Newsletter of the Arkansas Native Plant Society Vol. 27 No. 1 Spring/Summer 2007 In this issue: New President’s Message Page 3 Field Trip Reports Page 4 Carl Hunter Memorial Challenge Page 6 Ouachita Bluestar Page 7 Composites Workshop Page 8 New Members Page 9 Spring Meeting Info Page 10 Events, Field Trips, & Announcements Page 13 Regional Botanical News Page 14 Listera: In the Eye of the Beholder By Carl Slaughter Eleven years ago the Native Plant Society had a meeting at Carl Amason’s home in Calion. It was the first outing for my bride. I had just spotted an orchid, and positioning myself flat on the ground, I had set my camera up to take its picture. The following conversation then occurred. Jannene: “Carl what are you doing on the ground? Are you ill?” Carl: “No dear, I’m about to take a picture of the southern twayblade orchid (. Listera australis ). Isn’t it a beauty?” Jannene: “What are you talking about? I don’t see any orchid. All I see is an old twig in the ground.” Carl: “That old twig is my beautiful orchid.” Jannene: “Well — what they say must be true. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Listera australis, the southern twayblade, is not the most photogenic native orchid that we have, but it compliments well its seven cousins that make up the genus Listera found in North America. Arkansas has only that one species. The Listeras are called twayblades because they have two (tway) leaves that are found opposite each other approximately half way up the stem. The southern twayblade is found in the South from Florida to Texas and extends up the East Coast to Quebec, Canada. Blooming in March and April, it is up to 8 inches tall and has 25 purplish flowers with deeply forked lip petals. Listera auriculata (auricled twayblade) is found in the Northeast from Newfoundland to Michigan in June and July. It has up to 20 very small translucent green flowers that have oblong lips with clefts at their tips. It has incurving auricles at the base of its lip that curve around the column, which is the diagnostic character for the species. The southern twayblade orchid ( Listera australis ). Photo by Carl Slaughter. Listera borealis (northern twayblade) is found in Alaska, northern Canada, and down to the Rockies of Colorado in June and July. Its 8 inch raceme contains up to 20 small green flowers with translucent oblong lips that have a moderate cleft at their lips. Basal auricles diverge away from their columns, which distinguishes this species from L. auriculata. Listera caurina (northwest twayblade) is found in the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, Alberta, Wyoming, and northwest California. It blooms in June and July. There are up to 25 small green flowers that have a rounded lip with two green stripes that extend the length of the lip to end as black spots at the base of the lip. It stands 12 inches high. Listera convallarioides (broadlip twayblade) is found in southern Canada, Alaska, and the northern United States. It blooms from June to August. Its 14 inch raceme has 20 loosely arranged small translucent green flowers with lips that are narrow at their base and wider at their tips. The shape of the lip is a good identifying character. Listera cordata (heartleaf twayblade) is found from Newfoundland to Alaska, California, New Mexico, and in the Appalachians. It blooms in June and July and grows to 10 inches with up to 25 tiny green to purple flowers with deeply forked lips. Its heart-shaped leaves are a diagnostic character. Listera ovata (common twayblade) is found only in Ontario, Canada. It is the tallest of the Listeras at 24 inches. It has over 50 greenish yellow flowers with deeply cleft lips which are linear at the base and dilated at the tip. It is the most robust of the Listeras. Listera smallii (Small’s twayblade) is found from New Jersey to Northern Georgia and in the Appalachians. It grows to 10 inches and has up to 15 brownish green flowers with brown lips that fork into spreading rounded lobes. The Listeras may not be, to the majority of us, the most attractive orchids in the world, but there will always be someone that will think they are beautiful. The same is true for us humans. No matter what our appearance there will always be someone who will think that we are beautiful and tell us that they love us. In the early 1960s I delivered a baby with Crouzon’s Disease (cranio-facial dysostosis). In Crouzon’s Disease there is a facial and cranial distortion which produces an appearance which makes the heart weep. As the mother and infant left the delivery room the grandmother, with smiling agreement of the mother, said, “Ohhh — what a beautiful baby”. Yes, in orchids as in humans, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that is the way it should be. L. auriculata L. australis L. borealis L. caurina Fig. 1. The lips of the Listeras Some other twayblades not found in Arkansas — A. Northern Twayblade ( Listera borealis ) B. Northwestern Twayblade ( Listera caurina) C. Broadlip Twayblade ( Listera convallarioides ) D. Heartleaf Twayblade (Listera cordata) E. Common Twayblade ( Listera ovata) F. Small’s Twayblade (Listera smallii). The southern twayblade orchid (Listera australis). All photos by Carl Slaughter. 2 President’s Message What an awesome Fall Meeting we had in Russellville! ! A wonderful setting, great weather, good turn-out, excellent hikes, and an incredible auction! What more could we ask for?! ! Thanks to all who attended. It was wonderful to see you all there. My most heartfelt thanks to everyone who assisted with the meeting. I especially want to thank the following people. Thanks to Mike and Peggy Burns for working the registration table. Thanks to Eric Sundell and Mary Ann King for their service as auctioneers. . .you two do a wonderful job! And while I’m on the subject of the auction, we raised over $3,000 for the Aileen McWilliam Scholarship Fund, shattering the previous record! ! ! I want to thank everyone who donated to the auction, as well as everyone who opened their pocketbooks so generously! ! We definitely have a challenge for this coming Fall’s auction to match or surpass that, now don’t we?! ! Thanks to Gary Tucker, Mary Ann King, and Theo Witsell for leading hikes and to Larry Price for inviting us to tour his property. Thanks to Ron Doran and Bill Shepherd for taking on acting secretarial duties at the Executive Board and General Business meetings, respectively. Thanks to the Lake Dardanelle State Park Visitor Center staff for their assistance and for providing such a lovely meeting place. I also want to thank Jerry McGary for taking on Treasurer’s duties a little early. For those who might not have heard, our Treasurer and dear friend, Barbara Little-Schoenike, passed away the week of the Fall Meeting. She was an outspoken native plant enthusiast and conservation advocate and will be sorely missed. The Executive Board is currently researching a memorial in Barbara’s name on behalf of ANPS. I would like to take a moment to speak with you about the Saturday evening portions of the Spring and Fall General Meetings. I do understand that because of travel distances, lodging expenses, etc., some of you choose not to stay for the Saturday evening meetings. I am sympathetic to this, but urge you to attend if at all possible. We usually have wonderful programs planned for that evening, but most importantly this is when we hold our business meeting. Although the Executive Board works hard throughout the year, it needs input from the membership. This is your Society and it is important that you take an active part. The general business meeting is a time for you to learn of what the Executive Board has been doing, to make recommendations and suggestions, to vote on important issues, etc. Please keep this in mind for future meetings. Speaking of the Executive Board, we just met on Saturday, January 13 th , 2007 at the Winthrop Rockefeller Center on Petit Jean Mountain. We had a wonderful and productive four hour meeting. I want to thank the Board members and to impress upon the membership how hard the Board members are working for ANPS. I also want thank ANPS member Sandy Davies, on behalf of the entire Board, for providing a most magnificent lunch for us! Several bits of information from the Executive Board meeting to share with you: The Directory will be mailed in early March this year. In future years it will be mailed in early summer. Maury Baker, our membership chairman, is establishing