Judith Sumner
Judith Sumner
About Judith Sumner
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Judith Sumner is a botanist who specializes in ethnobotany, flowering plants, plant adaptations, and garden history. She has taught extensively both at the college level and at botanical gardens, including the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and Garden in the Woods.
Judith graduated from Vassar College and completed graduate studies in botany at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She studied at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and at the British Museum (Natural History) and did extensive field work in the Pacific region on the genus Pittosporum. She has published monographic studies in the American Journal of Botany, Pollen et Spores, and Allertonia, as well as monographing two families for Flora Vitiensis Nova.
Her other projects and areas of interest have included field studies in the Great Smoky Mountains, work with AID/Santo Domingo on developing petroleum-rich plants, and a commitment to science education. Judith served as a visiting scientist for several summers in the LEAP (Learning About Plants) program at Harvard for Boston school teachers and has volunteered as a National Public Radio Science Mentor. She has spent summers working with teachers the Museum Institutes for Teaching Science (MITS) program and conducting workshops on science writing.
Judith has been the lecturer-in-residence at the Star Island Natural History Conference, and she has been a guest on the Martha Stewart Living television show, the PBS program "Cultivating Life" with Sean Conway, and various other PBS and educational programs. She recently presented a First Friday lecture at the Boston Museum of Science and was a featured lecturer at the Herb Society (USA) annual meeting. Her column “The Gardener’s Kitchen” (under the pseudonym Laura Craig) appeared in Horticulture magazine for several years. In 2007 Judith was awarded the Gertrude B. Foster Award for Excellence in Herbal Literature by the Herb Society of America. Her book American Household Botany won the American Horticultural Society Book Award in 2005
Judith is a frequent invited lecturer for botanical and horticultural organizations and symposia, including:
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Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University
Native Plant Trust, Garden in the Woods
New York Botanical Garden
Herb Society of America
Plimoth Plantation
Old Sturbridge Village
Berkshire Botanical Garden
Polly Hill Arboretum
Strawbery Banke
Massachusetts Horticultural Society
Mohonk Mountain House and Preserve
Cornell Plantations
Garden Study School, Garden Club Federation
Environmental Studies School, Garden Club Federation
Rhode Island Native Plant Society
Boca Grande Garden Club, Florida
Rockefeller Pocantico Center, Kykuit
Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park
Victorian Society of America
School of Pharmacy, University of Rhode Island
The Fells
Maine Garden Day
Master Gardeners
Museum of Science, Boston
New England Flower Show