Along the Gulfshore

Doubilet has never published underwater work from Southwest Florida, although he did visit the region several years ago to photograph manatees. (The weather didn't cooperate and he couldn't round up any sea cows, but he hopes to try again someday.) Nearby, however, he's had better luck on the coral reefs of the Florida Keys and Cuba. The island nation, in fact, boasts some of the best-preserved coral reefs anywhere, Doubilet says. But overall, he adds, the world's highly complex and poorly understood coral-reef systems have taken "an awful hammering," due mainly to overfishing and pollution. "We've been acting as conquistadors rather than as naturalists," he says. "I plan to talk about the richness of the coral-reef systems throughout the world and how desperately they're under human and climatic pressure."

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida Signature Event, at the Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club: reception, auction and dinner, 5 p.m., Feb. 18, $350 per person; presentation, 7 p.m., Feb. 19, $35 per person ($25 for Conservancy members). Information: 591-1348.

On Exhibit

When you think of the early days of glamorous movie stars photographed for publicity-conscious MGM, you tend to think of the women before the camera, not behind it. Yet one of the leading studio portrait photographers of that day, or any other, was a woman: Ruth Harriet Louise. Her distinctive black-and-white images of celebrities-Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer and more-go on view Jan. 30-April 18 at the Naples Museum of Art.

The story of Louise's brief but brilliant career at MGM-she worked there only from 1925 to 1930 and died in 1940, at the age of 37-is told in a captivating book, Ruth Harriet Louise and Hollywood Glamour Photography, by Robert Dance and Bruce Robertson. The book was published in association with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, where photography curator Karen Sinsheimer originated the traveling exhibition.

"When you look beyond celebrity, she set the tone for so much in fashion and marketing," says Sinsheimer. "She was very good at getting her subjects to do what she wanted, and she had such a sense of texture, design and composition. She also really understood clothes and was glamorous herself; on the MGM lot she was sometimes mistaken for Joan Crawford."

Because of her early death, Louise's career wasn't resurrected in the 1970s and 1980s, when some of her male contemporaries who were still living-George Hurrell, Clarence Sinclair Bull-earned renewed attention for the work they did in the 1920s and '30s. But Sinsheimer thinks the exhibition and book will bring Louise out of undeserved obscurity, removing her remarkable glamour photography from "the cult of celebrity and popularity and demonstrating that it's a serious genre." For more information on the exhibition, call 597-1900.

-Kay Kipling

Discover Historic Sanibel

Since Sanibel's median home values now hover at the half-million-dollar mark, the island's modest beginnings are hard to spot.

Most of the small, unassuming structures that dotted the island before a causeway connected it to the mainland in the 1960s have been knocked down to make way for the upscale modern residences, resorts and shops that now dominate the landscape.

But the city has taken pains to preserve bits and pieces of its heritage in the form of the Sanibel Historic Village and Museum, a low-profile attraction on an island best known for its beaches and shells.

The village consists of eight wooden buildings, which date back to the early 1900s. All were moved from their original locations to make way for development. Now they stand together near Sanibel City Hall and BIG Arts, making it easy for visitors to glimpse island life of a century ago.

The effect is that of an old-time village, with shell paths that crunch beneath your feet and native palms that provide shade.

Among the structures standing are the home of island pioneer Clarence Rutland; the 1926 post office; Miss Charlotta's Tea Room, which dates from the 1930s; the 1898 Burnap Cottage; and the Sanibel Packing Company, which was also known as Bailey's General Store. The Rutland home was the first to relocate in 1984. The last of the buildings, the 1924 Morning Glory Cottage (which came straight out of the Sears Roebuck catalog) was moved to the village a couple of years ago.

Visitors can wander around and peer into the buildings, visit the garden (which boasts eggplants, tomatoes and other produce similar to that grown by early settlers) and admire a Ford Model-T that was used by Bailey's long ago for deliveries. Periodically, the village hosts historical exhibits.

If not for these weathered buildings, the island's history would have been swept away long ago.