a system of sending out renewal notices each year. We’ve had many requests for this and hope that this is helpful to members. Memberships that lapse for more than a year will be deleted, so please respond promptly to these notices. There is one recommended change to the Bylaws that will be brought to a membership vote at the Spring Meeting. Please see the proposed change elsewhere in this issue of the Claytonia. The Arkansas Earth Day Foundation will be holding an event in Little Rock on Saturday, April 21 st of this year. This is the organization formally known as Conway Earth Day, at which I organized an ANPS booth in 2005. It has now grown into a statewide organization and the event moved to Little Rock. If any of you would be willing to organize and/or work a booth at this event, please contact me. It would be a good way to advertise ANPS and its goals. Well, I suppose this is all for now. I hope to see you all in Greenbrier at the Spring General Meeting, which looks to be an exciting one! Brent Baker ANPS President Eric Sundell auctions off a hardy native plant at the Fall 2006 Arkansas Native Plant Society Meeting as Mary Ann King looks on. The auction is held once a year at the fall meeting. The 2006 auction set a new record, bringing in more than $3,000 to the Aileen McWilliam Scholarship Fund. The ANPS depends on the generosity of its members each fall to make bids at the auction so we can further our mission. We thank those of you who came and participated so generously in the auction and hope to see more of you at the Fall 2007 Meeting! 3 FIELD TRIP REPORTS Field Trip to Bona Dea Trails below Lake Dardanelle Fall 2006 ANPS Meeting By Eric Sundell On Saturday morning, Dr. Gary Tucker led a large ANPS group on the Bona Dea Trails below the levee of Lake Dardanelle in Russellville. The trip reminded me of the many times Carl Amason used to say that plants don’t have to be uncommon to be interesting or beautiful. We botanized along a paved footpath through a wooded municipal park, with joggers and bikers coming and going, an area rich in woody plants, with the bonus that our pretty large herd of plant lovers couldn’t do much collateral trampling damage. The path led us through pine-oak- hickory woods and hardwood bottoms, around the shore of a large pond with rock ledges to one side and buttonbush on the other. The botanizing was grand. The main attraction was the hardwood trees reaching their peak of fall color-preparations for winter were in full swing ! The sweetgums were gorgeous, and occasional blackgums lit up the woods. The hickories were turning solid yellow: four of Arkansas’ ten species were common here-bitternut (with buds yellow), mockernut (with 7-9 leaflets and the leaf rachis fuzzy), shagbark (with 5 leaflets and smooth rachis and of course the terrific bark on the larger trees), and black hickory (small buds, delicate twigs). And folks got pretty good at telling them apart. (Fortunately, pignut didn’t show up to aggravate the taxonomists.) The large elms in the bottoms turned out to be American elm, with no slippery elm to be found. Sapling American elms will try to elude correct identification by having a rough upper leaf surface like slippery elm. But we chewed elm twigs along the trail, hoping to taste the rush of medicinal slime from the inner bark that’s diagnostic of slippery elm, and never got it. Oaks on the walk were abundant and diverse. Cherrybark and Shumard oak were especially splendid, and Shumard was having a bountiful mast year, releasing countless large acorns. White oak and post oak were common on the higher sites. And chinkapin oak coming down toward the pond bore large, broad leaves more like those of swamp chestnut oak (or cow oak), but the leaf undersurfaces were smooth to the touch, not hairy, a reliable character for the upland chinkapin oak. The taxonomy lesson: to identify the oaks, look high up at the canopy leaves (they’ll be on the ground in the fall) and never trust a sapling. The formidable honey locust was there, with its spectacular branching thorns and twisted, long black pods. (Sunday morning at Mary Ann King’s, Bill Shepherd found locust pods with the honey inside still moist and sweet!) In the understory, all kinds of trees, shrubs and woody vines added seasoning (!) to the woods: Mexican plum, serviceberry, winged sumac in color, rusty black haw with purple velvet terminal buds, French- mulberry (or beautyberry) with uniquely redbud-colored berries, Fig. 1. Tired of being called names by the taxonomists, a woman-eating cherrybark oaks tries to swallow Susan Hooks, chief botanist for the Ouachita National Forest. Photo by Susie Teague. rough leaf as well as common dogwood (white drupes vs. bright red), hornbeam (or musclewood) with fruiting clusters, cross vine and trumpet vine (catalpa’s climbing cousins with pods flat and plump, respectively), climbing dogbane (Gary pointed out the intriguing twin follicles), greenbrier with lovely umbels of bluish fruit (Glen Melcher gave us his father’s recipe for “stretchberry” and sweetgum chewing gum but added that he lost three fillings the first time he tried it and never tried it again), and a bit of Carolina moonseed with stunning bright red drupes. Among the woody plants, the highlight was a thicket of yellowing soapberry trees sprinkled with a few Kentucky coffee trees and paw paws. As John Muir might have said it, a couple of Callery pears and a thousand Chinese privets never for a moment deterred us from pursuing our glorious walk. Woodland wildflowers and other herbaceous plants are more restrained in the fall than spring, but there were many waiting to be noticed. A single stem of figwort, Scrophularia, the type 4 FIELD TRIP REPORTS genus of the large and splendid Scrophulariaceae ( sensu lato!) or Figwort family, was still in bloom (and in fruit) beside the path, with its bilateral, reddish brown flowers, said to be adapted specially for pollination by wasps. Next to it grew a single plant of white snakeroot in flower, Eupatorium rugosum (a.k.a. Ageratina altissima), the pure white woodland thoroughwort that is the source of the toxic alcohol, tremetol, and the often fatal disease, milksickness. Especially in the first half of 19 th century, as settlers inhabited the states west of the Appalachian Mountains, cows grazing in open woods found snakeroot in abundance and passed the poisonous tremetol in their milk to people. John Kingsbury in Poisonous Plants of the United States and Canada recounts that in certain areas the milksickness caused “loss of human life second to no other disease.” Two of our most intriguing perennials were out, crane’s fly orchid and winter grape fern, in parallel keeping to their eccentric, backward schedules like aliens from Down Under. Common as the plants are in hardwoods throughout the state, most flower people are familiar with their calendar: wake up in August or September, work all winter, go back to sleep in late spring. Cool! And there were aquatics: probably an acre or more of the huge leaves and reflexed fruiting receptacles of yellow lotus; among the lotus, the small, slimy, floating leaves of water shield- according to Susan Hooks, who completed her M.S. at then NLU in Monroe, LA, Dale Thomas, who never pulled any punches with common names, knew the plants as snotweed; lawns of emergent parrot’s feather, the delicately beautiful, invasive water-milfoil; floating mats of yellow bladderwort in bloom ( Utricularia gibba ), probably Arkansas’ most common carnivorous plant. And in the quietest areas, the floaters: mosquito fern ( Azolla , turning the water surface purple), duckweed and about the teenounchiest “flowering” plant of all, water meal. Susan helped us separate the latter two Lemnaceae genera, Lemna and Wolffia. Crossing one of the bridges, we had a close look at bright orange dodder, a parasitic flowering plant without chlorophyll, twining around the stems of one of the smartweeds. Which reminds me... I dragged my feet so slowly that a group of us got left behind. And this is why Carolyn Minson, Susie Teague, Mike Burns, John Simpson, and I were the only ANPS members that morning to witness Susan Hooks getting swallowed by a cherrybark oak tree. Carnivory in flowering plants is rare, and incidents of heterotrophic angiosperm behavior are rarely documented. Nevertheless, Susie Teague, like a seasoned FOX reporter, ignored the cries of help from the Federal Government and captured the moment on digital camera (Fig.l). Susan had to save herself. Mt. Nebo Hike - Fall 2006 Meeting By Brent Baker On Saturday morning (October 21), about 16 people, including Gina Root, park interpreter, joined me for a hike on Mt. Nebo, west of Dardanelle. Mt. Nebo, rising about 1,760 feet above sea level, was the site of thriving resort and settlement in the late 1800s. It was deemed a state park in 1927. One of the scattered high peaks in the Arkansas River Valley, along with Mt. Magazine, Spring Mountain, and Petit Jean Mountain, Mt. Nebo offers a diversity of habitats and flora. After a winding, yet beautiful drive up the mountain, we parked at the overlook shelter on the bench on the northeast side of the mountain, and then set off on a four mile hike along the Bench Trail. We hiked northward into the rich, mesic (moist) north- slope forest, encountering white snakeroot ( Ageratina altissima var. altissima ), aster ( Symphyotrichum anomalum ), groves of pawpaws ( Asimina triloba ), and elderberry ( Sambucus nigra subsp. canadensis) loaded with black fruit. On the north side of the mountain, we hiked by Nebo Springs, one of many springs scattered around the mountain. In the late 1800s, many of the springs had gazebos built over them for cool summer retreats. Here we observed dittany ( Cunila origanoides) still in bloom, fall Ouachita Mountain Goldenrod (Solidago ouachitensis ) on Mount Nebo near Dardanelle. Photo by Brent Baker. 5 FIELD TRIP REPORTS CARL HUNTER MEMORIAL CHALLENGE witch-hazel ( Hamamelis virginiana ) with a few pale yellow blooms, Christmas fern ( Polystichum acrostichoides ), wild hydrangea ( Hydrangea arborescens) in fruit, marginal wood fern ( Dryopteris marginalis), and spotted jewel weed (Imaptiens capensis) with its orange and yellow spotted flowers. Also in the vicinity of Nebo Springs, we saw Ouachita goldenrod ( Solidago ouachitensis), a plant only known from the Ouachita Mountains and Mt. Nebo and which is tracked by the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission as a plant of conservation concern within the state. Continuing along the bench, we observed blackhaw ( Viburnum rufidulum ) with its glossy dark green leaves and dark blue fruits, bladdemut ( Staphylea trifolia ) with its tan paper-balloon fruits, and southern beech fern ( Phegopteris hexagonoptera ). As we made our way around to the west side of the mountain, we noticed the change in vegetation from the mesic-hardwood forest to a drier forest with shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata ) becoming a major component. We saw stands of the thorny devil’s walking stick ( Aralia spinosa ) loaded with its tiny black fruits as well as beautyberry ( Callicarpa americana) covered with clusters of purple fruit. In addition to the multitude of native plants on the mountain, I pointed out several introduced and invasive species, including autumn olive ( Elaeagnus umbellata ) scattered in the woods, Japanese stiltgrass ( Microstegium vimineum ) in a dense mass in a disturbed drainage area, and a five feet tall sapling of empress tree ( Paulownia tomentosa ). At another spring we saw royal fern (Osmunda regalis var. spectabilis). We then came to Fern Lake on the west side of the mountain. Fern Lake is fed by several springs and was constructed as a cool summer retreat and also to provide ice for Dardanelle. Here we observed rushes ( Juncus spp.), bulrush ( Scirpus sp.), cattail ( Typha sp.), and marsh St. Johnswort C Triadenum walteri). Just uphill from Fern Lake, we also saw hazelnut ( Corylus americana ) shrubs. After a snack break, we continued toward the south side of the mountain. We observed stump sprouts of Ozark chinquapin ( Castanea pumila var. ozarkensis). This and the other subspecies of chinquapin ( Castanea pumila var. pumila ) in Arkansas were decimated by the chestnut blight. Today it is rare to see anything more than stump sprouts, which rarely reach maturity before dying back. The Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission tracks populations of fruiting trees of Ozark chinquapin. A couple of years ago, I observed one fruiting at the edge of the Bench Trail. Continuing on, we saw farkleberry ( Vaccinium arboreum ), rough- leaved dogwood ( Cornus drummondii), bracken fern ( Pteridium aquilinum ), and fragrant goldenrod {Solidago odora ). Several of us delighted in smelling the crushed fragrant goldenrod leaves which smell like licorice. There were also a few fall colors to be enjoyed. The hickories {Carya spp.) were changing to bright shades of yellow and the black gums (Nyssa sylvatica ) to bright reds. After finishing the Bench Trail, some of us drove up to Sunrise Point at the top of the mountain and enjoyed a lovely view across the Arkansas River Valley. Here, the sandstone cap of the mountain outcrops, as it does all around the edge of the top. Masses of fragrant aster {Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) were growing in this area. After a short stop at the Visitor Center, we dismissed, as some had afternoon hikes to get to. As many of you are aware, we have been working on a memorial to the late Carl Hunter. Our ultimate goal is to donate a copy of each of his Wildflowers of Arkansas and Trees, Shrubs, and Vines of Arkansas books to all the public libraries (about 240) throughout the state, with nameplates in each of them stating donation by ANPS in memory of Carl. The hope is that this would make his books more accessible to the public. Even libraries that already have copies would receive new ones. In many cases, these books are only available in reference sections and are not available to be checked out. With copies available to be checked out, people could use the books in the field as they were intended. Last year when we approached them, The University of Arkansas Press had agreed to give us a very generous (40%) discount on the books, and the Arkansas Library Association agreed to distribute the books. Given the total expense of the project (approximately $10,000), the Executive Board agreed that it would be better to execute this project in two phases, donating the Wildflowers book to all public libraries first, and then, as the funds become available, donate the Trees book. Based on last year’s quotes from The University of Arkansas Press, the total cost of purchasing the Wildflowers book is around $5,500. This project is not possible with our current operating balance. Therefore, we are again seeking donations to the Carl Hunter Memorial Fund to help us reach this first phase goal. To this end, Maury and Barbara Baker have issued a challenge to all members. They will match donations 2 to 1, up to $1,000. In other words, for every $20 donated by other members, Maury and Barbara will match it with $10. The deadline for this matching offer is October 31, 2007. Please send your donations, payable to the Arkansas Native Plant Society, to the Treasurer, Jerry McGary. Be sure to specify that the money is for the Carl Hunter Memorial Fund. Thank you in advance for your generosity, and many thanks to Maury and Barbara. Green violet (Hybanthus concolor ) occurs in rich, shaded woods and slopes in Arkansas. At first glance, it seems unlikely that this species could be in the violet family, but a close look at the tiny flowers or seed capsules makes a pretty good case for its placement there. 