Seeds of Success Workshop - Please RSVP

VNPS SOS Collectors - Spring Greetings!

It is time to meet again as collectors for the Seeds of Success program.

Andy Walker, North Carolina Botanical Garden, is coming to review protocols, teach us new techniques, give us a new collection list for target species and bring us up to date on any changes for shipping. In the future, collections will be shipped to Andy in North Carolina.

Following the workshop, we will be collecting and sending seed and herbarium specimens to Andy, the SOS Coordinator through NCBG, collecting in the Mid-Atlantic South region.

John Hayden has been communicating with Andy and has graciously offered to host the Workshop. There will be training in the Gottwald lab at University of Richmond followed by a short field trip to practice our skills. The information you will need follows:

Saturday, March 24, 2007
9:45 a.m.
University of Richmond
Gottwald Science Building A-205
(Directions are on the University of Richmond website)

9:45 a.m. Assemble in Room A-205 of Gottwald
10:00 a.m. Session #1
11:30 a.m. Session #2

12:30 p.m. Lunch
(Please bring a bag lunch and drink to enjoy in the atrium or outside "forum")

1:00 p.m. Field Session
2:30 p.m. Wrap-up

Bring:
Loupe or hand lens
Pocket knife
Flora or other book for identification of plants
Notebook, pens/pencil for note taking

The classroom will have some very nice dissecting microscopes and John will have several copies of the Carolina Flora for you to borrow for the Workshop.

For the walk: perhaps hiking boots incase there are some Spring muddy spots. We don’t expect to find many native plants that have set seed, but there will be some plants to practice our new skills. It will not be a long hike, rather someplace fairly close to the campus, if not on it.

John has plans to put up VNPS signs on stakes by the road to get us across the U of Richmond campus and to Gottwald. Those "trail markers" are appreciated.

If there are questions, please send them to me on my e-mail nstaunton@earthlink.net or call
540-547-2813.

There are some spaces for the workshop, so if you know of someone who wants to collect seeds to be preserved for posterity through Kew's Millennium Seed Bank's Seeds of Success program in North America, invite them to join our effort.