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ONLINE Course: Audubon at Home: Native Tree Identification

May 11, 2021 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Details

Date:
May 11, 2021
Time:
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Event Category:
Website:
https://alaudubon.org/event/2021-04-06

For further information and to register, visit https://alaudubon.org/event/2021-04-06/.

Spring is an excellent time to learn to identify native trees by their leaves and flowers, branch and bark patterns, and site and soil preferences. Join Henry Hughes and Michelle Blackwood for this spring-focused class on native tree identification! Our class will begin just as leaves have fully emerged for the 2021 growing season. We will visit native forests in rural and urban settings through photographs taken by the instructors and will learn the common and scientific names of over sixty prevalent native tree species. An easy to use identification key, with verbal descriptions and line drawings, will be provided. The class will be organized around the beautiful new book Trees of Alabama by Lisa J. Samuelson and photographs by Michael E. Hogan, a 2020 University of Alabama Press Gosse Nature Guide.

Each class meeting covers a different aspect of tree ID for the beginner:

Day 1: Botanical names (families, genera, species); tree ID by leaves, buds, twigs, flowers, bark and branch patterns and habitat.
Day 2: Gymnosperms: Pine Family (pines and hemlock) and Cypress Family (juniper and bald-cypress)
Day 3: Angiosperms: Sweetgum, Cashew, Ginseng, Birch, Hop, Dogwood, Ebony, Heath and Pea Families
Day 4: Angiosperms: Beech Family (chestnut, beech, red oaks and white oaks)
Day 5: Angiosperms: Walnut Family (walnut and hickories)
Day 6: Angiosperms: Laurel, Magnolia, Fig, Olive, Sycamore, Buckthorn, Rose and Willow Families

Where and when do we meet? This online course meets on six consecutive Tuesdays (4/6, 4/13, 4/20, 4/27, 5/4, and 5/11), from 6–7 p.m. CDT.

Cost: Your one-time registration fee of $60 covers all six meetings.*

Pre-registration is required by 12 p.m. CDT Monday, April 5th, and space is limited.

*We understand there are economic barriers that many are facing during this time. If you would like to request financial assistance, please visit https://alaudubon.org/event/2021-04-06/.*

Textbook: The user-friendly “A Key to Common Native Trees of Alabama” (ANR-0509, 2014) will be our in-class reference, easily accessed, downloaded and printed from the Alabama Extension System. Students are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the reference prior to the first class. The class will be organized around Trees of Alabama by Lisa J. Samuelson and photographs by Michael E. Hogan, a 2020 University of Alabama Press Gosse Nature Guide. It is recommended but not necessary. It can be found at your favorite bookseller or at UA Press here.

Registration: Space is limited. To register, visit https://alaudubon.org/event/2021-04-06/.

Please note, you will receive a separate email with the Zoom webinar instructions before the first class (once registration closes).

Questions? Visit https://alaudubon.org/event/2021-04-06/.

 

About the instructors: Henry Hughes and Michelle Blackwood share a lifelong interest in the natural environment and have been instructors at Audubon Mountain Workshop for many years, most recently co-teaching “Flowers, Fruits, and Seeds” and “Rivers, Floodplains, and Watersheds,” with versions for both children and adults. They have worked together for 23 years on protection of the Cahaba River and Shades Creek watersheds through Friends of Shades Creek. Both currently serve on the board and stewardship committee of the Cahaba River Society. “Audubon at Home: Native Tree Identification” came about from weekly hikes throughout the Cahaba-Shades Creek Watershed during 2020 and 2021. They shared in locating, researching and photographing the native trees of Alabama’s forests and teaching the course for the first time in October 2020.

Photo credit: Henry Hughes