes of Australia's Blue Mountains to the notorious Fresh Kills landfill on New York's Staten Island.

Over his career, Steven N. Handel, a plant ecologist at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, has tromped around both. In the Blue Mountains he has studied an unusual family of orchids with the kind of reproductive strategy that makes you marvel at the mysteries of evolution. Each

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