The Department of Botany’s mission is to discover, maintain, and transmit knowledge concerning basic plant biology and provide leadership in the biological sciences.
Students and researchers have access to leading-edge microscopy facilities, an 8,000 square foot greenhouse complex, a unique APGII-organized garden, and the Wisconsin State Herbarium’s 1,000,000 specimens.
Historic Chamberlin Hall stands to the left; Lathrop Hall to the right. Across the street, construction crews continue working on a new development towering toward the sky. Buses and bicycles seem to ferry across University Avenue by the minute. Quiet, but not forgotten, is the University of Wisconsin-Madison Botanical Garden, a small yet well-traveled green [...]
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has awarded six faculty members Educational Innovation (EI) funds designed to provide them the opportunity to extend their sabbatical plans to further an educational innovation project. Three of the recipients are faculty members in the College of Letters & Science. EI funds are used to supplement the sabbatical program in order to facilitate [...]
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Botany is holding an open house this Saturday, April 6, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. as part of this weekend’s UW-Madison Science Expeditions. Come visit historic Birge Hall for hands-on learning activities and a tour of the Botany Greenhouses. More than 1,000 plant species from across the globe [...]
Five promising young faculty in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Letters & Science have been honored with Romnes Faculty Fellowships. The Romnes awards recognize exceptional faculty members who have earned tenure within the last four years. Selected by a Graduate School committee, winners receive an unrestricted $50,000 award for research, supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). [...]
The annual celebration of Charles Darwin’s birthday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will showcase the evolutionary expressions of sex and reproduction in the natural world. “Some fascinating examples of evolution can be seen in mating behavior,” says Alison Scott, the event organizer, “and people have always been interested in understanding how males and females get [...]
Gravity: It’s the law in these parts. But to reach the stars, humans may have to learn to live outside the law. “Gravity is the most pervasive thing on the planet, and it’s always been there,” says Simon Gilroy, University of Wisconsin-Madison botany professor. “Terrestrial biology has evolved with this constant force in the background, and [...]
In Professor David Baum’s Botany 130: General Botany course, students learn about the basic biology of plants. Baum isn’t afraid to use creative ways to impart that knowledg
Today we remember former University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, president and College of Letters & Science dean Edward Asahel Birge (September 7, 1851 – June 9, 1950). Birge joined the UW-Madison faculty in 1875 as an instructor in natural history. He was also a pioneer educator in the study of limnology. Birge served as acting president [...]
The history and future of electron microscopy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will collide on Sept. 28, with the help of the College of Letters & Science. UW-Madison will host the Hans Ris Symposium on 3D Electron Microscopy at the Microbial Sciences Building’s Ebling Auditorium. The event honors Ris (1914-2004), a former Professor of Zoology [...]
Faculty and students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison will lend their expertise to conservation efforts in central Africa as the first university member of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership.
Soon, the Department of Botany greenhouse will be filled with the stench of rotting flesh. Well, not real flesh. Big Bucky –, a titan arum or “corpse flower” — is due to bloom in late May or early June. This gigantic flower is known for its distinct scent and its rapid blooming process. Once the [...]
Despite being miles away from the redwood forests of California, a UW-Madison graduate student will begin unlocking these tall trees’ secrets. Alison Scott, a graduate student in the Department of Botany, received a grant from the Save the Redwoods League, an organization that aims to protect and restore the redwood forests. “[This grant] will allow me [...]
Professor Edgar Spalding (Botany), a plant physiologist, is featured in a Science Nation video produced by the National Science Foundation. Spalding, an L&S Faculty Fellow, is a principal investigator for the NSF Plant Genome Research Program (IOS/BIO) grant. Science Nation is a science video series commissioned by the NSF Office of Legislative and Public Affairs.
A new species has been named in honor of Botany Professor David Baum. The new species – Iochroma baumii or I. baumii– was described by Stacey D. Smith in Novon: A Journal for Botanical Nomenclature 21(4):491-495. 2011. The blue-flowered “treelet” is native to the cloud forests of Napo in northern Ecuador. Smith is a 2006 graduate of the [...]
One of the world’s newest sunflower species, discovered by a University of Wisconsin–Madison botanist, has carved out a very small but safe niche on an island in Lake Superior.
Outdoor enthusiasts, naturalists and visitors to Wisconsin’s forests have a new tool in their backpacks. It’s not a book or a map. It’s an app. The app — a Key to Woody Plants of Wisconsin Forests– is an easy-to-use reference for identifying woody plants and shrubs using an iPod or iPhone.
There was something rotten at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign last month. In fact, the rotten smell had something to do with Bucky Badger …
Tourists flock to the forests and lakes of northern Wisconsin, happy to vacation in a region that remains primarily forested. But UW-Madison botany researchers know these iconic forests have changed in many substantial and, sometimes surprising ways over the past half century.
Faville Prairie is a 60-acre remnant of the once-extensive 2,500 acre Crawfish Prairie in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. The land is a rare example of historical prairie vegetation with about 150 plant species. Given the diversity of life, the prairie was an ideal location for a Master’s student to test a major ecological theory. The work appeared in the March issue of the journal Restoration Ecology.
