Pennsylvania Botany Symposium • October 20–21

Pennsylvania Botany Symposium • October 20–21

Join professional native plant botanists & hobbyists too for: Hands-on workshops; Expert speakers; Opportunities for students; & exhibitors.

By Pennsylvania Botany Committee

Date and time

October 20, 2023 · 8am - October 21, 2023 · 4:30pm EDT

Location

The Penn Stater Hotel & Conference Center

215 Innovation Boulevard State College, PA 16803

Refund Policy

No Refunds

Agenda

9:00 AM - 4:30 PM

Friday Full-day Workshop: ID & Ecology of PA Dichanthelium Species

Claire Ciafre, Ecologist/Botanist

Panicking about the panic grasses? Or are you bewitched by the witchgrasses? Either way, this workshop is for you. Participants will learn about the ~35 species of Dichanthelium known from Pennsylvan...

9:00 AM - 4:30 PM

Friday Full-day Workshop: Winter Trees and Shrubs

Norris Muth, PhD, Professor of Biology

If identifying plants sometimes feels a bit like magic to your friends (or to you), then identifying woody plants in winter is pure wizardry. Odds are you know more about what to look for in winter w...

9:00 AM - 4:30 PM

Friday Full-day Workshop: Introduction to Mosses

Scott Schuette, PhD, Bryologist/Botanist

There are 560 bryophytes taxa in 244 genera across 85 families, which comprises about 14% of the Pennsylvania Flora. They are found in all types of habitats ranging from the pristine to the highly an...

1:30 PM - 4:30 PM

Friday Afternoon Workshop: Wetland Plants

Jeff Polonoli, Environmental Scientist

This half day workshop introduces an approach to plant identification where emphasis is placed on learning to distinguish the major plant families prior to memorizing random plant species. The worksh...

1:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Friday Afternoon Workshop: Invasives: Look-Alikes and Management

Brian Daggs, Invasive Species Ecologist

Invasive species remain one of the greatest challenges that conservationists and environmental professionals face today. Non-native plants encroaching on the habitats that we hope to conserve threate...

1:30 PM - 4:30 PM

Friday Afternoon Workshop: Paleobotany

Peter Wilf, PhD, & his Grad Students

Plants provide us with oxygen, food, clothing, and medicine and structure the ecosystems that we live in. Understanding the origins and evolution of our green planet is not only a scientific pursuit—...

4:30 PM - 7:30 PM

Friday Evening Social: Poster Session, Exhibitors & Documentary Film

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Saturday Welcome & Keynote Address: Partnering to Conserve PA Native Species

Tanisha Williams, PhD

Pennsylvania’s unique geologic history, including substrates such as serpentinite and limestone, has given rise to impressive levels of plant diversity. Sixty percent of the native species recognized...

10:00 AM - 10:40 AM

The Plant Conservation Alliance: Changes, Progress, and Plants! Cheyenne Moore

Cheyenne Moore, Alliance Coordinator

The Pennsylvania Plant Conservation Alliance started several years ago as a part of the PA Natural Heritage Program. After a brief hiatus, in 2022 the program was restarted with a focus on rare plant...

10:40 AM - 11:10 AM

Morning Break and Exhibitor Hall Activities

11:10 AM - 11:50 AM

Does Herd Immunity Work for Trees? White Ash Trees and the Emerald Ash Borer

Jason Kilgore, PhD

Non-native and invasive emerald ash borers (EAB, Agrilus planipennis) have decimated ash (Fraxinus spp.) across eastern hardwood forests of North America in two decades, & ash are rapidly approaching...

11:50 AM - 12:30 PM

PA’s Ramps: What are they, where do they grow, and should we be concerned?

Sarah Nilson, PhD

Eric Burkhart, PhD

Ramps (Allium spp.) are non-timber forest species traditionally harvested and consumed as a wild food in Pennsylvania. Conservation concerns for ramps have been raised recently due to the growing pop...

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

Lunch Break and Exhibitors in Social Hall

1:30 PM - 2:10 PM

Native Americans, Smokey the Bear and Eastern US Fire Ecosystems

Marc Abrams, PhD

A diverse array of fire-adapted plant communities once covered the eastern United States largely due to millennia of Native American active fire management. European settlement greatly altered fire r...

2:10 PM - 2:20 PM

Student Poster Awards

2:20 PM - 2:50 PM

Afternon Break and Exhibitor Hall Activities

2:50 PM - 3:20 PM

Cool Finds Juried and Narrated Slideshow

Roger Latham, PhD

3:20 PM - 4:00 PM

Orchids, fungi, and the surrounding plant community—the wood wide web

Melissa McCormick, PhD

Orchids include some of our most prized native plants. All naturally occurring orchids rely on associations with particular mycorrhizal fungi to grow from seeds and for nutrition throughout their liv...

About this event

The Pennsylvania Botany Symposium is being held in-person for the first time since 2018! As in years past, it offers full-day and half-day workshops on Friday, October 20, followed by an evening social that includes a juried student poster session, exhibitors, appetizers and cash bar; and this year there will also be a short documentary film, Rooted Wisdom, at the social, followed by a moderated discussion. Saturday is a full day of expert, engaging presentations geared for an audience of all adult levels. The highest honors awarded to juried student posters will be announced, and there will be a narrated slideshow of submitted "Cool Finds!" Share your photos — get the Cool Finds submission form here!

See the Symposium Agenda for details about the workshops, evening social and Saturday presentations!

There are two separate levels of fees for all attendance options, one for students and another for non-students (general admission). Be sure to choose the correct payment option for you!

Note that all workshop registration fees include the Friday evening social, and Saturday presentations with lunch included. Additional registration rates for students and nonstudents include: the Friday evening Social and Saturday presentations with lunch, and another for Saturday attendance and lunch only. The Dichanthelium worskhop has filled and is now closed.

Students, prepare your research posters now. Get the Call for Student Research Posters information here! The poster abstract submission deadline has been extended to the end of Friday October 6.

A special PA Botany Symposium room rate is available to attendees who stay at the Symposium's venue, the Penn Stater Hotel & Conference Center, on Thursday and Saturday nights, October 19 and 21, 2023. Our block of rooms for Friday October 20 has sold out. Available rooms are limited and the deadline for getting this event rate is midnight October 4, 2023. The cost is only $136 when you use our guestroom group code: PBOT23S. Please make your room reservations by reserving online using this link, https://www.thepennstaterhotel.com, then selecting BOOK NOW and adding the Group code to get the discounted room rate.

Get the new Pennsylvania Botany note card sets, art prints and more! Purchase them in-person at the Symposium.

We're unable to accept credit cards at the Symposium, so be sure to bring extra cash or checks! There is also an ATM at the Penn Stater.

Organized by

Pennsylvania Botany Committee
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