Lytton Musselman Sherlock, Symbols, Sacralization: Tree Semiotics
See more from TEDxUTK 2014 » Explore all talks »
Filmed on 22 February 2014 as part of TEDxUTK 2014 Ideas Worth Spreading at the Howard Baker Center for Public Policy in Knoxville, TN.

Lytton Musselman
Lytton John Musselman is, by his own admission, a man who loves plants. "He will stop people on the street to tell them some great news from the plant world," says Garrison Keillor. He earned a Ph.D. in botany from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and was chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he holds the Mary Payne Hogan Chair of Botany and manages the university's Blackwater Ecologic Preserve. His most recent books are Plants of the Chesapeake Bay with David Knepper and The Quick Guide to Edible Plants with Harold Wiggins (both from the Johns Hopkins University Press). He has lived and worked in in several Mediterranean countries studying plants of the Bible and Qur'an. His books on these plants include Figs, Dates, Laurel, and Myrrh (Timber Press) and A Dictionary of Bible Plants (Cambridge University Press). Each year he teaches a course at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani as a Visiting Professor. Exploring the praxis of faith and ecology intrigues him but stretches his modicum of theological knowledge. Closer to home, he is working on books dealing with Adirondack plants and using native species for bitters and cordials.

Learn more:
ODU Biological Sciences Profile »
ODU Home Page »
Google Scholar Profile »