Matt Ritter is a professor in the Biology Department and director of the Plant Conservatory at California Polytechnic University, San Louis Obispo. “I want to help people know the trees in their city. Not just see them as green blobs,” says this disciple of street tree diversity. Ritter is the author of A Californian’s Guide to the Trees Among Us (Heyday Books, 2011) and The Plants of San Louis Obispo, Their Lives and Stories (Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2008). He is the chair of the City of San Luis Obispo Tree Committee, and editor-in-chief of Madroño, the journal of the California Botanical Society.