Mandy Katz, Director of Horticulture & Lead Gardener at Bartram’s Garden, will speak to the club on the past, present, and future of aquatic plants at Bartram’s Garden with stories from the prehistoric, colonial, and postindustrial eras. This talk will reflect on some of the famous Bartram family’s experiments with growing and studying aquatic plants, several of Mandy’s experiments with the same plants at Bartram’s, and Bartram’s Garden’s current vision for gardening with native aquatic plants in the near future, including how we see this as an integral tool for strengthening social networks.

Image credit: Bartram’s Garden

Dr. Aiden Stanley will present his work on how urbanization alters the phenology, mating system allocation, and life history of orange jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), based on data in the recently-published paper available at https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71583. Dr. Stanley is a plant ecologist focused on human-driven disturbance. His research explores the impact of such disturbance on interactions between plants and communities of animals such as pollinators and seed dispersers. He earned his doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh and currently conducts research in Rutgers University’s Aronson Lab for Urban Ecological Studies.

This meeting will be online only.

Ryan J. Schmidt-Knapik, PhD candidate in Organismic & Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, will present his research on how collector practices shape herbaria in the Northeast region. Herbaria are treasure troves of information about plants collected over time—even centuries. But the patterns we see in these collections are shaped not only by nature, but also by the habits and interests of the collectors. Drawing on data from 237 herbaria and more than one million digitized specimens collected in the northeastern United States, this talk will explore how individual collectors—both prolific and more casual collectors —have influenced what we know about plant diversity through time. As a case study, it will look at 19th-century botanists in and around Philadelphia and New York City, and how their work allows us to trace the botanical legacy of historical shipping trade and ship ballast deposition in the Northeast.

Photo: Ryan and Verbascum maurum on Pettys Island

Cathryn Pugh is a Penn State extension educator based at the Penn State extension in Centre County. She will present on American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), one of the three plant species classified at vulnerable under the Pennsylvania Code, Title 17, Chapter 45. Cat is also president of the Pennsylvania Native Plant Society.

Photo: Cat Pugh amid ramps (Allium tricoccum)

Save the date! In May, Dr. Kate Goodrich, Professor and Chair of Biology at Widener University, will speak to the club on floral mimicry of decomposing substrates, including local species pawpaw (Asimina triloba) and skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus).