Do you ever wonder about those dead “weeds,” bare trees, shrubs, and vines you see when you are out and about in the winter? Would you like to hone your winter plant identification skills while enjoying the outdoors on snowshoes? Even when leaves and flowers are gone, or all that remains is a dried stalk, we can look at overall shape, branching patterns, twigs, buds, bark, and remains of fruits or seeds to learn to recognize common trees, shrubs, and many other plants of the Upper Valley. Often, habitat gives us a clue to species.

During this four-week class, we will find and examine as many different plants as we can and practice using winter keys to identify them. Each class will be a field trip on easy terrain at a botanist’s pace (=slow!), but we may do some bushwhacking. The course syllabus will provide field trip information, and useful reference materials will be posted online or supplied as field handouts. On each field trip we’ll answer questions and discuss plant identification.