Summaries of Past Meetings

This page provides summaries of meetings. For a list of upcoming meetings, click here. Summaries of NEBC lectures are also published quarterly in Rhodora.

Current year meetings

February 3, 2012 Meeting Notice (pdf file)

Dr. Patricia Swain, Natural Community Ecologist, Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife
"Unusual Natural Communities and Rare Plants of the Housatonic Watershed in Massachusetts"

January 6, 2012 Meeting Notice (pdf file)

"Twelfth Top Toothsome and Taxonomic Tales"
All members and guests are invited to share culinary and visual potluck!
5:30-6:45 PM - food and drink in the Seminar Room (room 105)
6:45 PM - show and tell in the Haller Lecture Hall (room 102)

December 2, 2011 Meeting Notice (pdf file) - Lecture Videos (part 1) (part 2)

Dr. Jesse Bellemare, Smith College, Northampton, MA
"Climate Change and Plant Conservation in the Forests of Eastern North America"

November 4, 2011 Meeting Notice (pdf file)

Arthur Haines, New England Wild Flower Society, Framingham, MA
"The Flora Novae Angliae"

October 7, 2011 Meeting Notice (pdf file)

Dr. Colleen Butler, Ph.D. from Tufts University, Medford, MA
"Ecology and Physiology of Green Roof Plant Communities"

September 17, 2011 Field Trip Notice (pdf file)

Trip Coordinator: Dr. Bryan Hamlin
Location: Middlesex Fells, Northern Boston Suburbs.
See attached PDF for details. Please RSVP by Sept. 15, 2011.

Past Meetings

Note: All summaries are in PDF format. If you do not have Adobe Reader, you may get it free here.

Select the year for a dropdown list. (More to come)

2008

January - NEBC Membership - Eighth Ethnobotanical Exploration and Eating Event
February - Michaela Schmull - Substrate Influence on Speciation of Lichenized Fungi
March - Noel H. Holmgren - Intermountain Flora: Great Basin, Colorado Plateau, and Middle Rocky Mountains
April - Dan H. Nicolson - My Beautiful Life
May - Ihsan Al-Shehbaz - Diversity, systematics, and phylogeny of the Brassicaceae (Cruciferae)
June - Ernie Schuyler and others at New Jersey Pine Barrens
October - Mark Skinner - The USDA PLANTS Database: A digital flora for the future
November - Benjamin van Ee - Phylogenetics of the Philippine species of Rafflesia (Rafflesiaceae s.s.)

2007

January - NEBC Membership - Seventh Segue into Sustenance and Selected Species
February - Arthur Haines & Melissa Dow-Cullina - Our Evolving Understanding of the Massachusetts Rare Flora: Collaborations from the Herbarium, Field, and Desktop
March - Richard Primack & Abe Miller-Rushing - Climate Change Comes to Thoreau's Concord: A Community Perspective
April - George W. Argus - Why is the taxonomy of Salix so difficult?
May - David Hewitt - The genus Neolecta - hidden diversity in New England, surprising uniformity across the Atlantic
June - Julie Richburg & others in western MA - A preview of Notchview Reservation: History, natural communities and special species
October - Elena M. Kramer - Where Do New Floral Parts Come From?
November - Laurence J. Dorr - Ny Hasina: The Gift, Madagascar's Contribution to Horticulture
December - Peter S. Ashton - Why are the Asian tropics so different?

2006

January - NEBC Membership - Sixth Segue into Sustenance and Selected Species
February - David Ellum - Plasticity vs. Acclimation: Response Pathways of Forest Understory Herbs to Seasonal Increases in Light Environments and the Implications for Plant Conservation in Managed Forests of Southern New England
March - Arthur Gilman - The Enigmatic Ophioglossales
April - Robbin Moran - Helpful and Harmful Ferns
May - Joan Edwards - Botanical Explosions: Ultra-fast Movements in Plants
June - Various speakers at Camp Hi-Rock, Mt. Washington, MA -
September - Lelia Elliston - Natural History, Floral Morphology, and Population Biology of Sabatia kennedyana
October - Jill Bubier - Effects of nutrient addition on carbon cycling in a boreal peatland
November - Elizabeth Farnsworth - Historical and current patterns of plant rarity in New England
December - Tony D'Amato - Old-growth forests in Massachusetts: Lenses into past forested landscapes of the Commonwealth

