Dr. Jon Keeley is a USGS scientist with expertise in many areas of vegetation and ecology including fire ecology, chaparral, and vernal pools. Vernal pools are seasonally wet depressions that fill with water from rain and have water during weather that is beneficial for plant growth. They also have very extreme environmental conditions from very wet to very dry and host an amazing variety of plants and animals. Dr. Keeley will describe the environmental factors that have driven the evolution of these systems and will introduce us to some of the plants that live in these amazing habitats.