Lecture: Trials and Tribulations of Plant Collecting

William A. McNamara is an American horticulturist and expert in the field of plant conservation and the flora of Asia. He is considered a modern-day plant hunter. In the company of horticulturists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Windsor Great Park, the Howick Arboretum, and others, McNamara has botanized extensively in the wilds of temperate East Asia. From 1987 to 2019, he participated in annual plant collecting expeditions to China, Japan, India, Nepal, Vietnam and Myanmar in search of plants for research, conservation, and stemming biodiversity loss.

Now retired, he was the President and Executive Director of Quarryhill Botanical Garden, a 25-acre wild woodland garden in Northern California's Sonoma Valley featuring wild-sourced plants from temperate East Asia. McNamara has been a Field Associate of the Botany Department at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco since 2000. McNamara shares his horticultural knowledge through presentations throughout the country and abroad, and he has been on the Garden Club of America's speakers list for conservation and horticulture since 2010.

Fee: $10 member, $12 nonmember, $5 student

Onsite: Wednesday, June 5, 5:30 - 7 p.m., Sturm Family Auditorium