Michigan Botanical Society - Great Lakes Chapter
The Great Lakes Chapter serves a diverse group of amateur and professional botanists throughout Michigan and the surrounding states in the Great Lakes region. We have members in Canada, and several States beyond the Great Lakes area. Members typically join GLC to subscribe to our peer-reviewed journal, "The Great Lakes Botanist" a Journal of North American Botany, which is published twice a year. Your membership also includes a subscription to the spring and fall State Newsletter, the "Arisaema" and the annual Great Lakes Chapter Newsletter.
JOIN THE GREAT LAKES CHAPTER — A NEW ONLINE PAYMENT OPTION is now available for annual Membership Dues.
✔ To use the easy online payment option, visiting this link on Cheddar-Up (click here) . A small convenience fee of 3.5% will be added to your payment through the Cheddar-Up platform.
✔ Alternatively, you can print a copy of the Membership Form with mailing instructions. GLC Membership Form.
2025 Summer Events
2025 Michigan Botanical Society Foray
The 2025 Michigan Botanical Society Foray will be held in Escanaba/Gladstone on Monday July 7th through Thursday July 10th at the Terrace Bay Hotel. This will be a week day Foray to help keep lodging costs reasonable during a busy summer travel time. The Foray will begin with the Monday evening speaker and have two days of field trips which will cover natural areas from the Garden Peninsula and to the west and north. The board is still working on a possible trip for those interested on Thursday on the way home. If you plan to stay at Terrace Bay, you can make reservations on their website https://terracebayhotel.com/ and use discount code MBS25. Detail and registration will be released in the Spring Arisaema.
If you are a student and would like to apply for the Robb Student Foray Scholarship Award, please fill out this application: Robb Scholarship Application.
2025 Fall Mini-Foray and State Board Meeting
The Great Lakes Chapter will be hosting the 2025 Fall State Board Meeting and Mini-Foray on September 20th at the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy’s new Conservation Center on 3-Mile Road near East Bay in Traverse City. Expect a Saturday morning board meeting followed by guided hikes at nearby natural areas. There will be opportunities for additional hikes at Sleeping Bear Dunes on Sunday. There are a plethora of hotels and motels on the east side of Traverse City to choose from. If you prefer camping, unfortunately the Traverse City State Park will be closed for construction in September, but you could look into Timber Ridge Resort and Arbutus Lake State Forest Campground. More details to come!
2025 Great Lakes Chapter Field Trips (Updating Soon!)
Check back soon for information on our annual Traverse City-based field trips with the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy and other partners.
Online Events and Projects
Michigan Botanist’ Big Year 2025 Cyber Foray
All Great Lakes Chapter members are invited to join this year's online Cyber Foray events using the iNaturalist online application: Michigan Botanist’s Big Year. Participants can share plant observations and photos taken throughout the State of Michigan by creating an account or logging into iNaturalist and making observations of vascular plants in Michigan. Observations made in Michigan and submitted to iNaturalist automatically become part of the Cyber Foray, but to follow along and receive updates on the project, you will need to JOIN the Michigan Botanist’s Big Year project (here is how). We hope you enjoy this new way to learn and share your botanical findings. If you'd like to explore last year's observations visit: Michigan Botanists’ Big Year 2024. In 2024, there were 110,018 observations of 2,245 plant species in Michigan.
The Michigan Flora Photo Project Invites Your Participation
The Michigan (MICH) Herbarium Photo Project is continuing through 2025! This is your opportunity to contribute your plant photos to the MICH Herbarium online database, Michigan Flora Online. There are over 400 plant species that need updated photos. To participate, join our iNaturalist project and review the list of target species here: inaturalist.org/projects/michigan-flora-photo-project. Once you join the project, any of your observations that match our criteria will be automatically added to the project. Our criteria includes it being a plant on our target list, it has a photo, and is in the Great Lakes region. All MBS members are invited to participate. The attached Excel sheet lists the target species and some of the counties where these plants were last located. The MICH Flora webpage also shows a current distribution map of herbarium records for each species: Visit: Michigan Flora Online. The best photos will be selected by Herbarium staff for inclusion in future flora updates.
Student Foray Award Recipients
Congratulations to Aiden Bobak and Alaina Maniscalco, who were recipients of the 2024 Joan Robb Student Foray Award. Aiden recently completed his senior year at Michigan State University majoring in Dendrology and Zoology with interests in the natural sciences. Alaina is also a graduate of MSU and focused her studies on Plant Ecology/Zoology. Each student received an award covering the full cost of attending the Spring Foray held at Adrian College, Mi in June.
Botanical Events, Societies, and Places of Interest- <click>
As you travel along the Great Lakes, take a look at one of the many botanical and native plant organizations that offer field trips, booklets, maps, workshops and interesting places to visit. If you would like to have your event listed or know of a great place to botanize, please email the Content Manager .
Officers and Directors: A list of all the current officers and directors can be found here, If you are interested in becoming more involved with the GLC activities, please contact any of the Officers or Directors.