The Daura Gallery at Lynchburg College will host a Botanicos exhibition May 29 through August 12 featuring specimens from the College’s Ramsey-Freer Herbarium in conjunction with a Botanicos Conference June 8-9 at the College. A gallery reception will be held at 5 p.m. June 8. The exhibition, reception, and keynote speech are free and open to public.
The exhibition celebrates nature with specimens that reveal an unusual and beautiful art from created from variations of morphological shapes, forms, patterns, symmetries, and structural designs in flowers, inflorescences, fruits, seeds, leaves, and roots. The mounted plants on display are representative of the more than 60,000 specimens in the herbarium and include the Tulip Poplar, Virginia’s state tree, and the Flowering Dogwood, Virginia’s state flower, as well as many rare and endangered species.
The Botanicos Conference celebrates biodiversity and the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the herbarium. Conference highlights will include a keynote speech by Dr. S.H. Sohmer, director, Botanical Research Institute of Texas, at 7:30 p.m. June 8 in Sydnor Performance Hall, Elliot & Rosel Schewel Hall, which is free and open to the public. Appalachian folk tales by Dr. Gwynn Ramsey, professor emeritus of biology at Lynchburg College and curator of the Ramsey-Freer Herbarium, will follow.
On June 9, the conference will move to LC's Claytor Nature Study Center in Bedford County, and the program will include presentations on biodiversity, workshops, nature hikes, bird walks, and entertainment. Registration for the day, including breakfast and lunch, is $25 and may be paid at the door.
Botanicos is being held in celebration of the accomplishments of the curators of the Ramsey-Freer Herbarium at the College as well as the contributions of this vital educational and research facility over its first 80 years. Speakers and workshop leaders include numerous former students of Dr. Ruskin Freer and Dr. Ramsey who went on to successful careers in the biological sciences.
Established in 1927, the Ramsey-Freer Herbarium represents the longest-running research effort at the College. It is the largest private college herbarium (over 60,000 specimens) in Virginia and the fourth largest in the state. During its existence, the LC herbarium has been curated by two directors, each of whom contributed 40 years of service to this significant botanical endeavor.
The late Dr. Ruskin Freer, who served as professor of biology at Lynchburg College from 1924 until 1964, founded the herbarium and oversaw the deposition of approximately 3,000 specimens during his tenure. His contributions to the field of biology included zoological as well as botanical knowledge. A founding member of the Virginia Society of Ornithology, author of the Birds of Lynchburg, Virginia and Vicinity and numerous scholarly papers, he also served as editor of the Virginia Journal of Science and as president of the Virginia Academy of Science.
Dr. Gwynn Ramsey, now professor emeritus of biology at the College, succeeded Dr. Freer as herbarium curator in 1967 and still serves in that capacity. In addition to greatly increasing the herbarium’s holdings, Dr. Ramsey has made extensive use of its resources in teaching, documenting the floristic diversity of Virginia, especially the Central Blue Ridge Mountains, and extending the biosystematic knowledge of North American bugbanes (Cimicifuga species). Dr. Ramsey is the author of more than 35 publications, some co-authored with students, and is a co-author of The Atlas of the Flora of Virginia.
The Daura Gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m. or by appointment through August 26. The Gallery will be closed on weekends during the summer.
For additional information, contact conference co-chair Dr. Nancy Cowden, assistant professor of biology at Lynchburg College, at A href="mailto:cowden@lynchburg.edu">cowden@lynchburg.edu or 434/544-8371 or check http://www.lynchburg.edu/botanicos.xml.