Boston Flora

Tag: Harvard University

  • Monday, March 19, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Bonsai: History, Facts and Myths

    The March meeting of the Garden Club of the Back Bay will take place at the Wellesley College Botanic Garden on Monday, March 19 beginning with tea at 2 pm, followed by another of our “Japan Year” programs, Bonsai: History, Facts and Myths. Learn how bonsai are created and tips for keeping them alive as long as possible. Pauline F. Muth will present a program on the history, art and horticulture of bonsai. She will illustrate her talk with both a photographic and live collection of various types of bonsai. Pauline has been involved with bonsai for almost 40 years. She maintains a teaching studio in West Charlton, NY exclusively dedicated to the art of bonsai. Her gardens are open to the public by appointment. She sits on the executive boards of Mohawk Hudson Bonsai Society, The Mid-Atlantic Bonsai Societies, The American Bonsai Society and Bonsai Clubs International. Her studioʼs web site is www.pfmbonsai.com. The program is co-sponsored by The Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture and the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.  Garden Club of the Back Bay members will receive written notice of this meeting, along with car pool information.  Others may register on line (Arnold Arboretum and Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture members $10, non-members $15) at www.wellesley.edu/WCFH.

  • Thursday, March 8, 6:00 pm – A Great Green Cloud: The Rise and Fall of the City Elms

    Decades before Olmsted parks, Yankee villagers planted elm trees on their streets and commons to forge a union of rus and urbe, i.e. the rustic and the urban. The trees brought about “a kind of compromise between town and country,” observed Charles Dickens, as if each had met the other halfway and shaken hands upon it. The result was that lost masterpiece of American urbanism, “Elm Street.” Thomas J. Campanella, Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the University of North Carolina, will explore elm culture in the U.S., and how our love affair with this giant nearly brought it to the edge of disappearance, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s New Directions in EcoPlanning Annual Lecture on Thursday, March 8, beginning at 6 pm . Reception to follow, free and open to the public.  Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking available in the 52 Oxford Street garage. Supported by a gift from Michael Dyett (AB ’68, MRP ’72) and Heidi Richardson.

  • Tuesday, February 28, 7:00 pm – Growing Potential: Gardening Behind Bars

    On Tuesday, February 28, beginning at 7 pm, James Jiler will speak at Trinity Church, Copley Square, in a program co-sponsored by Trinity Church and The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University entitled Growing Potential: Gardening Behind Bars. James Jiler is former Director of the GreenHouse Project, a renowned horticultural job training program for inmates at New York City’s Rikers Island prison and is author of Doing Time in the Garden. He is currently director of GreenWorks, a re-entry program in Florida offering vocational training in “Greencollar” jobs, both inside and outside prison walls. Jiler will discuss horticultural therapy, the role of gardens inside and outside of prison walls and the human and landscape transformations he has witnessed. Jiler was featured in the documentary Dirt! which explores the life-changing effects that dirt and “doing time in the garden” have had on improving/reclaiming the lives of inmates. Book-signing to follow.

    For more information on James Jiler, please see www.nativesplendor.com.

    Tickets available at the Shop at Trinity, by phone (617.536.0944 x225) or online arboretum.harvard.edu.
    Questions: Kathy Acerbo-Bachmann, kacerbobachmann@trinitychurchboston or 617.536.0944 x217.

  • Saturday, February 18, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Aviflora: Plants and Birds That Love Them

    The quantity and diversity of trees and shrubs in our area provide shelter and food to a wide assortment of birds throughout the year. Three fantastic bird photographers have combed their portfolios for images that capture both floral and avian organisms in tandem. By giving a measure of parity to the plants, these images invite the viewer to consider the vital interactions between all living things. The Arnold Arboretum hosts the show Aviflora: Plants and Birds That Love Them from January 14 – March 11, 2012, in the Hunnewell Lecture Hall at the Arboretum, with an artists reception on Saturday, February 18 from 1 – 3. For more information visit www.arboretum.harvard.edu, or call 617-384-5209.

    Aviflora: Plants and the Birds that Love Them

  • Tuesday, February 14, 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm – Christian Rabeling Lecture

    On Valentine’s Day, The Cambridge Entomological Club will host Christian Rabeling, Junior Fellow at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, as the speaker for its February meeting.  Christian’s studies include the evolutionary biology of social insects, genetic evolution and speciation of social parasites, and the natural history of ants.  CEC meetings are held the second Tuesday of the month from October through May. The evening schedule typically includes an informal dinner (6:15 to 7:15 PM) followed by our formal meeting (7:30 – 9:00 PM) in MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street, Harvard University. The latter begins with club business and is followed by a 50 minute entomology related presentation. Membership is open to amateur and professional entomologists.  For more information, email CEC President Jessica Walden-Gray at jessisoutside@gmail.com.

