Grasses and Autumn Botany

Grasses and Autumn Botany

Fall (4-8 hours) | This course is completed

TBD Hanover, NH TBD United States

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Repeat Course

9/6/2018-9/27/2018

2:30 PM-5:00 PM EDT on Th

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$40.00

Fall is a great time to discover plants as they mature. Trees and shrubs show their true colors. Late wildflowers are at their peak. Nuts and berries abound. Grasses show their seeds. Ferns are showing much more than fronds.

We will begin with the basics of identifying late-season characteristics of common trees, shrubs, and wildflowers using fruits, leaves, and remnants of the growing season. Jim Kennedy will help us find the gestalt of our most common grasses - identifying them at a distance by where and how they are growing. Alice Schori will share her tricks of the trade for fall wildflowers, including the notorious goldenrods and asters.

Each class will be a field trip close to Hanover. We will explore local natural areas in September on liesurely walks through fields forests and wetlands. We will also discuss the maintenance of lawns, pastures, grasslands, meadows, and woodlands, and how to manage and protect these ecosystems.

  • Our field books will be Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, and the Peterson Field Guides for Trees, Shrubs, and Ferns. We will be supplying handouts and “cheat sheets” for plant identification.
Kennedy, Jim

Jim Kennedy is a licensed Landscape Architect and Wetland Scientist based in Hanover, NH. He graduated from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse, and has practiced for over 60 years, specializing in land planning, conservation, and wildlife habitat management. Jim has taught several Osher courses on botany, wetlands, and natural landscapes, with an emphasis on the ecology and stewardship of natural resources. 

 

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 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.