Fall 2025 OLLI Digital Catalog 

Walking in the Footsteps of the Botanist Darwin (P206)

P – Life Sciences

Charles Darwin through his theory of evolution proposed that all living things were “netted together” by a common ancestry. Few people appreciate that Darwin was also a preeminent botanist. Darwin’s study of the plant kingdom was his lifelong passion, and botany was the center of each stage of his life. In this course we walk in the footsteps of Darwin in the Galapagos to look at the plants that helped inform his theory of evolution. We look at Ecuador and the Galapagos as one system to begin with and then cover his theory of adaptive evolution, the native and exotic plants and mangroves of Ecuador and the Galapagos.

This offering meets for a total of 5 session(s).

INSTRUCTOR: Tom Evans

TOM EVANS — Emeritus professor of botany and plant pathology at the University of Delaware, serving at the University for 37 years. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in botany at Cal Poly, Pomona and his Ph.D. in botany and plant pathology from Michigan State University in 1985. His research group at the University of Delaware focused on etiology, epidemiology, and control of diseases of lima bean, the cornerstone of the Delaware vegetable production industry. He taught a non-major’s course entitled People and Plants: Feast or Famine (now Plant health and Global Food Security) as well as Introductory Plant Pathology and Plant Virology and led 10 study abroad trips to Ecuador and the Galapagos teaching the flora of the archipelago. Tom led research and service programs in Ecuador, Morocco, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic funded by USAID to support in the sustainable production of various important vegetable crops.

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