Mary Ruden will give us a presentation of her trips to the Fakahatchee swamp. We will have the opportunity to see all the orchids in their natural habitat.

Mary Ruden has a bachelor's degree in fine art and works as a botanical artist. She teaches art at Parrot Jungle and landscape design at Miami Dade South, as well as botanical art at Mounts Botanical Garden. She has been studying native orchids in Florida for two and half years with an emphasis on pollination and mapping out their locations.

Mary is a member of Friends of the Fakahatchee, a nonrofit organization, to benefit conservation of the swamp. She goes to this site regularly to monitor the status of the pollinators and the butterfly count.