The Sanibel Historic Village and Museum, at 950 Dunlop Road, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Wednesday through Saturday from November through May. Admission is $3 for adults; children are admitted free. Call 472-4648 for details.

What's Blooming Now

No flowering plant seems more associated with midwinter and the holiday season than poinsettia. The vibrant reds and greens (and now other colors) that poinsettias add to our holidays result from biological and diplomatic coincidences. This tropical plant requires the short days and long nights of midwinter to produce its tiny yellow flowers and bright-red, leaf-like bracts.

Its introduction to the United States came courtesy of our diplomatic corps. Joel Poinsett, a South Carolina physician with an interest in horticulture, became U.S. ambassador to Mexico in 1825. He found poinsettias planted near homes in Mexico and fell in love with them. In 1826 Poinsett sent cuttings of poinsettia (Poinsettia pulcherrima) to his greenhouses in South Carolina.

Poinsettia does well in Southwest Florida gardens, but is sensitive to frost. An evergreen, it can reach 12 feet. Our name for the plant honors Poinsett; the scientific name pulcherrima means "most beautiful."

In addition to the showy, cultivated poinsettia, we also have smaller, native poinsettias, which also produce tiny yellow-green flowers that lack petals. One, known as painted-leaf (Poinsettia cyathophora), has leaf-like bracts that are often red at the base, providing a show that is similar to its cultivated relative from Mexico. Its leaves, however, can vary in shape from broad and angular to narrow and almost needle-like. Painted-leaf grows in disturbed areas and, in comparison to cultivated poinsettias, might seem amateurish. I prefer to be generous, and call it a delicate miniature. Painted-leaf blooms year-round throughout Florida and can grow to 4 1/2 feet, but is usually smaller.

-Jerome A. Jackson

Best Bite

Jayne's victorian garden in fort myers uses flower power-jewel-toned jellies infused with essence of violets, nasturtiums and roses ($5 for 3.6 ounces); and edible dried-flower confetti ($5 for two ounces)-to add a

splash of color and flavor to salads and soups. These and other gourmet goodies-herbed vinegars and oils, jarred relishes-are completely organic and handmade by owners Brian and Jayne Baker, who also operate a cozy, whimsical restaurant on the premises at 12901 McGregor Blvd. Call 482-2466.

Tours

Art in public places here dates back at least to 1928, when Fort Myers developer James Newton commissioned a statue to grace the entrance to his then-new Edison Park. Rachel at the Well, down the street from the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, depicts a Grecian maid pouring water from an urn into a fountain at her feet. (Her demure drapery was added after shocked residents complained to Mina Edison about the statue's nudity.)

Another of Fort Myers' early artworks, Tootie's Fountain, now stands in front of the Fort Myers Country Club. Built for Tootie McGregor Terry (responsible for the paving of McGregor Boulevard) by her second husband, the fountain originally stood closer to the heart of downtown. Like Rachel, the centerpiece sculpture of a palm with snakes coiled at its base went through changes. In the 1930s, city officials had the snakes removed, fearing they presented a bad image for the area. The snakes were restored by local sculptor D.J. Wilkins in 1988, some 30 years after the fountain had been moved to its current home. Wilkins is also responsible for other sculptures in Fort Myers, including Uncommon Friends in Centennial Park-a tribute to winter residents and friends Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone-and the nearby Civil War's 2nd Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops, to commemorate the black Union soldiers who defended a federal post in Fort Myers. One of the city's newest and most striking sculptures is Jim Sanborn's Caloosahatchee Manuscripts outside the historic former post office and federal courthouse on First Street. After dark, lights shine through letters carved into two bronze cylinders, projecting lighted type onto the solid building.

Little Charlotte County boasts a remarkable project that's been in development since 1994, when Dr. Robert Andrews and the Punta Gorda Business and Community Alliance conceived of the Punta Gorda Historic Mural project. Hotel Charlotte Harbor, created by Tom Graham on the south end of the Punta Gorda Mall in 1995, is the first of 19 murals. Fran Hines and Charles Peck are now painting the last mural, Black History, on the brick building just west of the Marion Avenue post office.