Native North American Orchids – Assuring Their Survival
Date/Time
Thursday, November 21, 2013
6:45 pm - 8:45 pm
Location
James City County Recreation Center
Categories
Guest speaker Dennis Whigham, Senor Botanist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, will discuss the diversity and ecology of native orchids in the context of issues that are important from a conservation perspective. He will also describe a multi-institutional effort that is being developed to assure the survival of native orchids for current and future generation. Dr. Whigham will tell us how we can participate in the unfolding efforts of the North American Orchid Conservation Center.
The meeting is open to the public. Refreshments will be served. Please note the different location of this meeting.
SPEAKER: Dennis Whigham – The ecology of plants has been Dennis Whigham’s primary interest and his research has resulted in journeys through forests, fields and wetlands around the world. Explorations have lead to studies of woodland herbs – including orchids, vines, wetland species, invasive species and studies of forests in the tropics, temperate and boreal zones. In recent years, studies of interactions between orchids and fungi have lead in new and exciting directions. Whigham’s current focus is on wetlands, including the role of wetlands associated with juvenile salmon habitat in Alaska; the rarest terrestrial orchid in eastern North America; and invasive species. His current passion is to establish the North American Orchid Conservation Center (NAOCC), a Smithsonian Consortia initiative. NAOCC will be based on continentally focused public-private collaborations that will eventually result in the conservation of the genetic diversity of native orchids, initially in the U.S. and Canada.
Whigham obtained an undergraduate degree from Wabash College and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina. He joined the Smithsonian in 1977. Whigham and his collaborators have published more than 225 articles in journals and books and he has co-edited 10 books, including one on terrestrial orchids and a 2009 volume on Tidal Freshwater Wetlands.