By Mary Priestley
The Sewanee Herbarium at the University of the South is gearing up for a gala 50th birthday celebration on October 11 including hikes and performances.
A highlight of the "Jubilee Jamboree" will be a trek into Fiery Gizzard, led by Dr. Ross Clark, and co-sponsored by the Herbarium and the Friends of South Cumberland State Park. The hike, which will leave from the Grundy Forest trailhead on Oct. 11 at 10 a.m., will commemorate the many trips to the Gizzard that Sewanee botany students have taken over the years, as well as the recent purchase and protection of a large portion of the Gizzard by the state of Tennessee.
Dr. George Ramseur, founder of the Sewanee Herbarium and its director emeritus, often took his classes to Fiery Gizzard to botanize. It was natural, then, for his former student Ross Clark to choose the Gizzard for a plant inventory when he was in graduate school in North Carolina. "Ross found the Gizzard to be a place of great botanical diversity, including several rare and interesting plants, which we hope to rediscover with him",explains Herbarium Director, Dr. Jon Evans.
Also on the docket will be an appearance by "John Muir". Actually, Muir was last in Tennessee in the late 19th century. This visit will by actor Lee Stetson who portrays Muir on stage, as he has done for the past 27 years in Yosemite National Park and throughout the world. His performance will take place in Gailor Auditorium on the sewanee campus at 7 p.m.
Squeezed into the weekend are plans for tours of the new herbarium and science building, a birthday party, and toasts to the continued active involvement of the herbarium in education, research, and conservation. All events are in Central Daylight Time.
For more information about the event, visit the Herbarium Web page at www.lal.sewanee.edu/herbarium.
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