The main emphasis of this course is for students to become familiar with the regional vegetation and to gain confidence in their ability to identify unknown plants using technical characteristics. Other important objectives include a general understanding of the various aspects of plant evolution, ecology and patterns of natural vegetation. This virtual format presentation is a hybrid combination of various graphical formats, including photographs, animations to satellite images combined with lecture and online resources and references. The introduction is provided for students to introduce main objectives and course focus and structure. This background is necessary in order to identify plants and understand major groups.
Topics covered include pollination, habitats, land use, endangered species.
The plant species we will study are, for the most part, organized alphabetically within the general cladogram. A brief discussion of cladistics is also included in this category. Students may click on any branch to investigate any particular family or species under study.