Wednesday June 8, 2016

CHANGED to Cheshire Senior Center

240 Maple Ave, Cheshire, CT 06410

doors open at 6:30pm, meeting starts at 7:30pm

The June meetings speaker will be Dr Matt Opel from UConn.   

Topic is “Flowers of the Fairest Cape.” He will present a sample of the diversity of flowering plants from the Cape region of South Africa, including proteas, pelargoniums, crassulas, lithops and other succulents, bulbs and of course orchids.

Matthew R. Opel PhD

Matthew Opel grew up in Westchester County, NY, where he developed an early love of plants, gardening and the natural world; one of his first words was “pachysandra.”  He became interested in Lithops—the “living stones”—and other desert plants after visits to the New York Botanical Garden, and eventually went on to study biology and botany at Cornell University. Matt received a doctorate from the University of Connecticut after completing studies of the anatomy, morphology and evolution of the genus Conophytum. In the course of his research he spent three winters in western South Africa. Tylecodon opelii, a dwarf succulent plant that he found on the quartz fields of the northern Knersvlakte was named in his honor in 2011.

Matt is currently employed as a horticulturist at the University of Connecticut, at the Biodiversity Education and Research Greenhouses. He has written about South African desert plants for the Cactus and Succulent Journal, Haseltonia, Bradleya, Veld & Flora and the Mesemb Study Group Bulletin, and given lectures on botanical topics to plant societies throughout the Northeast and in California.

Matt enjoys gardening, exploring the local woods and bogs, and beekeeping. Lately, he has taken an interest in the history of early glass works in Connecticut’s Quiet Corner. He occasionally posts musings about plants and horticulture on his blog, Burger’s Onion.