For senior artist Kandis Elliot, postermaking is one of the best tasks of the job. Her series of educational posters started 4 years ago, when greenhouse and garden director Mo Fayyaz of the University of Wisconsin (UW), Madison, asked for a fruit poster.
The weather outside has been a bit frightful, but inside the Botany Greenhouse in Birge Hall the weather is delightful! The greenhouses are frequently visited by students and community groups. Recently, a group of students from the Madison Community Jewish Day School visited for a tour and to learn more about plants. Dr. Mo Fayyaz, [...]
[2011poster1] Forget the finches and orchids. UW-Madison’s 2011 Darwin Day celebration is all about you, Homo sapiens. This year’s celebration of Charles Darwin’s Feb. 12 birthday and impact on our understanding of the world will jump from one to three days, expanding its workshop for teachers, adding a film and filling the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery with a hands-on tree of life science activity.
When Professor David Baum teaches General Botany (Botany 130) each semester students have the opportunity to gain extra credit. The students — working singly or in small groups — can earn credit by setting a plant life cycle to music.
In the News: UW-Madison’s beloved ‘beer course’ prof to retire after 40 years at university (Wisconsin State Journal) Featuring the legendary Botany Professor Tim Allen
On campus, it’s called “service learning.” Some local residents would prefer to call it “help with restoration planning.” But a group of graduate and undergraduates students at UW-Madison are calling it a great experience. A dozen students in Botany Professor Joy Zedler’s “Adaptive Restoration Lab” are helping restore an 11-acre site in the Prairie View development in Spring Green, WI …
“Ecology has a place in deer hunting” (Wisconsin State Journal) Featuring Botany Professor Don Waller‘s course “Botany/Zoology 260, Introduction to Ecology.”
Dr. Francisca Reyes and Professor Marisa Otegui in the Department of Botany, in collaboration with colleagues in Pioneer Hi-Bred International, recently published a paper on an innovative method to study cellular dynamics in cereal grains. The method is based on the in vitro culture of dissected seed tissues and their transformation with Agrobacterium cells carrying [...]
The Department of Botany has received a $4.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to research the functions of plant genes in seedlings. The interdisciplinary team, led by Botany Professor Edgar Spalding, will be using computer technology to analyze images of seedling growth and development. There are many tools available to study and characterize genotypes, but [...]
A group of UW-Madison researchers recently published a study of European Bison, finding that the eastern Carpathian Mountains could support future herds of the endangered species.
Researchers in Botany, Horticulture, Statistics and Computer Scienced, led by Assistant Professor Cecile Ane (Statistics and Botany) are collaborating to find out why different genes tell different stories about the past history of species.
The embryo within a seed grows and develops into a seedling through physiological processes studied by Botany Professor Edgar Spalding and members of his laboratory in Birge Hall.
The Botany Department continued its tradition of participating in the Darwin Day festivities February 13, 2010.
UW-Madison Professor Joy Zedler (Botany) and Royal Gardner’s (Stetson University) recent analysis of new guidelines for wetland mitigation…
UW Botany Professor David Baum recently had a good deal to celebrate.
Among the many services that wetlands perform, one of them is feeding hungry fish.
Botany dissertator Shelley Crausbay and her advisor Professor Sara Hotchkiss have discovered that the vegetation of high-elevation cloud forests…
Botany Professor Simon Gilroy has been appointed to the steering committee of the Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Science in Space.
Dr. Ken Cameron, Director of the Wisconsin State Herbarium and Associate Professor of Botany, traveled to China this summer at the invitation of the People’s Government of Guanxi Province.
Theodore S. Cochrane, Senior Academic Curator in the Department of Botany, spent three weeks in Colombia this summer.
Tim Allen, professor of Botany, finished his 2008-2009 term as President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS). Past Presidents include Margaret Mead, Ilya Prigogine and Sir Charles Geoffrey Vickers.
In general, carnivorous plants and the Venus’s Flytrap capture our attention: they reverse conventional ideas about who eats whom.
Professor Joy Zedler, Aldo Leopold Professor of Restoration Ecology, co-chaired the June 21-26 international conference, Wetland Connections, in Madison at Monona Terrace.
Dr. Theodore Cochrane, Senior Academic Curator in the Wisconsin State Herbarium, has received a professional development grant to undertake field research in Colombia later this year.
David Baum, professor and Chair in the Department of Botany, will receive a 2009 Hamel Family Letters & Science Faculty Fellow award.
Don Waller, professor of botany and environmental studies, is co-author of a new study that reveals decades of fragmentation in Wisconsin’s forests have taken a largely unseen toll on the sustainability of these natural ecosystems.
Professor Edgar Spalding has two noteworthy achievements.
Eve Emshwiller, Assistant Professor of Botany, will become President of the Society for Economic Botany (SEB) on June 4, 2009, at the society’s 50th Annual Meeting in Charleston, South Carolina.
Sue Bader, Student Status Examiner in the Department of Botany since December 2001, received the Student Personnel Association (SPA) 2009 Frontline Award.
