British Columbia: Two Vancouver botanical events tonight (Thurs Jan 17, 2019)

Late notice, I know...

A Brief History of Plant Collecting on Haida Gawaii

Botany Section presentation by Jennifer Penny
7:30 pm at Unitarian Centre (Hewett Hall) 949 West 49th Avenue, Vancouver

Jennifer Penny takes the audience back in time to the first visits of botanists to this archipelago of about 350 islands in the North Pacific. From there, Jenifer will present a brief chronology of visits (who and when) with special focus on the major accomplishments of Calder & Taylor and the Flora of QCI (2018 was the 50- year anniversary of this well-respected work). Jenifer will also talk about the interesting plants on HG with reference to phytogeography, endemism, rare plants and both vascular plants and bryophytes.

Jenifer Penny is the lead botanist at the B.C. Conservation Data Centre (BC CDC) in Victoria BC. She has been working with the BC CDC since 1995, and was involved in the production of the Illustrated Flora of BC (Douglas et al. 1998-2002). She is a co-author of Rare Native Vascular Plants of British Columbia (2002) and has co-authored 10 Committee on the Status of Wildlife in Canada status reports.

Tea and cookies will be served from 7 to 7:30 pm. There will be opportunity for plant identification.


Beaty Herbarium Presentation
5pm to 8:30pm at Beaty Museum, UBC campus.

What’s it like to be a botanist? Come and find out at a very special Nocturnal, where we will explore the museum’s herbarium collection with curator Linda Jennings.

It’s easy to think of winter as a time when we are waiting for spring flowers to bloom, but there is lots happening in the herbarium at this time of year.

Botanists come indoors to play, after a season of collecting plants outside, and compare their finds to the thousands of specimens already housed in our century old collection. This makes the herbarium a time machine of nature; capturing each species at a particular moment.

Come in out of the January cold for an evening, and learn about how this time machine is organised, cared for and used by thousands of scientists!

You will also discover which plants to look out for during the winter time; around campus and in the forest, parks and city streets of Vancouver.

The museum will be open from 5pm – 8:30pm.
Admission by donation.