Certificate in Native Plants - Close Encounters with 'Lower Plants'
Public Welcome Paid Event Program/Speaker Presentation Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking Drinking Fountains
“Close Encounters with ‘Lower Plants’: Reproduction in non- seed-bearing plants” even comes with a take-home terrarium! All thanks to instructor Charlotte Freeman, MS.
You could think of this half-day, elective class as ‘Sex lives (or not) of plants.”
Some plants reproduce by seeds, but others do not include seeds in their life cycle. The latter used to be called “Lower Plants” and included liverworts, hornworts, mosses, ferns and other less common allies such as lycopodium, spike moss, whisk ferns and horsetails.
In this course you’ll examine the life cycles of these non-seed-bearing plants.
Species estimates for Bryophytes are in excess of 25,000! That makes it important that we include them in our repertoire of native plants.
Objective: To learn some elementary biology of the non-
seed producing plants. This will include a brief
introduction to plant classification and basic terminology
and focus on the life cycles of plants that reproduce
without seeds. As time permits, we will introduce some
resources if you want to begin a moss/fern
garden/terrarium of your own. Free samples of some
mosses and liverworts will be available if they stay alive in
my kitchen! You should be able to find any plant life cycle
and be able to understand the steps when we are done.
We will examine some of the sporangia and sori under
microscopes or via the technology as time permits. Living
examples will be displayed as available. Each person will
receive a terrarium in process of getting established.