  • Wednesday, February 1, 6:00 pm – The Origin of Cellular Life

    The amazing diversity of life is a result of billions of years of evolution. But how did the process of evolution begin? Nobel Prize winner Jack Szostak, a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, will describe how efforts to design and build very simple living cells are testing our assumptions about the nature of life, generating ideas about how life emerged from the chemistry of early Earth, and offering clues as to how modern life evolved from its earliest ancestors. Free and open to the public, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking available in the 52 Oxford Street garage. Part of the Evolution Matters lecture series at The Harvard Museum of Natural History. Supported by a gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit.  For more information, visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

  • Monday, February 13, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Seeds Up Close: Amazing!

    Enjoy the beauty of seeds and learn about plant conservation projects from Julie McIntosh Shapiro at a Horticulture Morning sponsored by the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts on Monday, February 13, from 10 – noon at the Espousal Center in Waltham.   The Seed Herbarium Image Project, or SHIP, is an initiative of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University to create a web-based repository of high-resolution digital images documenting the morphology of woody plant seeds and selected fruit structures.  SHIP is headquartered at the Arboretum’s Dana Greenhouse facility and is coordinated and photographed by curatorial assistant Julie McIntosh Shapiro. The Seed Herbarium Image Project supports the work of educators and professionals in horticulture and the botanical sciences, particularly in conservation research and management of rare and endangered species. The digitized images of seeds offer an important new aid for teaching seed identification—a fundamental skill in plant propagation, hybridization, and distribution—and serve as a resource for nurserymen, horticulturists, botanical curators, taxonomists, ecologists, and the general public. SHIP also provides an online resource for botanical institutions and nurseries to verify their collections and inventories. SHIP is made possible through the generous support of the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust, Cabot Family Charitable Trust, and the J. Frank Schmidt Family Charitable Foundation.  A $5 donation is requested.

  • Wednesday, January 18, 6:00 pm – Strange New Worlds: From Meteorites in Antarctica to the Search for Life Beyond Our Solar System

    Renowned astronomer Ray Jayawardhana, University of Toronto and current Radcliffe Institute fellow, will give a lively talk on cutting-edge science of today’s planet hunters, the prospects for discovering alien life, and the debate and controversies at the forefront of extrasolar-planet research, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History on Wednesday, January 18, beginning at 6 pm.  Jayawardhana will also discuss his recent travels to the frigid ice of Antarctica where he went to look for meteorites—and found them. Following the talk, he will sign copies of his recent book, Strange New Worlds. Free and open to the public, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking available in the 52 Oxford Street garage.  For directions, visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

  • Tuesday, January 10, 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm – The 18 Year Effort to Establish the American Burying Beetle to Nantucket

    Nantucket probably doesn’t need any more visitors, but on Tuesday, January 10, the Cambridge Entomological Club will present Lou Perrotti, Director of Conservation Programs at the Roger Williams Park Zoo, who will present a lecture entitled The 18 Year Effort to Establish the American Burying Beetle to Nantucket Island.  CEC meetings are held the second Tuesday of the month from October through May. The evening schedule typically includes an informal dinner (6:15 to 7:15 PM) followed by our formal meeting (7:30 – 9:00 PM) in MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street, Harvard University. The latter begins with club business and is followed by a 50 minute entomology related presentation. Membership is open to amateur and professional entomologists.  For more information, email CEC President Jessica Walden-Gray at jessisoutside@gmail.com.

  • Tuesday, December 13, 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm – Amateur Entomologists and Digital Photography

    The December meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club will be held Tuesday, December 13, from 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm and will feature Tom Murray, author of a new field guide entitled Insects of New England and New York, who will speak on Amateur Entomologists and Digital Photography.  CEC meetings are held the second Tuesday of the month from October through May. The evening schedule typically includes an informal dinner (6:15 to 7:15 PM) followed by our formal meeting (7:30 – 9:00 PM) in MCZ 101, 26 Oxford Street, Harvard University. The latter begins with club business and is followed by a 50 minute entomology related presentation. Membership is open to amateur and professional entomologists.  For more information, email CEC President Jessica Walden-Gray at jessisoutside@gmail.com.