Noontime Notions – Thanksgiving: A Botanist’s Delight

The Noontime Notions series continues on November 19 with Katherine Schlosser presenting “Thanksgiving: A Botanist’s Delight”.  The program will begin at noon in the Rogow Room at the Transylvania County Library. Noontime Notions programs feature authors, performers, and presenters providing engaging notions for consideration, enjoyment, and discovery.   The program is made possible by the Friends of the Library and will last approximately one hour.

Though literature cites 1621 as the first Thanksgiving, it wasn’t until 1789 that George Washington declared the 4^th Thursday of November as the official date for national recognition of the bounty and beauty of this country.  Prior to 1621, Indigenous Peoples of the areas in which Europeans were establishing homes began assisting immigrants with gifts of food and knowledge of the cultivation and use of native seeds for foods.  In the meantime, botanists began exploring the land, collecting and sending useful and interesting plants to associates in their homelands.  Thanksgiving: A Botanist’s Delight takes a brief look at those foods, along with plants, seeds, and recipes brought from afar, that remain a part of our annual tradition.

Katherine Schlosser has a Master of Arts degree from UNCG and has been a resident of Greensboro for more than 50 years.  She has been a member of the Herb Society of America, Inc. for 35 years, chair of the National Herb Garden at the U.S National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. for 10 years, the Board of the NC Native Plant Society for 13 years, the Board of the Friends of Sauratown Mountains for 6 years, and served 12 years on the N.C. Plant Conservation Board.  She published the Essential Guide to Growing and Cooking with Herbs (LSU Press, 2007), wrote monthly articles on nature for the Greensboro News & Record for 16 years, and participated in many conservation projects around North Carolina.  She is currently working on a second book.