Have you checked to see if there is an herb society near you? Herb societies offer gardeners what I call next-level understanding of plants. Aside from parsley, oregano, and thyme, you'll probably be surprised by the sheer number of plants that fall into the herbal category; plants like bronze fennel, red-veined sorrel, lovage, tansy and sweet cicely.   Brevities   #OTD On this day in 1878 the American botanist Forrest Shreve was born. We owe such a debt of gratitude to Shreve. He was THE preeminent botanist of North American deserts during the first half of the Twentieth Century. Shreve worked out of a laboratory in Tucson, Arizona. The lab was ideally situated for Shreve's field research of the western United States and northern Mexico. Shreve relished telling the origin story of his lab: “Of course you are familiar with the story of Andrew Carnegie,” he began, “the immigrant boy who became one of America’s richest steel magnates and who left a fortune “to encourage in the broadest and most liberal manner investigation, research, and discovery, and the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind.” Before he died Carnegie had established an institution which divided its scientific investigations into twelve departments in widely separated parts of the country. The Desert Laboratory became one of the outposts of the Division of Plant Biology. The total Carnegie benefaction totaled about $25,000,000.” In July of 1908, Shreve ascended the Santa Catalina Mountains for the very first time. His party rode on horses to climb the 6,000 feet from Mount Lemmon's desert base to the summit which is 9,100 feet above sea level. During that climb, Shreve noticed what he called, "a continually shifting panorama of vegetation". Shreve's astuteness helped him realize the most amazing aspect of desert mountains; changes in vegetation are compressed into a few thousand feet of elevation - started with desert scrub, then grassland, then oak woodland... and followed by pine-oak woodland and forest, then pink forest, montane fir forest, and finally subalpine forest. Shreve's mastery of the North American Desert allowed him to describe and define, with precision, the four distinct desert regions of the United States. Today, each year, in Shreve's honor, the Forrest Shreve Student Research Award ($1000-2000) is given to support ongoing research of the hot deserts of North America.   #OTD  Today in 1901, the world lost Eva Reed, a botanist, author, and librarian with the Missouri Botanical Gardens . In a tragic accident, Reed had been sketching on the tracks of the Burlington railway, near Louisiana, Missouri, when she was run over and instantly killed by a passenger train. Several years earlier, she had become almost totally deaf as the result of a fever.      #OTD   Today in 1934, Leonard Cockayne passed away. Cockayne was 79 years old and is considered New Zealand's greatest botanist.  Cockayne was born in England and was raised in home that encouraged the exploration and appreciation of the natural world. As a child, Cockayne loved pressing flowers. In addition to Cockayne, both his brother and sister were great gardeners. In 1879, Cockayne left England and made his way to New Zealand. Dominion became his home for the remainder of his life. Ever modest, Cockayne once sent a letter to Kew along with a small parcel of seeds. He attached a little note which said, "I may say I am not a nursery gardener but merely a private individual who spends his whole time in the study of botany." In recognition of his 30 years of tireless work in New Zealand, Cockayne won the Darwin metal. During his career, Dr. K Richter von Goebel and John Paulus Lotsy, two distinguished botanists from the UK, visited him in New Zealand. Those visits where true highlights for Cockayne and they inspired him to continue his work. When he died, Cockayne was buried at the open-air museum he founded, which is serves as lasting memorial.vFrom his