Andrew Knoll,Fisher Professor of Natural History and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, and Curator of Paleobotanical Collections, Harvard University Herbaria, will speak in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum on Wednesday, April 24, from 7 – 8:30, on Plants of New England: A History in Deep Time. Celebrated as a land of marble and granite, the bedrock of New England also includes patches of sedimentary rock that document ancient landscapes and vegetation. From Earth’s deep Precambrian past dominated by bacterial photosynthesis, through the early history of land plants and tropical coal swamps of the Carboniferous Period, and on to warm temperate forests of 25 million years ago and conifer forests established as ice age glaciers melted, New England rocks and fossils shed light on our region’s deep photosynthetic past. Free for Arboretum members, $10 nonmembers. Register on line at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.