6 PLANT OF THE ISSUE: OUACHITA BLUESTAR Our plant of the issue is Ouachita bluestar {Amsonia hubrichtii ), another species known only from the Ouachita Mountains of west-central Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. A member of the dogbane family (Apocynaceae), A. hubrichtii is the larger of the two narrow-leaved bluestars in the state. Like all of our species in the genus, A. hubrichtii has multiple stems arising in a ring from a single woody rootstock. It can grow very large, with a single mature plant as much as 4 feet wide and 3 feet tall. Like several of the endemic plants of the Ouachitas, it is tracked by the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission as a species of conservation concern. The species was described in a 1942 issue of the journal Rhodora by Robert E. Woodson of the Missouri Botanical Garden. He named the species in honor of his friend Leslie Hubricht who brought the plant to his attention and insisted that it was different from the more widespread threadleaf bluestar (A. ciliata ). Woodson was skeptical and insisted on waiting until some plants Hubricht had sent him bloomed at the garden before admitting it was something new. He eventually became convinced, however, and wrote in Rhodora that “these plants have now bloomed and a comparison with the plants from the bald knobs [A. ciliata ] . . . completely vindicates their separation”. Ouachita bluestar is typically found along rocky streambanks and on seasonally flooded cobble bars within the stream channel of fast moving streams in the Ouachitas. It also occurs at a few sites along seasonal drainages in shale barrens or glades. A hit in the nursery trade, Ouachita bluestar is known for its spectacular fall color - a brilliant yellowish- gold, and is a sought after plant in gardens. As you might guess from its habitat on the cobble bars of mountain streams, this species does well if given a little water but can tolerate periods of drought. Aside from Ouachita bluestar there are three other species of bluestar known from Arkansas. Shining bluestar ( Amsonia illustris) grows on gravel bars in the Ozark region of the state. Common bluestar {Amsonia tabernaemontana ) grows in a variety of habitats from open woods to stream banks to prairies and occurs nearly statewide. Both of these species have much Distribution of Ouachita bluestar in Arkansas. Shaded counties indicate historical specimen records that could not be precisely mapped. Map courtesy of the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission. wider leaves that Ouachita bluestar. Threadleaf bluestar {Amsonia ciliata ) also has narrow leaves, but grows in glades and similar dry, open habitat in the Ozarks and Ouachitas, as well as in igneous glades in the Coastal Plain in central Arkansas. It is typically much smaller than Ouachita bluestar and has dull upper surfaces on the leaves (vs. shiny in Ouachita bluestar). All the Arkansas species bloom in April. Typical habit ( and habitat) for Ouachita bluestar. Middle Fork Barrens Natural Area. Saline County. Photo by John Felton. Ouachita bluestar ( Amsonia hubrichtii). A species endemic to the Ouachita Mountains. Photo by John Pelton. 7 The Arkansas Native Plant Society, in cooperation with the University of Central Arkansas, presents an Asteraceae (Composites) Workshop Saturday, August 1 8, 2007 Lewis Science Center, Room 027 University of Central Arkansas Conway, Arkansas Instructor: Richard Noyes, Ph.D. - University of Central Arkansas The Arkansas Native Plant Society, in cooperation with the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), is sponsoring a one-day workshop on the plant family Asteraceae on Saturday, August 18, 2007. The workshop will be held in room 027 of Lewis Science Center on the UCA campus in Conway. The workshop will be taught by Dr. Richard Noyes, an Assistant Professor at UCA. Dr. Noyes is an evolutionary biologist whose research focuses on the biology and evolution of reproduction within the daisy fleabane group of plants (the genus Erigeron, in the Asteraceae family). Dr. Noyes holds B.A. and M.S. degrees in botany, as well as a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. He has worked in the herbarium at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis (where he was curator of the Asteraceae specimens) as well as taught at Washington State University, Indiana University, and the University of Colorado, before moving to Arkansas and UCA in 2006. He also has numerous publication credits to his name. The workshop will cover the Asteraceae family, also known as the Composite family because of the unique “flowers” which are actually groups (composites) of many smaller flowers. This is a highly diverse plant family and is the largest in Arkansas. Members include the asters, coneflowers, dandelions, goldenrods, ironweeds, sunflowers, and even those pesky, hayfever-causing ragweeds. The workshop will be taught at an introductory level and will follow a lecture and lab format. Dr. Noyes will cover the evolutionary development of the floral structures and terminology used for describing composites. He will then cover the major groups or “tribes” of composites and what sets each apart from the others. Fresh specimens of representative species from each tribe will be examined in a lab format. All handouts, microscopes, and materials will be provided. Although there may be an introduction to keying, this will not be a major component of the workshop. Cost: The cost of registration is $30 for ANPS members and $60 for non-members. Non-members will be allowed to register at the member price if they decide to join ANPS at the time of registration (individual membership dues are $15). The deadline for registration is August 3 rd . Registration: Space is limited to 24 participants and will be filled on a first come, first served basis. A waiting list will be compiled once the limit has been reached. Complete the registration form on the next page and send it along with a check (payable to “Arkansas Native Plant Society”) to the address shown on the form. Time: The workshop will begin at 9:00 am and will be dismissed for lunch at 12:00 pm. The workshop will resume at 1:30 pm and conclude at 4:00 pm. For those who wish, there will be an early evening tour of the Jewel E. Moore Nature Reserve on the UCA campus. The Reserve consists of remnant prairie and woodland and contains numerous members of the Asteraceae family. Lodging: Workshop attendees will be responsible for their own lodging arrangements should they be needed, however a list of a few hotels in Conway will be sent along with confirmation of registration. Meals: Meals will be the responsibility of the workshop attendees. An hour and half will be allotted for lunch. Attendees can bring a lunch or eat at any of a number of restaurants in the area. Directions: Directions will be sent to all registered applicants along with confirmation of registration. Asteraceae Workshop Registration Form Name(s): Address: Phone: Email: I am currently a member of ANPS. Enclosed is my check for the $30 registration fee. I am not currently a member of ANPS, but would like to join. Enclosed is my check for $45 ($15 membership dues plus $30 registration fee). I am not currently a member of ANPS, and would not like to join at this time. Enclosed is my check for the $60 registration fee. Please send this form along with a check (payable to “Arkansas Native Plant Society”) to: Brent Baker 1621 N. 2 nd St. Dardanelle, AR 72834-2843 Call or email Brent Baker at 479.970.9143 / tb2001@hotmail.coi with any questions concerning registration. New Members The following new members have joined the ANPS since the last issue of Claytonia: Jennifer Akin (Lonoke, AR) Cathy Bayne (Leslie, AR) Robert Clearwater (Fairfield Bay, AR) Aaron Daigh (Fayetteville, AR) William Dark (Rogers, AR) Marvin & Karen Fawley (Monticello, AR) Connie Franklin (Fayetteville, AR) Bruno & Donna Hanke (Dover, AR) Gary & Robin Harper/Hickerson (Little Rock, AR) Jonathan Hoyt (DeQueen, AR) Debra Kienzle (Maumelle, AR) Loice & Sterling Lacy (Magnolia, AR) Travis & Carolyn Lamkin (Stephens, AR) Dr. Argelia Lorence (State University, AR) Anita Masotto (Little Rock, AR) Kerri McCabe (Conway, AR) Jean Ann Moles (Benton, AR) Richard, Katherine, Elinore, Elias, & Cordelia Noyes (Conway, AR) Fredrick Payne (Russellville, AR) Lynn Pownall (Conway, AR) Larry & Dixie Price (Russellville, AR) Anne Prichard (Fayetteville, AR) Julie Sanders (Fayetteville, AR) Sherry Scholljegerdes (Conway, AR) Steve Smith (Bee Branch, AR) New Life Members Barbara Baker (Hot Springs Village, AR) Maury Baker (Hot Springs Village, AR) Helen Butterfield (Mountain View, AR) Carol Corning (Clinton, AR) Cynthia Dusenberry (Shirley, AR) Meredith York (Stephens, AR) We welcome these new members to the ANPS and hope to see them at the Spring Meeting! ARKANSAS NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY SPRING 2007 MEETING MARCH 30- APRIL 1,2007 GREENBRIER, ARKANSAS (just 12 mil es north of Conway on Hwy. 65) Our spring meeting this year has a lot to offer. Located in the quiet, rural town of Greenbrier, —just 12 miles up the road from booming Conway, we'll gather for a weekend of good times and communing with nature as we enjoy beautiful Springtime in Arkansas. LOCATIONS Friday March 30 — Greenbrier First United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall; Saturday, March 31 — Margaret Beasley's 'Drougherbee Ranch' in Greenbrier. REGISTRATION Registration costs $5.00 and occurs on-site Friday from 4:30 on, this time in the Fellowship Hall of the Greenbrier First United Methodist Church. At