Date/Time
Date(s) - 08/26/2023
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Categories
Watch It Again
Long-time IPS member and PALMS co-editor, Dr. Scott Zona, will speak on the five functions that every palm (and other plants) must do, whether in the wild or in cultivation. The lecture is based on his new book, A Gardener’s Guide to Botany: The Biology Behind the Plants You Love, How They Grow, and What They Need (Cool Springs Press, 2023). 
Learn about how palms grow (from repeating units, like LEGO® bricks), how they acquire nutrients, how they deploy many-layered defenses, how they have sex without touching, and how their seeds are dispersed. This is a fascinating look at how plants grow—not how to grow plants—and a crash course in botany from one of our own!
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Scott Zona, Ph.D.
Scott Zona holds a B.S. in horticulture and an M.S. in botany from the University of Florida. His Ph.D. in botany is from Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and Claremont Graduate University, California. Scott grew up among pines and palms of South Florida. He has explored for plants in Florida, California, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, the Pacific islands, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Guinea and Madagascar. His interests are in the diversity and natural history of tropical plants, especially palms, salvias and bryophytes. He has over 160 publications, both scientific and popular, on palms and other tropical plants. Scott is co-editor of the International Palm Society’s quarterly journal, PALMS. He gardens in North Carolina, where, ironically, his favorite palm, Jubaea chilensis, will not grow.