Daily Archives: October 17, 2024


Wednesday, October 30, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm Eastern – The Tree Collectors: Tales of Arboreal Obsession, Online

If you missed Amy Stewart speak on her latest book with the Arnold Arboretum this August, you have another chance on October 30 at 7 pm Eastern to hear her, with the American Horticultural Society. When Amy Stewart discovered a community of tree collectors, she expected to meet horticultural fanatics driven to plant every species of oak or maple. But she also discovered that the urge to collect trees springs from something deeper and more profound: a longing for community, a vision for the future, or a path to healing and reconciliation. In this talk, Stewart introduces audiences to several of the remarkable people she met from around the world whose lives were transformed by their relationships to trees. Accompanied by her own hand-drawn illustrations of people and their trees, this talk inspires audiences to reconsider their own connections to trees–and maybe start a collection! $15 for AHS members, $20 for nonmembers. Register at www.ahsgardening.org

Amy Stewart is the New York Times best-selling author of The Tree Collectors, The Drunken Botanist, Wicked Plants, and several other popular nonfiction titles about the natural world. Her books have sold over a million copies worldwide and have been translated into 18 languages. She has been featured in NPR’s Morning Edition of Fresh Air, the New York Times, CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, and the PBS documentary The Botany of Desire. Her book Wicked Plantswas adapted into a national traveling exhibit at science museums nationwide for over a decade. Stewart is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the American Horticulture Society’s Book Award, and an International Association of Culinary Professionals Food Writing Award. Stewart is based in Portland, Oregon. 


Monday, November 4, 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm Eastern – The World of Carnivorous Plants, Online

Smithsonian Associates presents an online lecture on carnivorous plants on November 4 with Steve Nicholls. Be careful when you next go into your garden: It’s full of killers. You may be familiar with carnivorous plants such as the Venus flytrap, sundew, or pitcher plant, but a surprising number of plants could be classified as carnivorous—including your geraniums and potentillas.

Many true carnivorous plants have surprisingly good relationships with insects. Some pitcher plants feed ants and give them a secure home, others are complete miniature ecosystems, homes for creatures ranging from mosquitoes to frogs. A few have even turned vegetarian and eat leaves or, even stranger, serve as rest rooms for tree shrews and subsist on their droppings. Once you delve deep enough, nothing in the world of carnivorous plants is quite what it seems.

Steve Nicholls, a wildlife filmmaker with a lifelong interest in botany and horticulture who has produced and directed several films on carnivorous plants, examines this amazing natural world in intimate detail. $20 for Smithsonian members, $25 for nonmembers. Register at https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/programs/world-of-carnivorous-plants