the registration table we'll have sign-up sheets for various tours and outings throughout the weekend along with handouts, local restaurant recommendations, etc. After registration is a great time for socializing with friends old and new, deciding which events you want to attend or joining friends at a local eatery (the locals tell us there are some really good restaurants and cafes in town). MAP & DIRECTIONS The church is easy to find, look on the right hand side as you enter Greenbrier from the south (Conway); you'll see the white steeple atop a one story brown brick building set back from the road. Turn right onto Tyler Street and drive to the 'rear' of the building and park near the portico entrance. The address is #2 Tyler Street. It is just east of Hwy 65. For those coming in from Heber and points north on Hwy 65, you'll go all the way through town... nearly to Springhill... and make a left onto Tyler Street just after you pass The Wagon Wheel, a popular restaurant with lots of local color, good food and GREAT onion rings. Again, turn left onto Tyler just before you reach Valet Cleaners. ACCOMODATIONS Greenbrier does have a motel... the NEW Hilltop Inn and Suites motel, and we have reserved 20 rooms at the discounted rate of $60 per night, plus tax. Choose a room with one king-size bed or choose one with two queen size beds; the price is the same. The motel is located on the main drag, as are all the restaurants, on the North end of town ACROSS FROM the Greenbrier water tank. It's a little hard to spot so watch for the sign. The day I was there it appeared that they were serving a continental breakfast but for more information or to make reservations go to www.hilltopinngreenbrier.com or call 501-679-5100. There are also lots of lodging options nearby in Conway. AGENDA FRIDAY EVENING MARCH 30 The Spring Meeting begins at 7PM with introductions of the new officers, new members and board members. We'll have an engaging guest speaker at 7:30, local Greenbrier-boy-done- well, Bob Byers, Director of Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, will offer landscaping techniques and ideas for gardening successfully with native plants. And coming up in the fall, we'll have our meeting at Garvan Gardens, where Bob will lead us on a tour to see the native plants growing there alongside the cultivars and specialty plants installed in the Gardens. If you haven't seen Garvan Woodland Gardens yet, you are in for a treat in the autumn. SATURDAY MARCH 31 - BIG TREAT! ANPS Member Margaret Beasley has invited the entire membership out to her 900-acre Greenbrier ranch on the banks of the Cadron Creek. Not only will we break into groups to visit various wildflower and native plant sites around the property, but Margaret and her husband are treating us all to a big BBQ cookout later that afternoon at the ranch. People can botanize as long as they like and then return to Margaret's 'cabin' and go back out again with another group if desired-or just relax in the rockers on her wrap- around porch for a spell. After touring to your heart's content on this beautiful land with its varied habitats (wetlands, prairie/savanna, glades, hills and vales) you can choose to stick around for the BBQ or leave the ranch to go back to 'town' for a little antique shopping or perhaps to visit the local Buffalo Ranch or Riddle's world famous elephant sanctuary. 10 In Memory An optional field trip to Bell Slough Wildlife Management Area near Mayflower will be led by Theo Witsell on Saturday morning to look at the wetlands and oak savanna/woodland that is being restored there. For information on that call Theo at 501.831.7473. For those who can conveniently do so, it would be nice to bring a covered dish to Margaret's BBQ. She won't know how many hungry folks to expect for sure; and besides we could all use the vegetables. After the BBQ, if there's a chill in the air, Margaret and Don will have a bonfire so we can stay and enjoy the spring night sky. Otherwise, it's back to Greenbrier to rest up for the Sunday outing. IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON ATTENDING SATURDAY BUT NOT FRIDAY AND NEED DIRECTIONS TO THE BEASLEY RANCH, CALL MARGARET BEASLEY AT 501.679.4378 OR LINDA CHAMBERS AT 501.952.0112. SUNDAY MORNING APRIL 1 An easy hike in Woolly Hollow State Park will be led by park interpreter & biologist Julie Lovett. We will meet in the parking lot of the Hilltop Inn at 8:30 am before departing to the park (right there in Greenbrier) for an hour-long hike. You're sure to make some new friends and create some great memories of this beautiful spring weekend. Come and join us. FOR MORE INFORMATION Call Linda Chambers at 501.952.0112 in the evening after 7PM or check out some of the websites and phone numbers listed below. www.arkansasstateparks.com Click on Woolly Hollow for more info on this small jewel of a park on Lake Bennett located just six miles down Hwy 285 from Greenbrier. Julie Lovett; park interpreter 501-679-2098 www.hilltopinngreenbrier.com For motel amenities and to make reservations or call reservation desk: 501-679-5100 This issue of the Claytonia is dedicated to the memory of Barbara Little- Schoenike of Jonesboro. Barbara, a long time member of the ANPS, served recently as the Society treasurer until her untimely death just before the Fall 2006 Meeting. Barbara was an early childhood educator and a passionate advocate for the conservation of our native flora. Her energy and enthusiasm will be missed. The ANPS will be donating some childrens’ books on nature and native plants to the Jonesboro public schools early childhood program in her memory. Bylaws Revision There is one revision of the ANPS Bylaws proposed by the Executive Board that will be voted on by the general membership at the Spring Meeting in Greenbrier. Due to revisions previously approved by the membership, the section numbers within Article V in the Directory due out in March 2007 will be slightly different from the section numbers in the previous edition of the Directory (2005-2006). Both editions are hereby referenced. The following proposed revision is to the duties of the office of Editor as stated in Article V, Section 7 of the Directory edition due out in March 2007, which corresponds to Article V, Section 8 of the 2005-2006 edition of the Directory: “Section 7. Editor The Editor shall publish and distribute the Society’s quarterly [semiannual] newsletter, Claytonia.” Correction In the “Announcements” section in the last issue of the Claytonia , on page 10, a heading stated that Audubon Arkansas was sponsoring Natural History Workshops at the Ferncliff Presbyterian Camp. These workshops were actually sponsored by the Arkansas Audubon Society, not Audubon Arkansas. These are different organizations with similar names but different histories and projects. We regret the error and send our sincere apologies to both organizations for the mix-up. Yellow star-grass (Hypoxis hirsuta) is not a grass at all, but a spring-bloomer in the Amaryllis family. Photo by John Pelton. 11 ANPS FALL 2006 GENERAL MEETING MINUTES Visitor Information Center, Lake Dardanelle State Park Russellville, AR, October 21, 2006 President Jason Anders called the meeting to order at 8:15 p.m. He thanked Bill Shepherd for taking minutes of the meeting in the absence of a secretary and announced that Secretary Jude Jardine had resigned recently to accept employment in another state. Jason thanked President-elect Brent Baker for arranging the meeting (applause from the membership). Jason reported that the Executive Board meets four times per year and works hard for the Society. He also announced the sad news of the very recent death of Barbara Little- Schoenike, longtime ANPS member and current treasurer. The funeral would be held the following day (Sunday) in Batesville. A motion was made to approve the minutes of the spring general meeting as ublished in the latest issue of Claytonia. Jason noted inaccuracies in the sentence "Eric announced his retirement from the Scholarship & Awards Committee, and that Jason will be chairing that committee until a scheduled election is held" and suggested that it be stricken from the mi nutes. With that amendment, the minutes were accepted in a voice vote. Jerry McGary, Acting Treasurer, reported on the Society's finances. The auction Friday evening had raised a record $2,900 for Aileen McWilliam Scholarships. A formal financial statement was unavailable due to the sudden death of the