Introduction to Botany Workshop “All Things Plants”
Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt, Polk County
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
When you hear the word wildlife what is the first
thing that springs to mind? It's probably an image of an animal. Wildlife
certainly includes all animals but it also includes plants. Our inability to
recognize plants as wildlife is known as “plant blindness”. This term has been
around for over twenty years and it means that people tend to underappreciate
the flora around us. Dr. Tom Rosburg, Professor of Biology at Drake University,
is offering this workshop to introduce participants to Iowa’s flora and promote
“plant sightness”. The goal of this 3-day workshop is
to provide greater understanding and appreciation for plants. The workshop
meets Tuesday 9:30 to 5:00, Wednesday 8:00 to 5:00, and Thursday 8:00 to 2:30. Key learning goals include:
1) Evolution and diversity in the Plant Kingdom
2) Reproduction and adaptation in plants
3) Iowa’s plant communities and imperiled plants
4) Plant terminology, morphology and identification
5) Vegetation management and ecosystem reconstruction
Workshop participants will use dissecting scopes to study morphology and to gain practice keying specimens. Field trips and plant collection sites will include several ecological communities across the diverse landscape of the 9,000-acre Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt complex, including floodplain forests, oak savanna, marsh and sedge meadow communities, fen/wet seeps, and sand prairie. The workshop will incorporate hands-on activities and mini-research projects.
