Botany 101
Jayne Luetzow of the Cooperative Extension led this excellent workshop on Botany 101. If you are new to plant identification or need a refresher, this is a great place to start on your journey.
Plant Identification
Below are some useful, regionally-specific resources that will aid you on your journey to ID and propagate native plants in Alabama. In general it’s a good idea to have a mix of books on botanical theory, gardening/propagation, dichotomous keys and field guides. Some very good keys, listing up to 16,000 species, are now freely and publicly available online, and I’m sure there will be more to come.
Additionally, citizen scientists and AI image recognition software will help you learn our native and invasive plants on iNaturalist and similar apps.
If you have further suggestions for resources relevant to North Alabama, please send them to us!
Plant Propagation
In addition to Jan Midgley’s self-published book on plant propagation (which can be acquired by sending her a check for $27.00 to the address on the cover), the USDA has published extensive material on the propagation of woody species in the Woody Seed Plant Manual. You can read and download the USDA manuals here.
Workshops
Are you an expert (amateur or professional) in a subject matter that might be useful to our mission? Are you a natural educator who loves to share your knowledge with others? If so, we’d love to hear from you. We’d like to hold workshops throughout the year with various experts to make us all more competent plant identifiers, propagators, and invasive species eradicators. Please reach out, and help us get better at what we love to do!