treasurer, but would be supplied in the next Claytonia. Theo Witsell announced that the Carl Amason Conservation Award to Mary Alice Beer of Fairfield Bay, would be presented November 4 in Fairfield Bay. (Details are in the most recent issue of Claytonia .) All members were encouraged to attend the ceremony. The Society had a booth at the Natural State Expo in little Rock October 7 and distributed materials about the work of ANPS. Jason, Theo Witsell, and Brent Baker staffed the booth and reported having good success, even enrolling two new members. Theo Witsell was developing a new color promotional brochure for the Society. A draft was circulated. The brochures were a lm ost ready for printing and would be available for members to use before year-end. The Society was applying for a bulk mail permit, to be used beginning in 2007, and for 501(c)(3) certification by the Internal Revenue Service. Vice-President Linda Chambers and Theo were collaborating on a design for a logo for the society. The Executive Board had granted life memberships to Suzanne and Ted Barnes of Camden in recognition of their services to the Society by creating the attractive ANPS T-shirts sold by the Society over the last several years. During late summer Jude Jardine made a presentation about invasive plants at the Laman Library in North Little Rock. She attended as a representative of the ANPS following a request from the library for a program in its gardening series. Around 30 people attended. The Board was working on a speakers' bureau. Slides would be scanned and burned to compact disks for use in PowerPoint presentations about our flora. At its August meeting, the Board discussed strategies for placing Carl Hunter's botanical books in libraries around the state. After the balance in the Society’s account is reconciled, copies will likely be purchased by year end and placed around the state. Eric Sundell reported on the Arkansas Audubon Society's Halberg Ecology Camp. The Society contributes $500 each year for scholarships to the camp. Eric read aloud a letter from the camp's executive director, Liz Fulton, and thank-you notes from three recipients of scholarships. Members of ANPS are urged to be on the lookout for prospective campers every year and to assist in recruiting them. President Anders thanked Ron Doran for his excellent work on the Society's web site: www.anps.org. Next spring's meeting will be held March 30- April 1 at Greenbrier. Field trips will focus on a 900-acre ranch that has frontage on Cadron Creek, and the date was selected to coincide with the height of the spring wildflower season along that creek. The next issue of Claytonia would be mailed around the end of January, 2007. A new member, who had stmggled to understand how to pre-register for the fall meeting, suggested that it be made clear in future issues of Claytonia that people just show up and register for meetings, there being no pre-registration. Only if the Society had a banquet would pre-registration be necessary. Jason pointed out that there would be no charge to the Society for use of the meeting room and asked for a motion that, in its appreciation, ANPS donate $250 worth of native plants to Lake Dardanelle State Park for its gardens. Ron Doran made the motion and Linda Chambers seconded it. Danny Barron suggested that, to indicate the source of the plants and to advertise the Society, a plaque be given along with the plants. The motion carried with that amendment. Brent Baker was authorized to coordinate both the purchase of the plants and an appropriate plaque with the Park personnel. Mary Ann King announced that Pine Ridge Gardens would be open the following morning for all who might want to see it. Maury Baker had been appointed Membership Chairman by action of the Board in August following Eric Sundell’ s recent retirement. (The normal election for Membership Chairman is in odd-number years.) Jason presented the slate of no mi nees for positions to be filled and thanked Eric Sundell (Chairman), John Simpson, and Jewel Moore for their service on the Nominating Committee. Dr. Staria Vanderpool was nominated for Vice President and Jerry McGary for Treasurer. It was noted that a recording secretary was still needed. Lana Ewing moved that the slate of officers be accepted by acclamation and Mary Ann King seconded the motion. The motion carried in a voice vote. The Secretary post would be filled by the Board until the regular election for that office in the Fall Meeting of 2007. Jason announced that he would likely be moving to New Mexico early next month to accept a new job. He thanked the members for allowing him to serve hi s term, and endorsed the wor t hiness of the goals of the Society. Maury Baker moved that the Society resolve to commend the Flora Committee for its years of hard work and for its recent production of an excellent new checklist of the state's vascular flora. Mary Ann King seconded the motion, and it carried in a voice vote. Theo Witsell requested an expression of appreciation for Jason Anders' service as president of the Society, and the meeting responded with a hearty round of applause. Lana Ewing made a motion that the meeting be adjourned and somebody seconded it. Without objection, the motion passed. The meeting was adjourned at 9 p.m., but everyone stood around and chewed the fat awhile before packing the park's tables and chairs away. Respectfully submitted, Bill Shepherd, Acting Secretary 12 Upcoming Events March 30-April 1 ANPS SPRING MEETING IN GREENBRIER. See details on page 10 of this issue. We hope to see you there. March 30-April 1 Petit Jean State Park is having a WildfLower Weekend event the same weekend as the Spring ANPS Meeting (March 30 - April 1). Contact BT Jones, interpreter, at 501.727.6510 or Michelle Hunt, interpreter, at 501.727.6512. March 24 Hot Springs National Park will host Dave Tylka, widely recognized nature author, photographer, and educator, as he presents native landscaping programs in the Ozark Bathhouse on historic Bathhouse Row in downtown Hot Springs. He will offer an intermediate level program at 2 p.m., followed by an advanced level program at 4 p.m. Both programs are free of charge and open to the public. No reservations are required. There will be a book signing the following day. For more information, contact Park Ranger Lisa Garvin at 501- 620-6702. April 14 Leatherwood Creek hiking trail, Eureka Springs. Leatherwood Lake is located about 2 miles west of Eureka Springs off Hwy. 62. We will meet at 10:00 a.m. in the parking lot which is a little less than a mile from Hwy. 62 in Leatherwood Lake park. The trail is about 4 miles and some parts are fairly steep. At first there is a gentle hike along the floodplain, so those who can't hike the steep parts can join us on the first leg of the trail. Bring comfortable hiking shoes, water and a sack lunch. Call Bumetta at 479-582-0317 for further details. April 21 Botanist Patrick Daniel will lead a walk on his parents’ land near Camden. They want to identify all the plants in several areas around the property at 2220 Maul Road. Interested people will meet on site at 9:00. Directions: Take Hwy 79 through Fordyce & exit to downtown Camden. Cross several bridges and turn right onto Adam Rd. (at first light). Adam Rd. becomes Maul Rd. The house is 2.5 miles down on the right, across the road from the Methodist Church. Call Thera Lou Adams for more info at 870.836.5221. May 5 Baker Prairie, Harrison. Meet at 10:00 in the Middle School parking lot and we will explore Baker Prairie again in May, hoping to find some grass-pink orchids, which unfortunately are probably under the Middle School parking lot. Call Bumetta at 479-582-0317 for further details. May 26 Rock House Trail at Buffalo Point, Buffalo National River. Meet at 10:00 a.m. at the Ranger Station at the top of the hill before descending into the Buffalo Point Camping/Canoeing area. We will hike this moderately strenuous trail which will take approximately 4 hours. Bring comfortable hiking shoes, water and a sack lunch.Call Bumetta at 479-582-0317 for further details. .Tune (exact date to be determined) Woods Prairie, near Mt. Vernon, Missouri. Trip to be led by Linda Ellis. Call Bumetta at 479-582-0317 for further details. .Tune 30 Upper Alum Fork Saline River. Join Natural Heritage Commission botanist Theo Witsell and explore a number of uncommon habitats on the upper Alum Fork. We will visit sandstone and shale glades & woodlands, bluffs, and