This week there was an exceptional seminar held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew entitled ‘Transformational Nature, unlocking the secrets of natural form, plant intelligence and the ageing process’. The Treework Seminar 21 is part of a series of seminars run by Neville Fay of Treework Environmental Practice and they are well worth attending. Tony Kirkham, Head of Arboretum at Kew gave the opening introduction and welcome to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew and he also led a lunchtime talk around specific trees of note within the gardens including an amazing weeping Beech.
The key speakers were:
- Francis Hallé a Botanist and Plant Morphologist (Emeritus Professor of Botany, University of Montpellier).
- Stefano Mancuso a Plant Neurobiologist (Professor of Biological Sciences and Director of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology, University of Florence).
- Monica Gagliano a Plant Cognitive Ecologist who is a Research Associate Professor & Research Fellow of the Australian Research Council Centre of Evolutionary Biology, University of Western Australia).
- Howard Thomas, a Plant Gerontologist and Emeritus Professor of Biology, Aberystwyth University.
It was an inspirational day challenging preconceived ideas and perceptions of plants and looking at them in a whole new way from a very different perspective. The topics were thought provoking, fun and also very informative and hopefully will continue to be developed and researched to find more answers to some of the questions that are only now being posed.
To find out more, follow the links to each of the speakers as they have written papers on their research, published books and even have videos of their talks.
If you have yet to visit Kew then pop along as the trees are stunning at any time of year and don’t forget to visit the bonsai collection while you are there.
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