New Mexico wildflower. Photo by Terry Fox
PEEC News:
Do you enjoy the large variety of colorful wildflowers that pop up around Los Alamos, but wish you knew more about what you were looking at?
The Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC) will be holding a course beginning on July 30 and running Wednesday evenings for four weeks. in which two local experts, Terry Foxx and Craig Martin, will teach the group how to identify wildflowers.
The course will combine classroom learning with fieldwork, so that participants will come away with the ability to distinguish wildflowers on their own.
Each session is 5:30-7:30 p.m. and the first class is July 30. It will be a classroom session at PEEC, and the remaining three sessions (Aug. 6,13 and 20) will be conducted in the field.
The group will go to different elevations to see plants that grow in different habitats, for example at Camp May, ponderosa pine and piñon-juniper.
Participants should dress for hiking and bring water and other materials. The hikes will be easy and generally very slow, because the group will be talking about various plants and spending time working with keys and text.
The cost for all four sessions, including a materials fee, is $58 for PEEC members and $70 for non-members.
Advance registration is required and only 15 spots are available, so those interested are encouraged to sign up soon by visiting www.pajaritoeec.org, emailing Programs@PajaritoEEC.org or calling 505.662.0460.
Foxx is a plant ecologist, writer and artist. She has taught classes and led hikes for more than 40 years, including teaching Plant Taxonomy at UNM-Los Alamos in the 1970s.
Foxx has worked in conservation ecology at Los Alamos National Laboratory for more than 20 years, and she has spent years studying the impact of fire on the ecosystem.
Along with Dorothy Hoard, Foxx wrote the book entitled Flowers of the Southwestern Woodlands. Now she and ecologist Craig Martin are revising the book and retitling it Flowers of the Jemez Mountains. For more information about Foxx’s books and experience, visit https:////teralenefoxx.com/.
Martin is the author of numerous books on local outdoor recreation and history. Born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Martin fell in love with the mountains of New Mexico at the age of 12, when a fellow Boy Scout shared pictures of his trip to Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron. He has lived in New Mexico since 1987, exploring the state on foot, bike, skis or with a fly rod in hand. Martin currently serves as the open space specialist for Los Alamos County.
