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CANCELLED – Speaker Series: Wildflower Ecology – A Step Beyond Identification
March 24, 2020 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Date: March 24, 2020
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: Landrum Library
Speaker: Plant ecologist, Tim Spira
Due to the current health pandemic, all Conserving Carolina events are cancelled through March 31st. (For more information, please click here)
While it’s fun to know the names of plants, it’s also satisfying to discover the myriad ways that plants adapt to their environments. In this presentation, Tim helps you learn to interpret plants from an ecological perspective. For example, have you ever wondered why spring wildflowers typically emerge and flower several weeks before trees and other woody plants leaf out? Why leaves vary in size, color, and shape? Why Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants change gender? Or, why fruits change color as they age (and why some fruits are sweet and others are not)? Seeking answers to questions such as these adds a new and powerful dimension to your understanding and appreciation of wildflowers as well as another layer of fun.
Tim Spira is a plant ecologist, native plant gardener, and professor emeritus at Clemson University where he taught plant ecology and field botany, as well as a summer course for teachers on wildflower ecology. Tim’s published more than 30 papers in scientific journals (mostly on plant-pollinator interactions), including a cover article in the journal Nature. He’s the author of the award-winning book, Wildflowers and Plant Communities of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and Piedmont: A Naturalist’s Guide to the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. His other book is Waterfalls and Wildflowers in the Southern Appalachians: 30 Great Hikes (University of North Carolina Press). Signed copies will be available after the presentation.
This Conserving Carolina Speaker Series event is made possible thanks to the Landrum Library.