The More You Know, the More You See by Judy Osborn

On a hot and humid Saturday morning on June 17, about 20 intrepid native plant enthusiasts gathered at Concordia University for a nature walk led by Dr. Mary Kay Johnston, an Associate Professor at Concordia University and co-chair of its Biology & Environmental Science & Conservation Program.

But first: “Into the classroom!” This professor knows her flowers, and this group better know them too, so we first settled in for a lesson on flower anatomy. After a warm-up exercise drafting personal haikus about nature at dawn, we grabbed flasks of wildflowers and gathered in groups, setting out to identify them using a dichotomous key. Dr. Johnston moved among the tables to goad and inspire each group. Which flower has petiolate leaves simple or twice pinnatifid, and which one has leaves pinnately divided into linear lobes? What about the one with spatulate to oblanceolate leaves with a cuneate base?

And we better know the family and species name too, because on the outdoor walk that followed, each discovered plant necessitated a guess as to its common name and its scientific one too. Dozens of native plants and trees lie only steps from the buildings on the Concordia campus, including Toxicodendron radicans (poison ivy), Yucca rupicola (twistleaf yucca), Achillea millefolium (common yarrow), and Solanum elaegnifolium (silverleaf nightshade).

With such an erudite guide as Dr. Johnston, everyone certainly left knowing much more than when they arrived. But that’s the lot of being a Master Naturalist; the more you know, the more you want to learn.