Lectures and Special Events, 2012
Unless otherwise noted, all events are held at the North Carolina Botanical Garden's Education Center in Chapel Hill off Old Mason Farm Road. These lectures/events are listed in chronological order.
TweetBartram and Michaux— stories of botanists & explorers
Wednesday, March 7, 7 pm, in the Reeves Auditorium
Title page of Bartram's Travels with frontispiece "Mico Chlucco the Long Warrior"
Join staff of the UNC Herbarium—a unit of the North Carolina Botanical Garden—for an entertaining journey through some botanical history. Herbarium Curator Alan Weakley is master of ceremonies. Garden Director Peter White first discusses botany as an historical science—a subject whose understanding is built through years of observation and is rich with interesting, even colorful, people from past generations. He will focus on the Quaker botanists and their influence on botany in the late 1700s and 1800s, especially William Bartram of Philadelphia who explored the Southeast at the time of early European settlement, when Native American civilizations and old-growth forests were part of the landscape. Peter White weaves in stories of the Lost Colonies and John Lawson, who journeyed between Pittsboro and Hillsborough in the early 1700s.
We'll continue as botanical time-travelers in the second part of the program: a visit to 18th-century America with an experienced and dedicated French explorer-botanist for your guide. Andre Michaux will entertain you with tales of his journey through the rugged and beautiful Carolina landscape as he surveyed this largely unknown land, searching for useful trees and plants. He describes his wilderness adventures and some of his botanical discoveries as well as encounters with inhabitants of early America. Michaux is played by retired librarian/Michaux scholar Charlie Williams of Charlotte, NC. Appearing in 18th-century dress, he speaks to his audience in the formal English of the day and the tone of a dedicated scientist.
The UNC Herbarium is the largest museum collection of plants in the Southeast. The Herbarium safeguards more than a century's-worth of plant specimens that provide the basis of current knowledge about plant identification, taxonomy, and distribution in our region of the world. It is a unit of the North Carolina Botanical Garden, a leading center for research and education on the flora of the southeastern United States and the relationship between plants, environment, and the quality of human lives.
Fee: $10 ($5 NCBG members). Proceeds benefit the UNC Herbarium. Pre-registration is required: please call 919-962-0522 or email Lauren Davis to register.
Thomas Jefferson's Revolutionary Garden
Thursday, March 15, 2 pm
Has any gardener collected so many kinds of vegetables as Thomas Jefferson assembled for his garden at Monticello? Peter Hatch, Director of Gardens & Grounds for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, will discuss his forthcoming book, "A Rich Spot of Earth: Thomas Jefferson's Revolutionary Garden—the story of Jefferson's 1,000-foot-long, terraced vegetable garden, an experimental laboratory of 330 varieties of 99 species of herbs and vegetables. Carved from a hillside to create a uniquely warm microclimate, the garden was an Ellis Island of new and unusual introductions from around the world. Writing that "the greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture," Jefferson exchanged seeds of the latest vegetable novelties with leading gardeners of the early 19th Century with missionary zeal. Co-sponsored by the Herb Society of America (HSA). Fee: $15 (free for HSA & NCBG members)
Robert Frost—Full Day of Spring
Wednesday, March 21, 7 pm
Back by popular demand! In recent years, Garden Director Peter White has celebrated the natural history of Frost's poetry with the arrival of spring (this March marks the 138th anniversary of Frost's birth). Combining three threads from his own childhood—his mother's poetry, summers on a Maine lake, and a love of nature—Director White introduces you to Robert Frost, the natural historian who recognized many species of plants and animals on his daily walks, understood plant families, observed nature in detail, and wrote of the need for wilderness and conservation. Enjoy the science and the poetry of Robert Frost. FREE, but please call 919-962-0522 or email Lauren Davis to register.
Silent Spring: Bringing Immediacy to Its Anniversary
Thursday, April 26, 7 pm
Priscilla Coit Murphy, PhD, scholar and author of "What a Book Can Do: The Publication & Reception of Silent Spring" discusses the arrival, content, and impact of "Silent Spring," still in print 50 years later. Describing how "Silent Spring" put the threat of pesticide abuse into American public view, Dr. Coit Murphy will re-create a sense of the course of events in 1962, to bring immediacy to the anniversary and the book’s unique ability to enable a single citizen to place a matter of public importance into the forums of debate. FREE, but please call 919-962-0522 or email Lauren Davis to register.
The 13th Annual Evelyn McNeill Sims Lecture
Wildflowers & Wild Places: Finding Mentors and Muses for the Next Generation
Sunday, April 29, 2:30 pm
Join us for this special program with Tom Earnhardt, Naturalist, Writer, and Botanical Garden Foundation Board Member. Children learn best before their early teens. In those years it is easier to absorb new languages, ride a bicycle, hold a slippery salamander, and learn to swim. It is also the time when children are most awed by the natural world. Unfortunately, in our high-speed, digital world, the main contact many children have with the wonders of nature—wildflowers, forests, streams, birds, insects—is via the small flat screens of smart phones and computers. Young adults are far more likely to gravitate to wild places, and become stewards of the natural world, if they were taken outside as youngsters by "mentors and muses." All children should have the opportunity to enter the "digital free zone" of nature with mentors and muses. When girls and boys are shown their first Trout Lily, Flame Azalea, or Jack-in-the Pulpit, they never forget it!
For many years Tom Earnhardt has been a frequent visitor in North Carolina homes as writer/host of UNC-TV’s "Exploring North Carolina." A lawyer by training and law professor for two decades, Tom has lived a rich "second life" as a naturalist, writer, and champion of wild places. FREE, but please call 919-962-0522 or email Lauren Davis to register.
Return to the EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS page to find other public programs, such as Classes and Workshops, Art at the Garden, and Certificate Programs.
Last updated by Laura Cotterman on February 21, 2012 at 02:24:36 pm.
