Thursday Night Nature: Symbiosis in Flight: The Butterfly-Host Plant Connection with Grace Lenart and Meryl Callaway (August 08, 2024)

Every summer, the Preserve is proud to offer internship opportunities to some up-and-coming industry professionals. Each comes to the Preserve with a unique set of skills and interests. Throughout the summer they experience the full gamut of the Preserve’s offerings and mesh their interest with their learnings. In their installment of Thursday Night Nature, they will explore how butterflies and plants interact throughout their life cycle and why it’s important for the ecological community. Learn how to support this symbiosis through plant selection and placement in your garden between butterfly species and host plants at the Preserve, such as pipevine swallowtail butterflies (Battus philenor) and Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia macrophylla) as well as Baltimore checkerspot butterflies (Euphydryas phaeton) and white turtlehead (Chelone glabra).

Grace Lenart is a consistently soil-laden horticulturist, artist and devotee to all things verdant. Before arriving at the Preserve, she received a B.S. in horticulture with a minor in horticultural therapy from Temple University. She facilitated nature-based wellness groups for students on campus, conducted research on environmental divers of herbaceous distribution across a disturbed forest at the Temple Ambler Field Station and worked as a student gardener at the Ambler Arboretum. Using her background in plant identification, passion for art and interest in advocating for others, Lenart aims to make a meaningful impact on the Preserve that will benefit visitors for years to come.

Meryl Callaway is an environmentalist and avid nature lover from Yardley, PA. Before joining the Preserve, she graduated with a degree in environmentalscience from the University of Vermont, concentrating in conservation biology and biodiversity and minoring in geospatial technologies. Through her research, Callaway worked to quantify the spatial extent of biological hotspots and their relationship with preserved forest areas of VT. At the preserve, she looks forward to furthering her understanding of ecosystem dynamics and becoming more closely involved in the New Hope community.

Program Fee: $15 (Members, enter your code at checkout to receive your 20% discount.)

All lectures will be held virtually using Zoom. They will be recorded and shared with everyone who registers for a short time.