AHS Winter 2025 Meeting
Monday, February 24, 2025, at the Atlanta History Center’s Woodruff Auditorium in McElreath Hall, 7pm
Please join us for speaker Scott McMahan's lecture on “Plant Exploration with A Purpose”.
Scott’s lecture will focus on photos and stories from nearly 25 years of plant exploration in Southeast Asia and how that experience now plays an important part in his role as manager of the International Plant Exploration Program at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. In particular, Scott will be discussing the work he and his team are doing with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology with regard to documenting and collecting new plant species and helping to train their researchers on propagation techniques of some of their rarest plants. Scott will also explain the importance of a new collaboration between ABG and the Botanical Survey of India, which is the governmental arm of India's forestry and environmental division. The agreement signed by ABG and India was the first time the Indian government has ever signed a memorandum of understanding with a non-government organization. The agreement will now allow for further exploration of NE India with Indian colleagues, the study and documentation of the vastly underexplored region as well as hosting researchers from India at ABG through a visiting scholar program.
Scott was born and raised in Decatur, Georgia. He has a Bachelor's degree in English from Wofford College (Spartanburg, South Carolina) and an Associate's Degree in Horticulture from Spartanburg Community College. Scott was the propagator for a large wholesale grower for 5 years as well as the nursery manager at the Atlanta Botanical Garden for several years before opening his first nursery.
In 2003, Scott left ABG to open a nursery business in north Georgia called McMahan’s Nursery. In the fall of 2009, Scott helped to opened another retail nursery called Garden*Hood in downtown Atlanta. Between 2009 and 2016, Garden*Hood won multiple local awards including the “Best of the Big A” in the AJC and Creative Loafing’s “Best Garden shop”.
In early 2016, Scott sold much of his ownership in Garden*Hood and closed McMahan’s Nursery in order to accept a full-time position as the Manager of International Plant Exploration at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. With this new position, Scott oversees plant exploration, collection and evaluation at ABG as well as a visiting scholar program created to promote the exchange of knowledge and plants with other botanical institutions around the world. Since 2001, Scott has made more than 40 overseas scouting and collecting trips for ABG to China, Vietnam, India, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Bhutan and Mexico.
Scott lives in Decatur, Georgia with his wife Kristie, and two daughters, Lily (18) and Olivia (13).
Come early to get a good seat and a plant raffle ticket or two!
We look forward to seeing you there!
7:00pm Social Time
7:30pm Meeting Begins
Plant raffle following meeting
Free Parking
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All are welcome!
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