Ahart Herbarium
Ahart Herbarium presents
All Things Botanically Related (Series)
John Dittes and Lowell Ahart at Peter Ahart Ranch
Upper Yuba River, Northern High Sierra
“Part-2” of Two Decades of Botanical Explorations in Northern California with Lowell Ahart
Presented John Dittes
Thurs, September 19, 2024
7pm - 8pm
Virtual Meeting (via Zoom)
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After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
During the first portion of this pictorial reminisce (All Things Botanical, June 16, 2024), John Dittes introduced us to Lowell, retired rancher and farmer, renowned Northern California botanist and plant collector, and namesake of the Herbarium at CSU Chico. We learned of Lowell’s early days, growing up on The Peter Ahart Ranch, and how he became the accomplished botanist we know today.
John, a consulting botanist shared stories and photos, describing their friendship and first decade of working and botanizing together in the northern California Landscape. This second-half of “the story” will pick up where we left off last time, when in 2013, we visited and interviewed Dr. Marge Anthony at her home at Sea Ranch on the Sonoma Coast. Dr. Anthony was a remarkable woman who was Lowell’s Plant Taxonomy teacher at Chico State College in 1961, and whom he’d last seen in 1971. We’ll continue from there, enjoying photos and stories of botanical projects, Northern California landscapes, and interesting people met along the way, from 2013 to present.
Aaron Sims
CNPS QR Code
CNPS Rare Plant Inventory: Celebrating 50 Years of Innovation and Advancement of Rare Plant Stewardship and Conservation in California
Presented by Aaron Sims
Director of the Rare Plant Program for the California Native Plant Society (CNPS)
Thurs, October 17, 2024
6:30pm - 8pm
Virtual Meeting (via Zoom)
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After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
or 50 years, CNPS has maintained a database of California’s rare and endangered plants. This inventory is used thousands of times a day by conservationists, researchers, consultants, naturalists and resource managers, and serves to help educate landowners and public policy makers about the importance of rare plant stewardship. Starting as index card files of plant names and locations developed by famous geneticist G. Ledyard Stebbins, the CNPS Rare Plant Inventory (RPI) has become the most innovative, publicly-available online resource for promoting rare plant science and conservation in California. Now in its 9th edition, the rare plant inventory (RPI) is a fully integrated web application that enables species maintenance functions to be performed in the same web-based program, ensuring the immediate release of the most up-to-date rare plant information to help inform conservation priorities.
Aaron Sims oversees and manages the status review process for additions and changes to the CNPS Rare Plant Inventory (RPI) and the CNDDB, as well as developing updates, maintenance, and advancements of this important conservation tool. At the same time, he supports special projects from rare plant surveys and monitoring to conservation and seed banking throughout California. Aaron has over 17 years of professional botany experience, starting out as an assistant for Dave Keil’s field botany course at Cal Poly SLO for five years, and then working in environmental consulting and as an ecologist for State Parks, where he performed rare plant and vegetation surveys, prescribed fire management, and GIS specialties before joining staff at CNPS in 2010.
All Things Botanically Related - Past Presentations:
Photo by John W.
A closer look at selected relationships between bees, flowers, and people
Presented Gordon Frankie
Thurs, August 15, 2024
7pm - 8pm
Virtual Meeting (via Zoom)
View Presentation Recording >>
Dr. Frankie will touch on a variety of topics that illustrate his concern for pollinator conservation : The use of bee hotels (pros and cons), collecting pollinators, data basing of collections and value of museums, bee conservation and the need for citizen action. He will also discuss developing pollinator habitat gardens and native versus non-native plants in these gardens.
Photo by John W.
Gordon Frankie is professor emeritus from the University of California, Berkeley. His specialty is pollinator/ pollination ecology of native bees in California and Costa Rica. He is particularly involved with questions of how people relate to bees and their plants in urban, agricultural, and wildland environments, and how to raise human awareness and calls for actions in these areas. Frankie runs the Urban Bee Lab at UC Berkeley, and still teaches undergraduate students about several aspects of bee ecology.
California Phenology Thematic Collections Network
Ahart Herbarium is actively photographing specimens in the collection and linking the images to the collection information for each species. This information is accessible through the California Phenology Thematic Collections Network (www.CCH2.org(opens in new window)). Through a National Science Foundation grant, the Herbarium will be imaging over 30,000 specimens in the collection which will be similar to the one here. Collectively, over 23 different herbaria and collections across California will be located on CCH2. Check out the website!(opens in new window)
Ahart Herbarium passed another minor milestone by accessioning over 125,000 specimens – see the number 120,000 stamped in the middle of the Herbarium logo on the lower left side of the sheet in the left photograph. This specimen is another fine example of the collecting and specimen mounting of Lowell Ahart – his collection number 21,434 from last summer.
Located in Holt Hall room 129, the Herbarium is the most complete repository of plant specimens from northeastern California. The emphasis is on the northern California flora, and includes a great number of rare, threatened, and endangered plant species. Established with specimens donated by the late Professor Vesta Holt in the 1950's, the herbarium now contains more than 107,000 dried and mounted plant specimens. The majority of samples are flowering plants, conifers, and ferns, but bryophytes, lichens, and especially slime molds, are also well represented. The herbarium is used extensively for identification of sensitive and other plant species by various agencies and individuals. Loans of herbarium specimens are made to any higher academic institutions who request them.
Facilities available to visitors to the herbarium include the use of high-quality dissecting scopes, a compound microscope, an extensive reference library, an internet-connected computer, an internet connection for personal computers, and, with suitable training, access to the collection of specimens.
Users of the herbarium facilities and collection are encouraged to make plant collections during their field excursions and donate them to the herbarium. This is how the collection grows and increases its utility and importance to the whole botanical community.
Friends of the Ahart Herbarium Workshops!
Check back soon for upcoming workshops!
View the Friends of the Herbarium Calendar >>(opens in new window)
Ahart Herbarium is open to the public!
Hours are Fridays 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, and by appointment.
Visiting the herbarium is by appointment only, by contacting the Curator at ljaneway@csuchico.edu.