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  • Special Pinelands Plants Course

Special Pinelands Plants Course

Fundamentals of Pinelands Field Botany and Vegetation Communities

This year's course is geared for beginner to intermediate field botanists. If you enjoy the wildflowers and other common plants of the Pinelands and want to get a deeper understanding of the flora, this is a perfect course for you. We will examine the various ways to do this. Using both popular field guides and technical manuals, we will focus on how to identify plants in the wild. As always, we will also pay special attention to rarities.

[+ ZOOM] Special Pinelands Plants Course © PPA

Date & Time

July 2 - September 3, 2009

Ten consecutive Thursdays

7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Each evening session will be held at the PPA headquarters, in the Carriage House, and will consist of lecture and workshop. There will also be several field trips on weekend days during that interval.

We will get familiar with essential botanical concepts and terms and apply that understanding to live and preserved plant specimens. We will pay most attention to the most prominent plant families of the Pinelands region. By the end of the course, you should be able to identify the great majority of the plants you encounter in the Pinelands.

We will also learn to recognize the major vegetation communities of the Pinelands and get acquainted with the methods and classification systems that apply to them.

As always, we will discuss the protection measures that are in effect for the rarities of the region.

Course registration fee: $150 (PPA members may apply their 10% discount.)

Register online: CLOSED

Field trips: Free to course registrants

James C. Rutherford Jr. Scholarship Information: The James C. Rutherford Jr. Scholarship is available to qualifying registrants. The scholarship was established with contributions made to PPA in memory of Jim Rutherford, a local biologist who was an enthusiastic student of all phases of Pine Barrens ecology, an ardent conservationist, and an attendee of the Special Pinelands Plants Courses of 2005, 2006, and 2007.

[+ ZOOM] Jim Rutherford Jr, left, is shown conducting fieldwork in 2007 during PPA's Pinelands Plants course. Jim tragically lost his life following a car accident in 2008. A Plants Course scholarship was named in his memory. © Kevin Sparkman

To apply for the scholarship, please send a letter to Pinelands Preservation Alliance, c/o Russell Juelg, Bishop Farmstead, 17 Pemberton Road, Southampton, NJ 08088. Include full name, address, phone and other contact information. Please provide a brief paragraph explaining why you wish to apply for the scholarship, and whether you are requesting a full or partial scholarship. Preferential consideration will be to full-time students.

For more information, contact Russell at (609) 859-8860 x23 or email