Time: 7.30pm - 9pm
Venue: Auditorium
Prices: Museum Members, full-time students and unwaged $15 |  Non-Members $21. Series passes available.

To book phone the Centre for Continuing Education on 0800 864 266 or visit www.cce.auckland.ac.nz.  The exhibition will be open for 90 minutes prior to each lecture and an additional entry fee of $6 will apply.

9 September: The Rangihoua Rose
When historian Ruth Ross took briar cuttings from an abandoned mission site at Rangihoua and planted them in her garden, she preserved the oldest known rose in New Zealand. Poet Michele Leggott traces the story of the Rangihoua rose through archives and gardens, taking in parrots, prophets, a line of grandmothers and an elephant skull along the way.

16 September: Plant Reproduction
Reproduction in flowering plants is complex and versatile, involving a wide range of strategies from catching pollen, to fooling bees to 'mate' with them. Plant reproduction has also been hijacked by humans for the production of new varieties of food crops and ornamental plants. Brian Murray explores the importance of birds and bees and the role of humans in plant reproduction.

23 September: Art Nouveau and Nature 
Don Bassett discusses how Art Nouveau's 'newness' lay in the way it expressed itself through nature. Where 19th century architecture and design had recycled history, Art Nouveau looked to plants and animals for its characteristic decoration. Sometimes naturalistic, more often abstracted, Art Nouveau decoration was a product of the Symbolist movement.