Webinar – Botany in Context Part 4: Getting Familiar with Plant Families

Join us on Wednesday, April 16 at 2pm for Part 4 of our Botany in Context series with Jim Folsom, PhD – Getting Familiar with Plant Families.

This crash course in basic botany for the beginner will take us on a journey from understanding plant anatomy and physiology to learning how plants are named and the botanical jargon that will demystify plant keys and identification. Dr. Folsom will contextualize it all in Florida native plant communities.

Full Series:

• Part 1: Basic Wildflower Botany – Wednesday, December 11, 2pm
• Part 2: 10 BIG IDEAS Regarding Plants – Wednesday, January 15, 2pm
• Part 3: Coming to Terms with Plant Names – Wednesday, February 19, 2pm
• Part 4: Getting Familiar with Plant Families – Wednesday, April 16, 2pm
• Part 5: Botanical Jargon, A Concise and Precise Language for Plants – Wednesday, May 21, 2pm
• Part 6: Using Keys to Florida Plants – Wednesday, June 18, 2pm

Jim Folsom, PhD rides the demographic peak of baby boomers, having been born in southeastern Alabama in 1950. His lifelong love of plants is reflected in a BS in botany from Auburn University, an MA in biology from Vanderbilt University, and a PhD in research botany from the University of Texas at Austin. Though his research has centered largely on the orchid family, with much of that time spent in tropical America (including a year in Colombia on a Fulbright Pre-Doctoral Fellowship), Jim’s botanical interests are wide-ranging. For 35 years before his retirement in 2021, as curator/director of the Botanical Gardens at The Huntington in San Marino, CA, he dedicated much of his effort to educational programs that increase public interest and understanding of the science, culture and history of plants and gardens, topics reflected in his website botanyincontext.com as well as his TikTok channel, @botanyincontext. He lives on Saint George Island, FL, with his wife, Debra (also a botanist); they have two adult children, Molly and James.  Jim currently serves as an incoming member of the board of the American Horticultural Society.