Australian Trees for a Drought-Stressed Southern California

About This Event

Saturday, March 19, 2016
10am – 12pm / Bamboo Room
Instructor: Matt Ritter
$30 Arboretum members / $40 non-members (Includes Arboretum Admission)

To Register please call the Education Department at 626.821.4623 or pay at the class

The Arboretum is bringing back botany Professor Matt Ritter to discuss and celebrate the Arboretum’s Australian trees for Southern California gardens. El niño or not, it’s dry in California and likely to get drier. More trees from Australia will be part of the solution toward creating beautiful, diverse, and resilient urban forests with less and less water. We’ll explore future drought tolerant, appropriate Australian species. This event will be partial classroom lecture and discussion and part tree walk in the Arboretum’s world class collection of Australian trees. Come learn about Acacias, eucalypts, Callistemons, Melaleucas, and Brachychitons, and so many more great Australian trees.

Matt Ritter is a professor in the Biology Department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He has authored numerous scientific papers and botanical treatments, including the second edition of the Jepson Manual, the Flora of North America Project, and a natural history guide to San Luis Obispo’s native plants. He is also the author of A Californian’s Guide to the Trees Among Us, the state’s most popular natural history guide to the urban forest. He is the California Coordinator of the American Forests Big Tree Registry, holds a Kenan Fellowship at the National Tropical Botanical Gardens, is the chair of the City of San Luis Obispo Tree Committee, and editor-in-chief of Madroño, the journal of the California Botanical Society. He is an avid woodworker and gardener.