Everything Nac

SFA Gardens at Stephen F. Austin State University will host a special lecture on gingers at 1:30 p.m. Monday, July 7, in the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building at the Pineywoods Native Plant Center, 2900 Raguet St. in Nacogdoches. Tom Wood will present “Collecting Gingers for the South China Botanic Garden.”

Wood is well-known throughout the ginger world, and is a leading expert on Hedychiums and many other gingers. He has been breeding and releasing new cultivars of hardy gingers for more than 20 years and has served as curator for the South China Botanic Garden in Guangzhou, China, since 2010. The Ginger Garden there is constructed according to botanical species and their ecological characteristics and functions. He collects, grows and breeds gingers for the garden and has traveled to 28 countries to study, lecture on and collect gingers. Wood was a commercial nurseryman specializing in herbs, bamboos and gingers from 1979 to 2009.

Wood earned his Bachelor of Science in biology from Concordia University of Montreal, Canada, in 1976 and received a Master of Agriculture in plant breeding from the University of Florida in 1986. He earned a Ph.D. in horticulture at Florida in 1998.

Parking is available at the nearby Raguet Elementary School, 2428 Raguet St., and at the Pineywoods Native Plant Center. For more information, call (936) 468-1832 or email grantdamon@sfasu.edu.