Yale scholar to speak at UF about flowering plants, plant-based ecosystems

February 14, 2012

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A visiting scholar from Yale University is coming to speak at the University of Florida Feb. 24-28. Sir Peter Crane will serve as the 2011-2012 Phi Beta Kappa visiting scholar, and will deliver two lectures, co-sponsored by the department of biology and the Florida Museum of Natural History.

His first lecture, open to the public, will take place at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 27 in the front hall of Powell Hall. “The Early Flowering of Flowering Plants” is free and open to the public. A reception will follow in the Powell Hall Galleria.

A second lecture takes place at 3:30 p.m. Feb. 28 in Room 211 in Bartram Hall. The lecture for the department of biology is titled “The Beginnings of Plants and Plant-Based Ecosystems on Land.” A pre-seminar reception with UF students and Faculty will be held at 3 p.m. in the outside hallway of Bartram Hall.

Crane is the Carl W. Knobloch Jr. Dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale, where he has been since 2009. His work focuses on diversity of plant life, its origin and fossil history, its current status and its conservation and use. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and a member of the German Academy Leopoldina. Crane was elected to the Royal Society in 1998 and knighted in the United Kingdom in 2004.

Phi Beta Kappa was founded in 1776 and is the nation’s oldest and best known society for recognition of academic excellence and scholarly achievement. The purpose of Phi Beta Kappa is to recognize and encourage scholarship, friendship and cultural interests, as well as to support excellence and integrity in the pursuit of the liberal arts and sciences. The Beta Chapter of Florida at UF was granted in 1930, a distinction held at only 280 colleges and universities nationwide.