Environmental Concern Inc. presents: GRASSES, SEDGES and RUSHES
September 10-13, 2007 Wetland Learning Campus St. Michaels, MD Instructor: Bill Sipple $750 This seminar serves as an introduction to the identification of sedges, rushes, and grasses. Through lectures, reviews of morphological terminology, examination of plant specimens, and use of technical keys, participants will develop a reasonably complete understanding of these difficult plant families, their subdivisions, and many of their genera. Grasses, sedges, and rushes represent a significant component of the ground stratum in most habitats. This course offers the ability for field scientists to better identify and recognize them within major groups and to the species level so knowledge about their presence can support their efforts. This course is intended to assist plant ecologists, wetland ecologist and delineators, mitigation and restoration ecologists, foresters, botanists, and others conducting field studies or investigations in various wetland and upland habitats. Field trips to a variety of wetland and some upland habitats throughout the week will provide study materials and opportunities for discussions of many species and the insights they provide on the habitats within which they grow. Each morning will involve a lecture using live specimens followed by field work in the afternoon reinforcing the lecture information. During the field work, additional plants will be collected for plant exercises or keying in the lab. Keying exercises will involve instructor led joint keying and paired or individual keying - mostly in the lab. The main texts for this course, provided to all students, is a course manual developed by the instructor, How to Identify Grasses and Grasslike Plants (Harrington 1977) and Agnes Chases' First Book of Grasses (Clark and Pohl, 1996). INSTRUCTOR: William S. Sipple is a wetland ecologist and the principal in W.S. Sipple Wetland and Environmental Training and Consulting, a small company he established after retiring from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2003. At EPA he was an ecologist it the agency`s Wetland`s Division in Washington, DC office from 1979 to 2003. From 1971-1979, he worked for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in Annapolis in a tidal wetland program. He has lead numerous field trips in the mid-Atlantic Region and has taught various wetland delineation and plant identification courses in the private sector at Johns Hopkins University, and the Institute for Wetland and Environmental Education and Research in Laverett MA, the Northern Virginia Community College in Woodbridge VA, Towson University, Towson MD, and at the Graduate School of the US Department of Agriculture in Washington DC. His graduate training was in regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania and plant ecology at the University of Maryland. For more information about the course, or to register, log on to www.wetland.org or call (410) 745-9620. Bronwyn Mitchell Education Director Environmental Concern Inc. www.wetland.org (410) 745-9620
