Learning to Draw Ferns and Moss at Huntley Meadows Park

Naturalist Margaret Wohler’s nature sketching classes are always excellent. Margaret’s exuberance, love for the natural world – Huntley Meadows Park in particular – and love of art is contagious. I started with a class on creating a nature journal and then took one on drawing dragonflies. And this time, I showed up to learn about ancient plants, the bryophytes, or mosses and ferns – to add to my nature journaling repertoire. Margaret begins every class with a brief biology lesson on the subject at hand using her own hand-drawn illustrations. In this case, we learned about where ferns and moss fit into the history of the planet; they emerged just before reptiles and flying insects, and predate seed plants, flowering plants, and even dinosaurs. We also learned about the reproductive cycles of the ferns and moss and why they’re unique and have managed to survive some 470 million years. She transitions to a discussion of the tradition of nature drawing, sharing several examples from the Victorian era to the present, as...