PLANTS RULE

Hi ho Botanists of the world, and especially the students in EEOB 2210, Ohio Plants, Autumn 2021! I’m very excited to have the privilege of guiding your exploration of the wild plants of the Buckeye State. I’m a botanist with a background in pollination ecology and prairie ecosystem restoration. For about 20 years I was a full-time faculty member in EEOB at OSU’s Marion Campus. Before that I worked 10 years for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a wetlands biologist. Since retiring from OSU a couple years ago I’ve settled into an “emeritus” position at the Museum of Biological Diversity where I am helping to identify and catalog bryophyte and lichen herbarium specimens, and teaching this class (which helps me pay for cameras –I just bought another one!).

My coat of arms features a few sketches of things with lenses that enhance our ability to see and communicate about nature: cameras, binoculars, and microscopes. I love them all (and keep spending too much money on them). The quotation “There is grandeur in this view of life” is a from the closing passages of Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” and is a reminder that the living world is awesome!

I enjoy photographing plants, especially small ones. Here’s a photo of me snapping a pic of some lichens (which technically are not plants) on a tree trunk for the aforementioned photographic field guide to common Ohio bryophytes and lichens.