- This event has passed.
Landrum Library Speaker Series: Using genetics to aid recovery of the federally endangered Bunched Arrowhead
May 14 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Date: May 14, 2024
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: Landrum Library
Speakers: Ashley Morris, Professor and Curator of the Herbarium in the Department of Biology at Furman University
Bunched Arrowhead (Sagittaria fasciculata), is found only in small isolated pockets in Henderson County, North Carolina and Greenville County, South Carolina. The seepage habitat in which it grows is extremely threatened. The remaining populations of this plant and the places where it grows are vulnerable to residential and industrial development, conversion of land to pasture, and non-native and invasive species. Join us to learn about the approach that the lab at Furman University has taken to understand the relative importance of sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction in the federally endangered plant, Bunched Arrowhead, and the implications that research findings have for species recovery.
This program will also give an update on Oconee Bells (Shortia galacifolia), a rare flower of the southern Appalachians found only in a few locations in the mountains of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia and first discovered by French botanist, André Michaux, in 1788. (Check out this link to the June Landrum Library Speaker Series on this topic.)
Ashley is the Professor and Curator of the Herbarium in the Department of Biology at Furman University. She has been at the University since 2019, after moving from Middle Tennessee. She’s been working on rare plant population genetics for over 20 years and teaches courses in Economic Botany, Field Botany, Forest Ecology, Population Genetics & Evolution, and Ecology and Natural Resources Management of the Smokies.
The Landrum Library Speaker Series programs are made possible thanks to our partnership with the Spartanburg County Public Libraries.
Contact Pam Torlina, pam@conservingcarolina.org, with questions or for more information.