A colleague, a taxonomist, and I (plant ecologist) are planning a summer
field botany course for our biology majors. We envision it to include
the skills of keying, recognizing families and local species as well as
an understanding of plant communities and basic plant ecological
principles. Searching the web, it appears that most so-called field
botany courses are really pretty much traditional plant id classes. We
want our class to produce good field botanists who can not only identify
species but will understand why they are found where they are. We
envision the class to be for those non-botanists who don't have the time to
take full-fledged plant taxonomy and plant ecology classes. The class
will be taught largely in the lab and field.
Any suggestions for topics and organization? Has anybody had any
experience with a good text for such a course?
Doug Reynolds
Dept. of Biological Sciences
Central Washington University
Ellensburg, WA 98926
