Join us for a talk by Chris Benda this Thursday as part of Southern Illinois University - Carbondale's Zoology Graduate Student Association Seminar Series.

The unglaciated terrain of extreme southern Illinois is home to a variety of plant species not found in the rest of the state, making many of them rare in Illinois.  Yet the resources available to monitor and protect them are more limited.  To alleviate this, the Plants of Concern (POC) program based out of the Chicago Botanic Garden has recently expanded to southern Illinois.  Housed in the Gibson lab at Southern Illinois University, coordinator Chris Benda organizes volunteer citizen scientists to monitor rare plants and report population data to POC, and ultimately, the natural heritage division at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.  Join us as Chris explain the goals of the program, successes from this year, and hopes for the future of the effort during a zoom presentation.

Chris Benda is a botanist and researcher in the School of Biological Sciences and teaches The Flora of Southern Illinois at Southern Illinois University.