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Understory Underdogs: Shrubs Are Cool, Too with Chris Martine
February 18 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Join Chris Martine who will share his immense understanding of the trees, shrubs and vines of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic, with a keen focus on shrubs. Martine has written two field guides featuring illustrations by his wife, Rachel Figley-Martin, both published by the NJ Forest Service, Trees of New Jersey and Mid-Atlantic States is now in its 7th edition, and Shrubs and Vines of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic States. The 3rd edition was just published in December 2025.
When they started on the Tree of New Jersey & the Mid-atlantic back in the 1990’s the Martines’ apartment was “shrub central” – with Chris out in the field collecting specimens during the day and Rachel drawing what he brought back after she got home from her day job.
Recognizing there was limited information on shrubs and vines of NJ and the Mid-Atlantic he was asked to create a similar field guide for those plants. The first edition of “Shrubs and Vines of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic States” was published out of New Jersey’s Forest Resource Education Center (FREC) in 2022. When the second edition ran out, Martine was asked to update the guide for a third edition.
He spent a few months updating nomenclature, fielding suggestions from other field botanists, and rewriting text. After several rounds of review by staff at the Forest Service, the new edition was printed in December. It’s a tribute to the couple’s partnership — and to the individuals who not only inspired the project when it began more than two decades ago, but first taught Chris some of the natural history that appears in the guide.