Hill Country Trees and Lichens: Part One

On Thursday, June 12th, renowned Georgia lichenologist Sean Beeching, along with University of West Georgia botany professor David Morgan, gave a presentation to SOP Workshop participants in The Studio at Serenbe Community. Sean regaled the half-dozen of us (myself, my wife Valerie, and four "regulars") with a speech on the nature of lichens, liberally augmented with a sampling of his collected field specimens. Afterwards, Dr. David Morgan talked about the trees of the Georgia Piedmont. He brought sample branches from each of the twenty trees, walking us through the process of telling them apart. I had a marvelous time, and learned a great deal more Southern trees that had previously been unfamiliar to me, such as sourwood and red maple. I'm not sure how I would do on a tree identification quiz, though....

Above, Sean waxes lyrical about lichens...

...and then later in the talk, I played the role of Vanna White, holding up a diagram of the classification of lichenized fungi for the audience. In this photo, I think Sean is explaining the difference between basidiomycetes and ascomycetes, or maybe he is simply attempting to demonstrate the Vulcan "Live long and prosper" gesture from Star Trek?

After the talk by Sean, and a brief introductory speech by David, out came all the tree branch specimens, and our work for the evening got underway. So many leaves, so little time....

Here, David is explaining how to distinguish a loblolly pine from a slash pine from a red cedar from a red maple from a black cherry....

This photograph has nothing to do with the evening's presentations, except for the fact that it was taken by my wife Valerie the same evening, shortly after our return home from The Studio. This Cope's Gray Tree Frog was captured mid-song, and serves as an advertisement of sorts, or foreshadowing maybe, of the July Sense of Place workshop, entitled "Turtles and Toads". The talk is scheduled for Thursday the 10th of July at 6:30 pm, and the outing will take place at Cochran Mill Park at 9:00 am on Saturday, July 19th. (For further information, contact Clifford at senseofplace@southeastpbe.org.)