Torrey Botanical Society Lecture Season Opens Tuesday

Posted in Programs and Events, Science on October 1 2009, by Plant Talk

NYBG Hosts Free Presentation on the History of Amateur Mycology

Brian M. Boom, Ph.D., is President of the Torrey Botanical Society and Director of the Caribbean Biodiversity Program at The New York Botanical Garden.

Founded in 1867 in New York City, the Torrey Botanical Society is the oldest botanical association in the Americas. Throughout its long, distinguished history of promoting interest in botany and in disseminating information about all aspects of plants and fungi, among the most important of the Society’s activities is its lecture series. Each year, a lecture is presented in October, November, December, March, April, and May, and the schedule is posted through the Society’s Web site. The lectures are free and open to the public. Refreshments precede each lecture.

The first Torrey lecture of this season is on Tuesday, October 6, at 6:30 p.m. in the Arthur and Janet Ross Lecture Hall at The New York Botanical Garden. David W. Rose, archivist, writer, and past president of the Connecticut-Westchester Mycological Association, will present Great Goddess of Decay! A History of Amateur Mycology in the United States. You can read his abstract online.

In addition to hosting the lecture series, the Society publishes a scholarly journal (The Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society), organizes numerous field trips to local sites of botanical and mycological interest, and offers a series of grants and awards to support field work and seminars. I invite you to come to the October 6 lecture and to meet fellow plant and fungi enthusiasts.