2005

January - NEBC Membership - Fifth Foray into Food and Flowers
February - Lisa Standley - Lemurs, Lianas, and Lizards: A Natural History Tour of Madagascar
March - Julie Richburg - Timing treatments to the phenology of root carbohydrate reserves to control woody invasive plants
April - James Reveal - Lewis and Clark's Green World: The Plants of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
May - Nancy M. Eyster-Smith & Janet R. Sullivan - Journey of Discovery: 200 Years After Lewis & Clark
June - Norton Miller at North Adams, MA - Aspects of Mountain and Alpine Bryology in the Northeast: Results of Recent Studies
September - Tatyana Livschultz - Systematic Studies in the Apocynaceae: Implications for the Evolution of Complex Pollination Mechanisms
October - Michael Donoghue at New Haven, CT - Radiation of the Dipsacales, including Caprifoliaceae, with special reference to eastern North America
November - David Hibbet - Morphological Evolution in Mushroom-Forming Fungi
December - Kyle Williams - The Gingers of Southeast Asia: A Spicy Tale

2004

January - NEBC Membership - Fourth Foray into Food and Flowers
March - Bernard Goffinet - When a phenotype belongs to multiple genotypes: Phylogenetic affinities of North American species in the lichen genus Dendriscocaulon
April - Julie Dragon - Carex lenticularis and its allies: Phylogeny, biogeography, and species delimitation
May - Charles Sheviak - An Orchidological Odyssey: Systematics in a well-known group
May Field Trip - Southern Appalachian Botanical Foray (Valle Crucis, North Carolina) -
June - James W. Hinds - New England Lichens, Ecology, Distribution and Changes in Abundance During the Last 100 Years
June Field Trip Lichen List
September - Christopher D. Neefus - Living on the edge: Acclimation and adaptation of an intertidal seaweed
September Field Trip Notes - Wallis Sands in Rye, New Hampshire
October - David S. Barrington - The Big Thaw: New England Flora in the Holocene
November - Garrett Crow - In the footsteps of the 19th century naturalists: Plant exploration in the Amazon
December - Jesse Bellemare - Environmental and Historical Controls on the Distribution and Variation of Rich Mesic Forests in Western Massachusetts

2003

January - NEBC Membership - Potluck Dinner
February - Rebecca Pradhan - Rhododendrons and Conservation in Bhutan
March - Kristen Porter-Utley - The Apetalous Passionflowers: Phylogenetic Relationships within Passiflora Section Cieca (Passifloraceae)
April - Jianhua Li - Botanic Expeditions in Guizhou, China - In Search of Natural Populations of Ginkgo
May - Peter Alpert - Clonal plants and invasive species: Combining curiosity-driven and problem-directed research
June - Matthew Hickler - Vegetation Patterns and Species Diversity: Floodplain Ponds of the Nashua River
June Field Trip - Ashburnham, Massachusetts
September - Ernie Steinauer - Restoring and Maintaining Nantucket's Rare Plant Communities
October - William A. Patterson, III - Fire Ecology and Burning Techniques
November - David Houston - Beech-bark disease and its effects on the northern forest
December - Arthur Haines - NEWFS, an herbarium recovery project

2002

February - Scott Bailey - Case Studies in Geobotany: Refining our understanding of the influence of substrate on plants
March - Lisa A.Standley - Botanizing in the Extremes
June - Glenn Motzkin - Historical Influences on the Vegetation of Massachusetts: Ecological and Conservation Implications
September - Marcia Spencer-Famous - The Feasibility of Peatland Restoration
October - C. Barre Hellquist - Dodging crocodiles on tropical Australia for aquatic plants
November - Dorothy J. Allard - A New Epiphytic Species of Pedicularis from Nepal: Description and Demography

2001

January - NEBC Membership - Potluck Dinner
February - Stephanie Neid - Effects of deicing salts on roadside vegetation
March - David Boufford - Hengduan Mountains, China: Hotspot of Biodiversity
April - Robert Kral - Biology and Management of Rare Plants in the Southeastern United States
May - Carl W. Grobet - Seaweeds: The Underappreciated model systems
June - Kerry Woods - The imagined forest: Stability and change in old growth hemlock-northern hardwoods
September - Richard Backus and Pamela Polloni - The Floral History of Penikese Island
October - Kanchi Gandhi - The Phytogeography of India
November - Jennifer Forman - Through the Looking Glass: History and Consequences of the Introduction of American Species into Europe

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