Sierra Club Monthly Program: Useful Wild Plants of Texas

We’ll start off with Announcements on current events… Tonite’s main program is “Discovering the Lost Planet Underfoot – Useful Wild Plants of Texas”, with Scooter Cheatham.

Texas is the hub of a botanical domain spanning the southern US and northern Mexico. This region contains a vast reserve of self-regenerating botanical resources that can be used to improve our lives in the future. The Useful Wild Plants Project brings to light every use ever made of Texas’s 5,000 species of vascular plants along with thousands of new applications. It reaches back to ancient times when prehistoric peoples subsisted predominantly on plants and strides forward to current scientific discoveries in phytochemistry, medicine, nutrition, genetics, crop and product development, and more.

While proposed expeditions to put a colony on Mars or to find a verdant new planet to colonize are in the popular media, there is a whole new planet right under our feet — the vast undiscovered wealth of the plant kingdom. Botanical studies are being phased out at an alarming rate, and our inattention to these disciplines imperils our chances for a safe and productive future. A resurgence in plant exploration is urgent and essential.

Scooter Cheatham will speak about this visionary work that draws from the past and present to set up the “next economy on planet Earth” for the future in which all life can thrive. See www.Usefulwildplants.org for more information.

Scooter Cheatham, founder and president of EarthFit and Useful Wild Plants, Inc., is director of the Useful Wild Plants Project and lead-author of the encyclopedic Useful Wild Plants of Texas, the Southeastern and Southwestern United States, the Southern Plains, and Northern Mexico. He is also an architect and design professional working in ecologically aware design, economic botany, botanical literacy, education, and community action. He holds advanced degrees in architecture, design, and community and regional planning and has extensive experience leading interdisciplinary programs. His architectural and landscape projects focus on minimizing human impact and maximizing protection of the native flora, fauna, and geology. His projects in experimental archeology and architecture have resulted in full-scale reconstructions of Native American dwellings serving as educational exhibits at prehistoric and historic sites. He has taught design, graphics, and watercolor in the Department of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin and is active in environmental/community issues.

The URL to click on and join the meeting will be displayed after you RSVP. Using your camera and microphone is optional for the meeting but encouraged.