Talk

This talk will portray the huge variety of moths that can be attracted to native plant gardens. Basic moth natural history will be discussed, along with specific examples of native plants that attract diverse and unique communities of moths. We will look at species that squirt acid, bubble poison, jam bat sonar, and throw their feces. And despite what you may think, most of them can be observed during the daytime!

Plant rarities at West Point. A 200 year overview including details from intensive surveys in 2011.

Remember Rob's talk on the pollination of "stinky red flowers"? Now he takes us further afield with a look at an iconic plant of deserts and eastern shores.

At the global scale, biodiversity is central to maintaining ecosystem function and human well-being. In degraded areas, heavily impacted by human activity, the discussion of biodiversity must be re-framed. Often these sites support no vascular plants and the only organisms present occur in the biofilm on built structures (i.e. the thin layer of micro-organisms on a building plus whatever they secrete). How do we conceptualize restoring ecosystem function to such sites? Which species support the greatest measure of services valued by humans?

At Cornell University's celebrated McLean Bogs Preserve, alkaline fens, stream corridors, and shrubby swamps are interfingered with acidic forested uplands and quaking bogs. This matrix of special habitats supports a rich biota that was documented in a landmark biological survey conducted by 22 Cornell specialists in the 1920s. Therein, K. M. Wiegand and A. J. Eames provided an annotated list of 553 species of vascular plants that had been recorded in and near the 84-acre Preserve from the 1870s to 1926.

At first glance, the floras of New York and California seem as distant as can be, as different as their two climates. But closer inspection reveals links and connections: related forms of plant community structures, several genera in common, and even some closely related species within those genera. We’ll look at unique, characteristic habitats of each flora and the plant species that lend them their beauty.

We think of the central plains when “prairie” is mentioned. Some natural prairies are found in the East, especially in mountain openings, wetlands, and barrens. With seasonal flowering from April to October (peaking in July and August), prairie ecosystems attract an array of wildlife: insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. Hal Gardner started with prairie restoration in the Peoria area of Illinois, an area with great diversity of prairie types ranging from level black loam, hillsides, gravel, and sand eco-systems.

Michael will give an overview of the vascular plants found in Cortland and Onondaga counties and some of the natural (and not so natural) areas where they are found. There have been some significant changes in the flora over time: native species have been lost, species may have been recently introduced (or overlooked in the past), and taxonomic changes have occurred. He will also discuss the process of digitizing the plant collections in the SUNY Cortland Herbarium and the start of a new resource: the new SUNY Cortland Herbarium website.

This talk will cover the story of one of the world's greatest trees. The American chestnut once dominated the forests of the East. It was the pinnacle of a wildlife tree, tremendously useful to mankind, a supreme native species that was almost wiped out by a devastating blight one hundred years ago. People of the time watched in horror as whole hillsides died. Today there are small surviving American chestnuts scattered throughout the woods, including around Ithaca. Very rarely someone finds a "big" one.

Annual celebration with local native seed table, plant identification contest, dish-to-pass with native & naturalized plant ingredients, member's slide show, music, door prizes, food contest prizes, lots of botanical fun.