Summer Camps
Dig in, get dirty, and explore outdoor fun at Camp BRIT! Camp BRIT is the summer experience that takes your child's brain outdoors.
Click here for additional camper information.
Welcome to BRIT
Welcome To BRIT
Plant to planet.®
Ever have a desire to discover? Ever have a desire to teach others what you've learned? We do - every day. By nature, that’s who we are. We’re the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, an international scientific research and learning center focused on conservation and knowledge sharing.
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Botanical Arts and Crafts
The Art of Science. The Science of Art.
Get in touch with your inner artist by taking a class in botanical drawing, painting, or photography or by attending one of our hands-on, nature-inspired craft workshops. You will find options for all interests and skill levels. These classes, taught by accomplished, professional artists, will not only allow you to increase your skills but will also enhance your understanding of the natural world.
Introduction to Oil Painting: Botanical still lifes
Watercolor Technique Bootcamp
Research Lecture Series
Brown Bag Lunchtime Lectures & BRIT Research Seminars
The BRIT Lecture Series encourages community-wide conversation about a diverse range of important and rapidly-developing topics. Scientists and speakers share with the public the most current information about their areas of expertise.
Green Revolution & Orange Sherbet
Pura Vida – Thinking Locally, Connecting Globally
Food, Health, and Wellness
Feed your mind, body, and soul.
Feed your mind, body, and soul and learn something new by attending one of our Food, Health, and Wellness classes at BRIT. Come discover the connections between the botanical and culinary worlds, come learn new ways to achieve and maintain a balanced lifestyle, and best of all, come spend some quality time on our beautiful garden campus located in the heart of the Fort Worth Cultural District!
Homemade Salsa
Chocolate
BRIT® and the Fort Worth Botanical Garden Partner to Strengthen Shared Mission
Starting in March 2018, BRIT and the Fort Worth Botanic Garden will launch new education and volunteer opportunities as part of an innovative public-private partnership between the institutions. The partnership, signed by the Fort Worth City Council and the BRIT board of directors in the fall of 2017, transfers responsibility for the Garden’s education and volunteer programs to BRIT. “There’s potential for enormous synergy between BRIT as a scientific and education organization and the Fort Worth Botanic Garden as a municipal garden,” says BRIT Executive Director Ed Schneider. The organizations, which have shared a campus since 2009, are making use of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model of shared responsibility that has grown in popularity in the U.S. and around the globe. It is bas...
A Day as a Botanical Illustrator
Article written by Isabella Wu, 2018 BRIT Herbarium and Research Intern and student at Emory University. Clear skies heralded a warm afternoon with no cover from the blazing sun. I was on my way to the LBJ Grasslands an hour away from the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (more commonly referred to as “BRIT”) where this whole herbarium adventure began. Kim Taylor, who is a rare plants expert at BRIT, had planned an outing to assess a new species first published two years ago in 2016. Memory’s Rose, latin name Rosa memoryae, sounded so good and beautiful. But there was a real possibility that it might not actually be a new species but rather a variation of the abundant Rosa foliolosa. We intended to find out. More specifically, we were going to collect the plant and record the number an...
What Is This Thing? Bur oak acorn cap
"What is this thing???" We often hear this question from friends and family in relation to natural "treasures" found in the landscape. Sticks, leaves, flowers, fruit, fungi, lichens, moss. You name it, somebody has likely brought it to BRIT for identification at some point (or emailed us a photo). This time we feature the crazy, gargantuan, monster acorn caps from the bur oak tree ( Quercus macrocarpa ). RAWR! Monster caps! Bur oak distribution in Texas. Adapted from digital version of "Atlas of United States Trees" by Elbert L. Little, Jr. U.S. Geological Survey. Bur oak is native to the central and eastern US, including most of the middle swath of Texas, top to bottom. This fast-grower typically likes an open, limestone or chalky clay habitat and is adapted not only to fire and drought b...
Dr. Eula Whitehouse
In our "Hidden Treasures" series, Special Collections Librarian Alyssa B. Young features notable works in the BRIT rare book collection. The work of Dr. Eula Whitehouse spreads tentacles throughout BRIT. Our herbarium contains over 500 specimens she collected, our library houses six of her publications, and the Eula Whitehouse Collection in the BRIT Archives documents her life's work. Much like the names Mahler or Shinners, Whitehouse's name is omnipresent since she's integral to the core of BRIT as an institution. To celebrate Women's History Month , we want to tell the story of this remarkable woman. Eula Whitehouse was born in Cleburne, Texas, on August 1, 1892. She attended University of Texas in Austin, where she received a B.A. in 1918, M.S. in 1931, and a Ph.D. in 1939. Such educati...
A Ferntastic Day with NLU
On Sunday, February 25th, BRIT staff had the pleasure of hosting members of the Southwestern Fern Society, our local chapter of the American Fern Society, for a volunteer day. Six volunteers worked hard to organize and sort ferns and lycophytes from the recently acquired University of Louisiana at Monroe’s (NLU) herbarium collection. Ferns and lycophytes (once referred to as “fern allies”) are two special groups of plants that do not have flowers or seeds but rather reproduce by spores. Happy volunteers and BRIT staff hold "golden tickets" found among the collections. Tickets were exchanged for fun prizes! NLU Collections Assistants Miranda Madrid and Ashley Bordelon and BRIT Research Botanist Dr. Alejandra Vasco led the group on a tour of BRIT’s plant preservation studio, digitization stu...
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