Darwin’s Passion for Plants
Friday, January 22, 2021
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
After On the Origin of Species was first published in 1859, Charles Darwin wrote six books completely dedicated to plants. This online talk briefly describes what each book contains and how they were relevant to Darwin’s studies of evolution. Did you know that Darwin was the first scientist to demonstrate that some plants attract, trap, and digest insects? NYBG Curator Emeritus Robbin Moran, Ph.D., who has studied Darwin’s life and work for decades, will show how plants played a crucial role in the great scientist’s revolutionary theory of evolution.
About the Speaker
Dr. Robbin Moran is a Curator Emeritus at The New York Botanical Garden. He has published four books and over 170 scientific papers on fern systematics, and his research involves the classification, evolution, and geography of ferns. Every year he teaches a fern and lycophytes course at Eagle Hill Field Station in coastal Maine, as well as botany courses in Costa Rica through the auspices of the Organization for Tropical Studies.