rare depression wetlands. We will also see the creeping St. John’s wort ( Hypericum adpressum ), recently found new-to-Arkansas, in flower. Bring a lunch (and shoes or boots that can get wet). We’ll meet at 9:00 am at the church at Paron (intersection of Hwy 9 and Kanis Road). LIMIT 20 PEOPLE. Call Theo at 501.831.7473 for more info. November 3 &4 The Arkansas Audubon Society will be giving their annual Arkansas Ecology Adult Workshops at Ferncliff Conference Center. Arkansas Ferns (taught by our very own Don Crank, past president of ANPS), Arkansas Geology taught again by UAM prof Jim Edson, and Eric Sundell's famous Tree I.D. workshop for beginners and intermediates. Folks interested should contact lindachamb3rs@yahoo.com, who is in charge of reservations. Announcements The Northeast Arkansas Chapter of the ANPS has disbanded and has donated the balance of their treasury, more than $500, to the Arkansas Flora Project. The Ozarks Chapter voted at the last meeting to send the following donations: $100 each to the Arkansas Flora Project, Arkansas Envirothon, and the Audubon's Edith Halberg Ecology Camp. Volunteers Needed to Mount Plant Specimens for Natural Heritage The Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission (ANHC) is looking for a few volunteers in Central Arkansas willing to help mount (onto heavy paper with archival glue, tape, etc.) some of the thousands of plant specimens collected during the course of their inventory of the state’s natural areas. These specimens, many of which were collected from Arkansas’s highest-quality and rarest habitats, will be deposited in the ANHC Herbarium for research and reference by ANHC staff, volunteers, and conservation partners. The goal of the collection is to have specimens in both flower and fruit for each species of plant known from Arkansas, as well as for species known from nearby states that are likely to occur here. It also includes voucher specimens for occurrences of rare species in the ANHC Inventory Database. The ANHC actively trades specimens with botanists in other states to meet this goal. This is a unique opportunity to get hands-on experience with the plants of the region, including some of the rarest species. Volunteers will participate in a 4 hour training and will then receive a kit with all the supplies they need to mount specimens at home when convenient for them. The ANHC is looking for volunteers who can commit at least 8 hours a week. An artistic eye is always a plus. If you are interested, please contact Theo Witsell at 501.324.9615 or email theo @ arkansasheritage.org . For more information on the activities of the ANHC, visit their website at www.naturalheritage.org . 13 REGIONAL BOTANICAL NEWS This will be a new feature in the Claytonia summarizing newly described species, significant finds, and published floristic checklists from Arkansas and the region, and referring interested readers to sources for more information. Please let the editor know of anything you think should be included. I try to keep up with the literature but can only subscribe to so many journals... I find it exciting that so many new species are being described from the eastern United States, an area that has been as well botanized as it has. It goes to show that there are still a lot of things to find out there! — Theo Witsell NEW SPECIES OF WILD RYE GRASS DESCRIBED FROM ARKANSAS Julian Campbell of The Nature Conservancy (Kentucky Chapter) has recently described a new (and very attractive) species of Elymus (wild rye, bottlebrush grass) from Petit Jean Mountain in Conway County. Called Elymus churchii J.J.N. Campbell, it is known only from the Interior Highlands of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri and occurs in dry, rocky soils and open woods on ridges, bluffs, and river banks. The description, along with illustrations, can be found in Sida 22(1): 485-494. 2006 or email i Campbell @ tnc . or g and request a reprint. NEW SPECIES OF CLAYTONIA DESCRIBED FROM THE OZARKS John M. Miller and Kenton L. Chambers have described a new species of Claytonia from the Ozarks of Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Claytonia ozarkensis J.M. Miller & K.L. Chambers is described as being similar to Claytonia caroliniana but differing by having inflorescences (flower arrangements) with multiple bracts and having white petals without any pink veins. However, at least some Arkansas specimens have pink flowers (or white flowers with many prominent pink veins) and single bracts, indicating that we may actually have both species in Arkansas. For the full account, see Systematic Botany Monographs Vo. 78. Systematics of Claytonia (Portulacaceae). NEW SPECIES OF BOLTONIA DESCRIBED FROM VIRGINIA John Townsend (VA Natural Heritage Program) and Vesna Karaman-Castro (Louisiana State University) have described Boltonia montana J.F. Townsend & V. Karaman-Castro, a new species of doll’s daisy, from upland sinkhole ponds and riverine habitats in the Appalachian mountains. It should be looked for in sinkhole ponds in the Ozarks, considering that one of its associated species, Virginia sneezeweed ( Helenium virginicum), which was thought to be endemic to Virginia, has been found in a number of such sites in the Ozarks of southern Missouri. Contact John Townsend for a reprint at J ohn.T o wnsend @ dcr. Virginia. gov or see Sida 22(2): 873-886 for the full article (available online until the next issue is out at http://www.brit.org/sida/PDF/PDF22(2)/05 Townsend- Karaman-Boltonia 873-886.pdf) . NEW SPECIES OF WITCH HAZEL DESCRIBED FROM MISSISSIPPI S. W. Leonard of the Camp Shelby Field Office of The Nature Conservancy has just described a new species of witch hazel from southern Mississippi. It is similar to our Ozark witch hazel (. Hamamelis vernalis ) in having a clonal habit and red flowers that bloom in late winter, but it differs in the large size of its leaves (to 9 inches long), as well as other less obvious characters. The new species is called Hamamelis ovalis S.W. Leonard. See Sida 22(2): 849-856. 2006 for the full article (available online until the next issue is out at http:// www.brit.org/sida/PDF/PDF22(2)/01 Leonard-Hamamelis 849- 856.pdf) . NEWLY DESCRIBED SEDGE OCCURS IN ARKANSAS Carex reznicekii Werier, a new species of sedge was just described by David Werier of New York and apparently occurs in Arkansas. Named in honor of sedge expert Anton Reznicek, it is a member of the difficult section Acrocystis, and is superficially similar to the widespread Carex umbellata and Carex nigromarginata. It has so far been found in Arkansas in 7 Ozark region counties but is very likely more widespread. For a very detailed account of the species as well as keys to all 19 taxa in Carex section Acrocystis east of the Rocky Mountains, see Sida 22(2): 1049-1070. 2006. Available online until the next issue is out at http://www.brit.org/sida/PDF/PDF22 (2V19 Werier-Carex 1049-1070.pdf . FLORA OF CADDO PARISH, LOUISIANA PUBLISHED Barbara and Michael MacRoberts have published an updated, annotated checklist of the vascular plants of Caddo Parish, Louisiana, which is just south of Miller County, Arkansas. They list a whopping 1405 species (1168 native, 237 exotic) for the Parish, including a number which are not known from Arkansas and should be looked for in SW Arkansas. They also present some interesting summaries of the community associations of endemic and rare species from the Parish. See Sida 22(2): 1191- 1219 for the full list (available online until the next issue is out at http://www.brit.org/sida/PDF/PDF22(2)/3 1 MacRoberts- CaddoParish 1191-1219.pdf) . CHECKLIST OF THE FLORA OF THE OUACHITA MOUNTAINS BIOLOGICAL STATION PUBLISHED Barbara R. MacRoberts, Michael H. MacRoberts, and Travis Marsico recently published a Preliminary Survey of the Vascular Flora of the Ouachita Mountains Biological Station, Polk County, Arkansas. The paper was published as the Bulletin of the Museum of Life Sciences of Louisiana State University in Shreveport No. 13 and reports 337 taxa (315 native, 22 exotic) from the 380 acre site including nine species identified by the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission as species of conservation concern in Arkansas. Six taxa found are endemic 14 to the Interior Highlands. The paper is dedicated to the late Dr. Richard K. Speairs, founder of the OMBS and a long-time member of the Arkansas Native Plant Society. For information on obtaining a copy contact Laurence Hardy, editor, at lhardv@lsus.edu . NEW SPECIES OF LEATHER-FLOWER DESCRIBED FROM EAST TEXAS Dwayne Estes, of the University of Tennessee Herbarium, recently described a new species of leather-flower from the deep sand barrens of northeastern Texas. Clematis carrizoensis D. Estes, or Carrizo sands leather-flower, is known only from sandy prairie-like areas among oak-hickory woodlands in Cherokee, Smith, and Van Zandt Counties, TX. Given the geographic range and habitat, this species should be looked for in the deep sand barrens of Miller County, Arkansas. This paper can be found in Sida 22(l):65-77. 