“DISCOVERING AND PRESERVING TEXAS’ BOTANICAL HERITAGE ”

Monday – July 24, 2017
“DISCOVERING AND PRESERVING TEXAS’ BOTANICAL HERITAGE ”
Location: First United Methodist Church
505 W. Marvin Ave., Waxahachie, TX
Family Life Center - Gathering Room

Indian Trail Chapter, Texas Master Naturalist
· 6:00 PM - Business Meeting
· 7:00 PM - Program by Barney Lipscomb – Botanical Research Institute of Texas

Texas is fortunate to have a wealth of information about its plant life, vegetation, and natural history due to many collectors and collections over the last 197 years, since the first scientific collecting began in Texas in 1820. The 19th Century ushered into Texas a wave of zealous naturalists who labored tirelessly in the great age of discovery. These early sojourners gave science a wealth of herbarium specimens which represent an important source of knowledge about Texas’ biodiversity. A current decline of plant collecting continues into the 21st century but at what price? Herbarium specimens are a gold mine of information; deciphering the information is good for science and good for conservation in the 21st century. Our Program will examine herbarium collections to 1) map under-collected areas in Texas, 2) look at the rate of plant collecting in the 21st century, and 3) identify areas of Texas in need of further exploration and collecting.

Barney L. Lipscomb, editor, author, writer, public speaker, and researcher, originally from Temple, Oklahoma, attended Cameron University (B.S Biology, 1973) and the University of Arkansas (M.S. Botany, 1976), and began his career at Southern Methodist University as the herbarium botanist in 1975. Barney is now the Botanical Research Institute of Texas Leonhardt Chair of Texas Botany.

Indian Trail Chapter is part of the statewide Texas Master Naturalist Volunteer Program of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.

The Mission …to develop a corps of well-informed volunteers to provide education, outreach,
and service dedicated to the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas
within their communities.

This program is part of a series of “no cost” “open to the public” Master Naturalist programs offered the fourth Monday (generally) of each month, 7:00 – 8:00 p.m. Please bring a friend! For more information, please call the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension at 972-825-5175 or email: information@itmnc.com

Posted on June 29, 2017 09:39 PM by cgritz