As part of our education and outreach initiatives, the Specht lab will participate in a one day family-friendly event organized and hosted by the Cornell Botanical Garden called Judy’s Day: Family Learning Festival. The theme of this year’s event is “Plants Have Families, too!” which will showcase the relationships between plant families. Yay, phylogenetics!
Chelsea will introduce the highly diverse monocots, while Jacob will introduce the numerous eudicots. Chelsea’s display is a monocot phylogeny showing some of the common features of various monocot lineages. Can you tell an agave apart from an aloe? Some of the agricultural uses of eudicot plants will be covered by Jacob, as well as how plant-pollinator interactions lead to biodiversification. Here they are preparing demonstrative materials for each of their booths.
Jesus and Adriana will present on lilies and their allies. They will have an arts and crafts section at their booth so stop by and make a lily! To the left, Adriana is holding an example of a lily that Jesus made with dyed corn husks. She’s pictured next to the vibrant lilies that will be on exhibit for smelling and dissecting!
Clarice’s booth is about arums, featuring a make-a-leaf station (bottom middle) and plenty of live plants from the LHB Conservatory and Botanic Garden. They’re working with Craig Cramer from SIPS to showcase the range of the arum family, from tiny duckweed all the way up to Titan arum! Though the Titan arum at the booth will not be flowering (a relief for certain booth workers who will be standing next to it for 4 hours!) there will be an interactive display
(bottom right) highlighting the unusual inflorescence of this (in)famous plant.
We hope to see you there! For more info, please visit the Botanic Gardens page here.