Ecopa is excited to introduce the newest addition to our suite of environmental courses: Field Botany workshops. These workshops are led by our expert botanist, Michael Oldham. Join us in July at the Ken Reid Conservation Area in Lindsay, Ontario, for a unique opportunity to enhance your botanical knowledge and skills.

 

​​Ecopa Environmental's three-day field botany course will give you practical, hands-on experience identifying vascular plants in the field and the lab. Participants will learn about plant identification, collection, and field inventory methods. Classroom sessions will introduce students to the diversity, taxonomy and floristic affinities of Ontario plants, plant rarity, conservation status, species at risk status, indicator species, exotic and invasive plants, use of taxonomic keys, and how to press and preserve plant specimens. Field trips will expose students to plants of wetland and upland habitats as well as an introduction to some more difficult groups, such as graminoids.

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Program Outline

 

Tuesday

Morning

• Arrival and registration.

• Presentation on the diversity, distribution, and taxonomy of Ontario plants.

• Lab exercise on the use of dichotomous keys to identify plants.

Afternoon

• Fieldwork

• How to collect, photograph, and identify plants in the field.

• Focus on trees and shrubs.

• Collect specimens for later identification in the lab.

Wednesday

Morning

• Field identification and collection of specimens for later verification.

• Focus on graminoid identification.

Afternoon

• Lab work identifying collected specimens and use of dichotomous keys

 Thursday

Morning

• Presentation on plant nativity, conservation status, species at risk, floristic quality assessment, and invasive plant species.

Afternoon

• Field trip focusing on old field and exotic species

• Lab exercise on graminoid identification and identification of plant specimens collected in the field

• Course wrap-up and departure

 

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