Phone: (413) 585-3813
Office: Sabin-Reed Hall 248
Email: jburk@smith.edu

Courses:

Spring

Bio 264 Plant Systematics
Bio 265 Plant Systematics Laboratory

Research Interests:

My research areas include the floristics, biogeography, and ecology of coastal areas and freshwater wetlands, as well as studies in the history of botany, including botanical gardens and botanical illustration. Basic themes I have pursued for a number of years involve changes in vegetation over time and in response to environmental disruptions of various sorts, including oil spills, other forms of pollution, and invasions by exotic species. Much of the work my students and I have done in recent years has been centered in western Massachusetts, where we have examined long term changes in swamp forest vegetation, the structure and composition of freshwater marshes, and succession in lowland forests, including a hemlock stand that has been observed for over forty years. We have also documented the establishment of potentially invasive non-native species and in some cases have been able to assess the degree to which these manage to persist and spread.

Representative Publications:

Garcia Bailo, B., M. R. C. Emison, W. B. Coleman, and C. J. Burk.   (2004).   Thirty-six years of change in an eastern hemlock- white pine stand in western Massachusetts.    Rhodora, in press.

Burk, C. J. and T. Zebryk.  (2001).   Woody Aristolochia species in western Massachusetts.  Rhodora 103: 427-430.

Holland, M. M. and C. J. Burk.  (2000).  Effects of catastrophic flooding on floodplain forest succession.  Verh. Internat. Verein. Limnol. 27: 2435-2439.

Holland, M. M., C. J. Burk and D. McLain.  ( 2000).  Long -term vegetation dynamics of the lower strata of a western Massachusetts oxbow swamp forest.   Rhodora 102: 154-174.

Burk, C. J.  (1995).  Celebrating a Century: The Botanic Garden of Smith College.   Smith College, Northampton, MA.  30 pp.

Burk, C. J. (1994). Evolution of a Flora: Early Connecticut Valley Botanists. Rhodora 96:75-96.

Boland, W. and C. J. Burk (1992). Some effects of acidic growing conditions on three emergent macrophytes: Zizania aquatica, Leersia oryzoides and Peltandra virginica. Environmental Pollution 76:211-217.

Sanders, L.L. and C. J. Burk (1992). A naturally occurring population of putative Arisaema triphylluym subsp. stewardsonii x A dracontium hybrids in Massachusetts. Rhodora 94:340-347.

Holland, M. M, and C. J. Burk (1990). The marsh vegetation of three Connecticut River oxbows: a ten-year comparison. Rhodora 92:166-204.