I have been taking a flowering plants course at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown, which is about 30 minutes from us. Mr. Peterson was a Jamestown native and helped to found the Institute before his death several years ago. It is dedicated to:
Our mission is to create passion for and knowledge of the natural world in the hearts and minds of children by inspiring and guiding the study of nature in our schools and communities
and one of the ways they do this is to hold classes in cooperation with State University of NY at Fredonia (one of my "not my alma maters," but that is a very long story) for school teachers to which the general public are also invited. Being the definition of "general public," I signed on, warning the teacher that I had a pretty good self-taught knowlegde of the local flora, which didn't phase him.
The class consists of 3 teachers from a Catholic elementary school in Dunkirk, NY and their principal, "Sister;" a kindergarten teacher from one of the Jamestown elementary schools who was one of my daughter's mentors on her way through the elementary ed. courses; a retired lab tech formerly of Buffalo; and a family from the Seneca Reservation near Gowanda, NY. Oh, and me.
Most of the classes have been field trips with eyes-on plant identification as the goal. I've spent a lot of time NOT answering the questions, and only twice made a major fool of myself by answering WRONG.
Last Tuesday evening, we went to the Fredonia College Lodge, an old farm granted to the college and maintained in its natural state. It has a beautiful old second growth woods, much like our's was before the former owners logged it off. You drive up onto a good, steep hill to get to the parking lot and the paths, which are nicely maintained but not intrusive, fall away from there. We went down one named Leopold in honor of Aldo Leopold, the American ecologist, and found, at the bottom a veritable field of pink Lady's Slippers.
I was breathless. I hadn't seen even one of these beauties since I was a very young child and to see 34 of them in a space of about 30 square feet was amazing. Mark, the teacher ('nature educator') was saying that these were commonly called Pink Lady's Slippers or, called by the Seneca, Moccasin Flower. Roberta, who is full blooded Seneca, said, Hmmpf, we call them Whippoorwill Shoes. Mark, good on him, was delighted to know this, as I hope you all are, too. We also saw several more individual plants along the path way on our way to the swamp. It was incredible.
I have some good pictures, and will download them soon and post a couple.
Spring Flowering Plants Class
Sounds like a lot of fun Kathleen. A few years ago I took an "apprentice" class with a local herbalist. I enjoyed the "fieldwork" the most. The teacher had all sorts of secret places to show us with interesting plants growing. Of course, with herbs many of the plants used are full fledged weeds.... but we were able to find many of the more rare plants that you don't often see. Sounds like the lady slippers were glorious!