Course Title: Botanical Survey
Plant Survey Graduate Seminar Integrative Biology 290 375, Spring 2019
Instructor: Carl Rothfels, Bruce Baldwin, Michael Song, Caleb Caswell-Levy
E-mail: crothfels [at] berkeley.edu, michael_song [at] berkeley.edu
Course number 12334
Office hours: by appointment
Seminar times: Wednesdays 10AM-11AM VLSB 3030
Course description and goals: Each participant will be responsible (individually, or in small groups, depending on the number of students enrolled) for preparing a selection of herbarium or live specimens and an introductory presentation of the morphology, natural history, collection and preparation techniques, taxonomy, and/or systematics of a clade of their interest—a hands-on, show-and-tell style class discussion (possibly with keying activities, and culinary or ethnobotanical experiences). The instructors will work with the herbarium and UCMP to allow students access to most of the museum material and will then take a backseat to their expertise, though they will lead a couple discussions themselves. The material covered will thus be largely driven by the students taking the course.
For weeks where people do not sign up, we will have show and tell, where everyone is responsible for bringing in an interesting plant and an interesting fact or an unknown plant that we can identify together.
A possible optional “final” could be a weekend field trip to collect plants in under-described regions of California.
Attendance: Regular attendance is highly encouraged.
Course Schedule (as of Feb 1):
| Dates | Presenter | Plant | References |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan30 | Carl R. | Cystopteris | Adventures with a cosmopolitan fern family |
| Feb06 | Jonathan | Polystichum | Untangling evolutionary relationships among Polystichum californicum and its progenitors |
| Feb13 | Keir | Pentagramma | Uncovering Cryptic Hybridization and Genome Duplication within the Goldback and Silverback ferns |
| Feb20 | Forrest | Isoetes or Darlingtonia (or both…) | Forrest’s surprise |
| Feb27 | Isaac | Perityle | Collecting in Baja! |
| Mar06 | Joyce | Paullinia and Sapindaceae | Wood Anatomy of Lianas! (ppt filesize too big, email if interested!) |
| Mar13 | Kayla | Arctostaphylos | Crash course in manzanitas! |
| Mar20 | Canceled | Solidarity with AFSCME Local 3299! | |
| Apr03 | Jaemin | Extinct Gymnosperms | Czekanowskiales and more! |
| Apr10 | Canceled | Solidarity with UPTE CWA 9119! | |
| Apr17 | Ixchel | Liverworts | the “coolest” plants |
| Apr24 | Abby | Astrolepis | AND ROCKS! |
| May01 | Caleb and Jenna | Moss | |
| May08 | Bruce | Asters |
Resources