Quarryhill’s lecture series in Glen Ellen will reboot this summer with three new speakers

Eight months after the Nuns Fire surrounded Quarryhill Botanical Garden in Glen Ellen – miraculously leaving much of the 25-acre property undamaged – William McNamara announced the return of the Peter Raven Lecture Series for a third year, featuring three naturalists to share their experiences and insights from the education terrace in the main garden.

Redwood forest ecologist Steve Sillett, snow leopard researcher Rodney Jackson, and Harvard University's research scientist emeritus Peter Del Tredici will each discourse on their specialty on Saturday evenings this summer. The lectures are held in a natural amphitheater not far from the visitors center.

Calling the lecture series a 'highlight of our programming at Quarryhill Botanical Garden,' McNamara – the garden's president and executive director – promised 'a dynamic summer speaker series that furthers Quarryhill's ongoing dialogue about issues and solutions related to conservation.'

Last year's final lecture in the Peter H. Raven series at Quarryhill was set to feature historian and author Andrea Wulf discussing the life and contributions of Alexander von Humboldt. That lecture, scheduled for Oct. 13, was cancelled due to the then-ongoing fires in Sonoma County.

The first lecture this summer will be on Saturday, July 28. Steve Sillett will discuss 'Limits to Tree and Forest Productivity of the Five Tallest Species,' focusing on the different adaptive approaches of the world's five tallest tree species – mountain ash or swamp gum eucalyptus (Tasmania), Sitka spruce (Alaska), Douglas fir (American West), and the coast redwood and giant sequoia (California).

Sillett has been a professor at Humboldt State University since 1996. His research has been published in over 50 peer-reviewed scientific articles and highlighted multiple times by the National Geographic Society.

Subsequent lectures come from Rodney Jackson, whose Snow Leopard Conservancy is based in Boyes Hot Springs, speaking on 'Conserving the Rare Ghost Cat of the Himalaya' on Aug. 18; and Peter Del Tredici of Boston, whose 'Urban Nature: Human Nature' will focus on the plants that grow without cultivation in cities, on Sept. 29.

Quarryhill's gates open at 5 p.m. on these Saturdays, and each lecture starts promptly at 5:30 and runs until 6:30. The fee for each speaker is $35 for members, $45 for non-members. There is an additional 10% discount for members if they sign up for the entire three-speaker series. Refreshments will be available for purchase.

For information and all the details about the Quarryhill 2018 Peter H. Raven Lecture Series, visit quarryhillbg.org.