The Garden Club of the Back Bay will kick off its 2016/2017 lecture series on The Prehistoric Garden on Friday, September 23, with a field trip to the Wellesley College Botanic Garden, 106 Central Street in Wellesley, to hear about Cycads and Gymnosperms.
Carol Govan will talk about the connections among related plants and how they express their genetic heritage in response to their environments. Discover the beauty of the first plants to produce seeds. A remarkable adaptation to help plants survive on land, we will see many examples of cycads, conifers, ginkgo and plants that were dominant during the age of the dinosaurs. See hands-on examples of various twigs, cones and seeds. After the lecture, visit these plants in the greenhouses with Carol. Cycads are seed plants with a long fossil history that were formerly more abundant and more diverse than they are today, according to Wikipedia. The living cycads are found across much of the subtropical and tropical parts of the world. Carol, a professional artist, botanical illustrator, and teacher, is a graduate of New England Wild Flower Society’s Certificate in Native Plant Studies program, which has helped her gain insight into the connection between art and nature. Her work has been featured by the New England Society of Botanical Artists, Duxbury Art Complex, and most recently at the Ashland Public Library. Image below from www.berkeley.edu.
Club members will receive a written notice of the meeting with car pool information. The lecture is co-sponsored by The Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Garden and non-club members may register online ($10) at www.wellesley.edu/wcbg/wcbg_friends
