Land plants evolved about half a billion years ago from algae, and have since transformed the planet. They have become bigger (or smaller) and more complex, evolving branches and roots, leaves and flowers, and various ways to survive in a changing environment.
How did all these complex plants evolve?
Cultivated tulips are a common sight in Spring gardens around the world, but have you ever considered where wild tulips grow?
Discover complex, intriguing and challenging stories about power within our collections.
Join us for The Power Walk series - an opportunity to share and exchange stories and ideas linked to the University of Cambridge Museum's investigation of the legacies of empire and enslavement, power and memory with our communities and audiences.
Discover complex, intriguing and challenging stories about power within our collections.
Join us for The Power Walk series - an opportunity to share and exchange stories and ideas linked to the University of Cambridge Museum's investigation of the legacies of empire and enslavement, power and memory with our communities and audiences.
This 5-day intensive course introduces flowering plant families to committed amateurs, undergraduates, graduates and professionals. The aim is to develop an understanding of the evolution and systematics of the major plant families and the practical skills needed when approaching the identification of plant material. Teaching is through a combination of practical sessions and lectures covering exemplars of major flowering plant families.
The grass family is one of huge ecological and economic importance. Grasses play a dominant role in the landscape and provide food for a vast variety and number of animals including humankind. Their role in evolution and throughout history cannot be overestimated. On top of all this they enhance our lives with their grace and elegance. This course is designed to help the beginner to develop a taste and a confident passion for these beautiful plants. By mid-June many of the grasses will be flowering when they are at their most attractive.
The English landscape garden, for all its aesthetic ideals and painterly compositions, was ultimately intended for leisure and relaxation. Small-scale garden buildings lent themselves to lofty architectural experimentation, but practically they provided for picnics, teas and candlelit soirees.
On day one you will collect leaves and fallen plant material from the Garden and take these back to the classroom to use to print your own individual covers, pages and inserts for your sketchbooks. There will be demonstrations of printmaking technique and uses of materials. You will work with monoprinting to create unique prints to build within the construct of your books, and create layered prints using and combining plant materials, mark making, textured materials and masking techniques.
Travelling through the seasons we will explore the history, folklore and culture of three wild plants in bloom (or at least in foliage!) that month. The session will encourage you to search out plants in all seasons and enjoy the history in folklore and culture, and their use for medicines, cooking as well as the many and varied traditional names which help us trace that history.
Trees make up one of the most impressive and beautiful features of our landscape – undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of our natural heritage. The different seasons are reflected dramatically in their changing appearance throughout the year. Late May is a great time for looking at broad-leaved trees: their leaves are fully formed and some will still be flowering. This course is concerned with their identification. We will explore the natural history of our native trees and show you how to recognise individual species.
