Spring Wildflowers and Ferns (In-person)
Spring (4-8 hours) | Available (Membership Required)
Are you eager to get to know your neighbors—that is, your neighbors in the plant kingdom? Would you like to hone your plant identification skills while watching the approach of spring?
This series of field trips will start at the Native Plant Trust’s Plainfield Sanctuary, a sheltered slope near the Connecticut River where spring usually arrives early. In subsequent weeks, we’ll visit Lebanon’s Boston Lot, Hanover’s Mink Brook Nature Preserve, and finally some higher elevations in Hanover or Lyme, depending on how the season is progressing. Exploring a variety of plant communities, we’ll become familiar with some of the common ferns and springflowers of the Upper Valley. Some discussion of phenology (the study of how living things time natural events) and recognition of invasive, non-native species will be included.
During this four-week class, we will find and examine as many different plants as we can and practice using keys to identify them. Field trips will meet rain or shine but may be rescheduled to avoid torrential downpours or thunderstorms. Excursions will be mostly on easy terrain but will include some moderate hills and maybe a bit of bushwhacking.
This course will consist of field trips that combine class discussion with hands-on identification and observation.
This is a four-session course (8 hours total).
Optional Books:
- Newcomb's Wildflower Guide - Lawrence Newcomb (ISBN-13: 978-0316604420)
- Wildflowers of New England - Ted Elliman & New England Wildflower Society (ISBN-13: 978-1604694642)
- Fern Finder, 2nd edition - Barbara Hallowell & Anne Hallowell (ISBN-13: 978-0912550244)
Alice Schori
Alice (graduate of Oberlin College) is a field botanist who studied native plants through the New England Wild Flower Society starting in the mid-1990s. She has performed botanical surveys for conservation organizations and the Towns of Hanover and Lyme, and spent nine summers doing similar work for the White Mountain National Forest.
Lynnwood Andrews
Lynnwood Andrews is a retired clinical child psychologist who has taken botany and plant identification classes through Osher, and at the Native Plant Trust. She has volunteered for several environmental and conservation groups focused on plants.