Many paintings of dinosaurs look the same. Three elements that reoccur are the central spectacular dinosaur(s), a distant stand of conifers, and a foreground of pounded brown dirt. Did the Mesozoic really look like this? Probably not. Are we the collective victims of an artistic/scientific conspiracy? Certainly not, but several repeated biases have resulted in an iconography of dinosaur landscapes that loves the animal but hates the place. How do you reconstruct an extinct landscape? What covered the ground in a world before grass? Kirk Johnson has worked with painters and sculptors to reconstruct many prehistoric landscapes lor the Denver Museum of Natural History's award-winning Prehistoric Journey exhibit. His present research focuses on the vegetation of the Late Cretaceous in Asia, the Americas, and New Zealand. In this talk he will explore the techniques of combining science and art to create credible and beautiful ancient landscapes.