Meeting:

October 13, 2011

Guest Presenter:

Peter del Tredici

Program:

Wild Urban Plants

In this slide lecture, Dr. Peter del Tredici will explore the natural and cultural history of the plants that grows spontaneously in our cities. He will focus on cosmopolitan nature of this flora and its ability to adapt to the stresses that dominate our urban ecosystems. In the speaker’s opinion, the spread of spontaneous vegetation in the modern world is a symptom of massive, on-going environmental degradation rather than its cause. Dr. del Tredici articulates a forward-looking approach to the issue of spontaneous urban vegetation that focuses on rebuilding the ecological functionality rather than on the restoration of past ecosystems. His ideas on the subject have been published in the book, Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast: A Field Guide (2010, Cornell University Press).

Peter del Tredici has a Bachelor’s Degree in Zoology, and a Master’s Degree and Ph.D in Biology.  He has been a lecturer at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design since 1992, where he has taught a course on sustainable landscapes and currently teaches the courses  ‘Plants and Design’ and ‘Rebuilding Devastated Landscapes’.  He has also been a Senior Research Scientist at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University since 2003.  He was the winner of the Arthur Hoyt Scott Medal and Award for 1999, presented annually by the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College to either an individual or organization “in recognition of their outstanding national contributions to the science and art of gardening.”

He also won the Jackson Dawson Medal for 1986, awarded by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for “skill in the science and practice of hybridization and propagation of plants.”