As one of the Pine Barrens's leading historians and botanists, Ted Gordon has created quite a remarkable reputation for himself. He was inspired early in life by historian Dr. Henry Bisby and by the books of Arthur Pierce and Henry Charlton Beck. In the 1950s, Gordon began to travel through the Pinelands exploring its famous ghost towns. He took thousands of photographs documenting these historic locations. Gordon has worked to increase awareness about South Jersey's forgotten towns. He estimates that within the past thirty years, eighty percent of the buildings that he photographed have disappeared.
Gordon graduated from Rutgers University and has served as President of the Philadelphia Botanical Society (1988-2000). He works in the area as a research specialist in rare and endangered plant species and has made significant contributions to major plant studies of endangered species in the Pinelands. Since 1990, Gordon has been an instructor in the Rutgers University Short Course where he teaches wetland plant species identification to professional consultants. After chairing the Forestry Advisory Committee of the Pinelands Commission for ten years, Gordon served as NJ Pinelands Commissioner from 1999 to 2002. He has also worked for Herpetological Associates as a senior staff botanist since 1994.
Herpetological Associates has offices in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida. HA provides consulting services to businesses, industries, utility companies, governmental agencies, nonrprofit conservation groups, and citizens' groups. Services include habitat evaluations, plant and wildlife inventories, and environmental impact statements. The staff has particular expertise in endanger and threatened wildlife. As senior staff botanist, Gordon conducts rare species surveys, monitors habitats, and designs management plans for conservation. He also has experience testifying as a botanical expert in court and at administrative hearings.
Gordon also leads meetings and expeditions for the Philadelphia Botanical Club. Past events he has led include the following:
The New Jersey Pine Barrens: A Biosphere Preserve
Field Trips: All-day field trips by vans to such communities as Atlantic white cedar swamps, wet savannahs, quaking bogs, spungs, upland forests, cranberry bogs, and globally rare Pygmy Pine Plains. Focus, in part, will be on members of the Ericaceae, fire ecology, and early flowering orchids.
Evening Programs: Evening programs of botanical, ecological, and geological interest.
Burden Hill Forest, Salem County, NJ
In quest of the elusive pine barrens outlier. To date, we have only explored limited, scattered segments within the northern portion of this nearly 14,000 acre forested tract on the Outer Coastal Plain. We will visit an impressive mature remnant of American Beech Forest. We will then focus on the southern half of the forest west of Jericho and Stow Creek.
Stafford Forge Wildlife Management Area, Warren Grove Vicinity, Ocean and Burlington Counties, NJ
Most known Knieskern's Beaked Rush populations occupy sites of anthropogenic disturbance. We will see natural occurences of this globally rare sedge in kettle hole spungs. We will also visit a controversial Pinelands Commission-approved transplant operation of Rhynchospora knieskernii and Spiranthes tuberso.
Contact the Philadelphia Botanical Club for information about upcoming events and tours as well as information on how to register for a specific expedition.