Plant Family Identification Workshop

WORKSHOP HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Plant Family Identification Motifs:
patterns for simplifying the complexity

Instructor: Dr. Richard Abbott*

When: Saturday, March 21, 2020
Time:  9am-4pm Eastern Time
Where:  Bernheim Arboretum & Forest, meet at the Garden Pavilion
Cost:  $25 /$10 for students
Bring your own lunch, and wear hiking shoes

Using minimal basic vocabulary, approximately 30 plant families, and half a dozen artificial motifs, we will focus on plant identification patterns.  Learning Kentucky plants within a global framework not only empowers confidence in knowing what you know, but enables identifying more than 130,000 plants to family globally and provides a solid foundation for incorporating other family patterns.  Essentially, this workshop is an introduction to a way of thinking about how to organize botanical knowledge in a practical, applied way.

*About the Instructor

Dr. J. Richard Abbott, Assistant Professor of Biology, is the current Curator of the University of Arkansas Monticello Herbarium. At UAM, he teaches General Botany, Regional Flora, and Plants in Our World and conducts floristic, systematic, and taxonomic research, especially with the milkwort family (Polygalaceae). He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Biology and German from Berea College in Kentucky and both M.S. degree and Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Florida in Gainesville. His primary passion is teaching plant identification, using the local flora to understand global patterns. To that end, he is currently working to establish a living teaching collection on the UAM campus, with the ultimate goal of cultivating as many families and genera as possible.

Workshops are opened to KNPS members for registration 2 weeks before they are opened to the general public. This session has been filled by KNPS members. If you are interested in this workshop you can sign up on the waiting list below. If an opening occurs the first person on the waiting list will be contacted If there is significant interest in the workshop we will try to schedule another session as soon as possible and the people on the waiting list will be the first contacted about the new session.

Sedge Workshop

Sedge Identification and Diversity
(Carex, Cyperaceae)

Many of the grass-like plants one may encounter in our natural areas in Kentucky are not actually grasses. Although similar, they are members of an entirely different family of plants; the sedge family (Cyperaceae)

Instructor: Rob Naczi*

When: May 21-22, 2019 (Tuesday/Wednesday)
Time:  9am-5pm Eastern Time
Where:  Richmond area, Eastern Kentucky University and nearby natural areas, exact details TBA
Cost:  $75

THIS WORKSHOP HAS FINISHED

Many of the grass-like plants one may encounter in our natural areas in Kentucky are not actually grasses. Although similar, they are members of an entirely different family of plants. This workshop will focus on the largest genus within the sedge family (Cyperaceae), the genus Carex. With close to 150 species in this genus found in Kentucky, the diversity of sedges (Carex) is astounding and they can tell us a lot about the natural communities upon which they are found. Rob Naczi, curator of the New York Botanical garden and North America’s Carex expert, will teach us about sedge diversity and how to identify this notoriously difficult group. 

*About the Instructor

Robert F. C. Naczi, PhD
Arthur J. Cronquist Curator of North American Botany, The New York Botanical Garden

http://www.nybg.org/science/scientist_profile.php?id_scientist=105
http://sweetgum.nybg.org/northeastflora/index.php
rnaczi@nybg.or

Rob Naczi

Robert Naczi is a plant systematist whose research focuses on the flora of North America, plant conservation, sedges (Cyperaceae), and Western Hemisphere Pitcher Plants (Sarraceniaceae). Naczi uses a multi-pronged approach in his research, utilizing field, herbarium, and laboratory methods. His fieldwork has given him first-hand knowledge of the plant life of much of North America. He and collaborators are writing a comprehensive account of the Northeast’s spontaneous plants, New Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. He is lead editor of Sedges: Uses, Diversity, and Systematics of the Cyperaceae (2008). Also, he co-authored Mistaken Identity? Invasive Plants and their Native Look-alikes: An identification guide for the Mid-Atlantic (2008). For 35 years, he has studied the taxonomy, phylogeny, and ecology of Carex. Carex is the largest genus of flowering plants in North America (500 species) and in most temperate regions of the world (2000 species total). Naczi earned the B.S. in Biology from St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, and the Ph.D. in Botany from University of Michigan.