Conversations at the Meetinghouse

Conversations at the Meetinghouse

Free and Open to the Public

First Friday of the Month 7PM

Four North Main Street, Sharon, MA

Reading the New England Landscape:

History from a Botanical Perspective

Dr. Tom Kinraide

Friday March 6th at 7 pm, Sharon Unitarian Church

Why are New England pastures and meadows populated almost entirely with exotic plants? These plants don’t seem exotic, in fact they are familiar: white clover, dandelions, red fescue, Kentucky blue grass, and buttercups, to name a few. In contrast, the grasslands of the Great Plains are populated almost entirely by native species. Does this distribution of plants reflect the invasion from Europe of species only or does it reflect the invasion of whole ecosystems? Why do most invasive species that have gone abroad come from the southern and western United States?

How have people, early Native Americans and the early European settlers, affected the botanical landscape and made the environment we know here in New England? Come to hear answers and to see an illustrated talk on these and other questions, at the March Conversation at the Meetinghouse.

Dr. Kinraide is a Sharon resident with degrees from BU, Clark University, and the University of Montana. He taught at the Colorado College, was a research fellow at the University of Vermont, and was a research scientist with the USDA for 30 years. He is now retired, but continues to advise young scientists and to publish with them scientific journals. Anyone interested may Google Kinraide to see his articles.