On the weekend of April 29-30, ABC is cosponsoring an educational event with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (LBJWC), formerly the National Wildflower Research Center. Every spring, during the peak blooming period for Texas wildflowers, LBJWC hosts Wildflower Days on their beautiful site in south Austin, Texas. This year will be celebrated as an Ethnobotanical Festival with ABC and the Austin Herb Society participating. The purpose of the festival is to introduce the public to the historical uses of native plants by indigenous people as well as to educate them regarding their own contemporary connection to plants.

ABC has arranged for the two keynote speakers to be Steven King, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Ethnobotany and Conservation at ShamanBotanicals.com, and Phyllis Hogan, founder of the Arizona Ethnobotanical Research Association and Practitioner Associate in the Anthropology Department at Northern Arizona University.

ABC will also sponsor book and plant sales at the event, and staff members will lead workshops and demonstrations. Some of the events that ABC will be responsible for are a voucher sample identification lecture, an archeobotany lecture, a demonstration of for both function and using gourds beauty, a phytocosmetic demonstration, and a wildflower apothecary.

Article copyright American Botanical Council.

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By Gayle Engels