We are proud to have the senior botanist Dr. James Duke as our opening keynote. James A. Duke, PhD received his doctorate at the University of North Carolina in 1961. His lifetime of contributions includes writing more than 400 publications that cover many aspects of botany, over 30 years of employment with the USDA, and research on the systematics of neotropical plants, legumes, and other crop plants, the morphology of seedlings, plant ecology, ethnobotany, and nutrition. His books, professional associations, fieldwork, collaboration, lectures, advisory associations and professional links are too numerous to mention, although the US National Agricultural Library has a video documentary of his life and achievements. He currently maintains a dynamic phytochemical and ethnobotanical online database. Throughout his career, he has promoted conservation of natural resources, brought attention to the threats that face biological diversity, and promoted such innovative solutions as ecotourism, sustainable production of non-timber forest products, medical botany, crop diversification, and teaching field ethnobotany. Dr. Duke will be presenting three lectures on historical aspects of common medicinals. The first two will draw from the Middle East and Latin America, the third from Shakespeare. Join us for this very special event.