2006., or contact Dwayne Estes at tnplants @ vahoo.com for a reprint. NEW SPECIES OF BAMBOO DESCRIBED FROM THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS A new species of deciduous bamboo was recently described from the southern Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas by J. K. Triplett, Alan Weakley, and L. G. Clark. It is characterized by a number of characters including features of branching and leaf morphology and is typically found on upland oak-hickory-pine forests on slopes. The species is called Arundinaria appalachiana Triplett, Weakley, & L.G. Clark and is given the common name “hill cane”. See Sida 22(l):79-95. 2006 for the full article with illustrations and a range map, or email triplett@iastate.edu for a reprint. This should be looked for in Arkansas. NEW SPECIES OF PEDIOMELUM FROM GEORGIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA Jim Allison, Michael W. Morris, and Ashley N. Egan have just described a new species of Pediomelum (a.k.a. Indian breadroot, buckroot, or scurf-pea) from three sites in the piedmont of Georgia and South Carolina. The species is called Pediomelum piedemontanum J.R. Allison, M.W. Morris, & A.N. Egan and occurs in rocky, open areas and adjacent woodlands. The article can be found in Sida 22(1) :227-241. 2006. Incidentally, Allison, the legendary field botanist who discovered eight species new-to-science in the Ketona dolomite glades along the Cahaba River in Bibb County, Alabama in the 1990s, has a great website at http://www.mindspring.com/~iallison/ . NEW SPECIES OF FEATHERBELLS DESCRIBED FROM TENNESSEE Eugene Wofford, of the University of Tennessee, just described a new and striking species of Stenanthium (featherbells) from “rockhouse” (a.k.a. bluff shelter) habitat from the northern Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee. This new species is called Stenanthium dijfusum Wofford. Endemic to just four counties, this extremely rare species is related to eastern featherbeds (S. gramineum), which occurs in Arkansas, but differs most notably in its wildly branched flower arrangement, among other differences. There is an abundance of this habitat in the Ozarks which might warrant further study. See Sida 22(1): 447-459 for more info (including photos) or contact be wofford @ utk.edu for a reprint. Arkansas Native Plant Society Membership Application Please check the appropriate box below. Membership Categories: NAME(S) ADDRESS: $10.... . Student Street or Box $15.... . Regular Citv $20.... . Supporting State $25.... . Family Membership $30.... . Contributing Telephone $150.. . Lifetime Membership (55 and over) Email address $300.. . Lifetime Membership (under 55) Zip Code. New Member Renewal Address Change Please make checks payable to “Arkansas Native Plant Society”. Please cut and send this form along with any dues to: Maury Baker, Membership ANPS 29 Pandilla Way Hot Springs Village, AR 71909-7121 15 Please check your mailing label! If your mailing label has an 06 or earlier it is time to renew! Life members will have an LF. Please fill in the information form on the opposite side of this page and send it with your renewals, applications for membership, changes of name, address, email, or telephone numbers to the address given on the form: [Not to the editor]. Thank you. PLEASE SEND SUBMISSIONS/SUGGESTIONS TO: 219 Beech wood St. / Little Rock, AR 72205 anpsclaytonia@yahoo.com 2006-2007 ANPS OFFICERS President Secretary Brent Baker Susie Teague btb200 1 @hotmail.com cedarcreekns @ sbcglobal.net 479.970.9143 501.622.6631 President Elect Awards & Scholarships Linda Chambers Burnetta Hinterthuer Lindachamb3ers @ yahoo.com bhintert @ n wacc . edu 501.918.3083 479.582.0317 Vice President Membership Chair Staria Vanderpool Maury Baker svand@ astate.edu mbbaker@ suddenlink.net 870.972.3082 501.922.6077 Treasurer Editor Jerry Me Gary Theo Witsell Jlmac 1 2 1 6 @ aol. com anp sclay tonia @ yahoo . com 479.646.4180 501.614.8465 The purpose of the Arkansas Native Plant Society is to promote the preservation, conservation, and study of the wild plants and vegetation of Arkansas, the education of the public to the value of the native flora and its habitat, and the publication of related information. Theo Witsell, Editor 219 Beechwood St. Little Rock, AR 72205 anpsclaytonia @ yahoo.com Newsletter of the Arkansas Native Plant Society — Spring/Summer 2007 AVAILABLE ONLINE IN FULL COLOR AT www.anps.org CLAYTONIA Newsletter of the Arkansas Native Plant Society Vol. 27 No. 2 Fall/ Winter 2007 In this issue: Don Culwell Retires Page 3 Reid Trip Reports Page 4 President’s Message Page 6 Ozark Spring Beauty Page 7 New Southeastern Tree Book Page 8 Fall Meeting Info Page 1 1 Spring Meeting Minutes Page 1 3 Events & Announcements Page 1 4 AN PS Awards Grants Page 14 New AN PS Logo Page 1 5 Center For Plant Conservation Works With Arkansas’s Rare Plants By Jo Meyerkord The Center for Plant Conservation salutes the Arkansas Native Plant Society, because we know you appreciate your native plants! Native plants are the hallmark of home, the tapestry of the familiar landscapes we hold dear. They are also incredible resources for food, fiber, medicines and unknown future needs of man. They deserve attention and good stewardship, yet today 15% of our native flora is documented to be in steep decline or considered at risk. We know you value your Arkansas natives for more than their role in your own identity and sense of place, and you want to preserve these precious assets. Five plants in Arkansas are listed on the Federal Endangered Species list, but more are of conservation concern. The Center for Plant Conservation’s Institutions are currently working with 20 Arkansas native species, working to stay ahead of the curve and secure them against extinction. You can review them by clicking on “National Collection” on our website: www.centerforplantconservation.org , and searching for Arkansas. Headquartered in St. Louis, CPC is a network of 36 botanical institutions involved in the study, preservation, conservation and restoration of the nation’s imperiled native plants. The network of botanists has been studying imperiled plants for more than 20 years. CPC’s goal is to recover all imperiled plants across the country, so that native plants are thriving again. Many of the endangered plants of Arkansas also occur in other states. Due to similar geography and habitats the range of a particular species may extend through multiple regions. Although there are not yet any CPC Participating Institutions located within the boundaries of Arkansas, several of CPC’s surrounding institutions are working with native Arkansas plants. Scientists from highly-regarded botanical institutions are working together to research, cultivate and restore these Arkansas plants. Some of these Stern’s medlar (Mespilus canescens). Photo courtesy of the Center for Plant Conservation. institutions include the Missouri Botanical Garden, North Carolina Botanical Garden, Mercer Arboretum and Botanic Gardens in Texas, Chicago Botanic Garden, The Holden Arboretum in Ohio, and The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Securing and restoring vulnerable plant species is challenging and involves many different scientific specialties. Collaboration is essential to succeed in restoring these species, and CPC is all about partnerships! CPC institutions are working in communities nationwide monitoring, securing seed and working with local and federal agencies to restore habitats and rare populations. Partnerships with the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and similar organizations make it possible to make a difference on the ground within the state. Find those working to conserve plants in Arkansas on our website. Currently, the Missouri Botanical Garden is maintaining a collection of pondberry, Lindera melissifolia, seeds and is attempting to grow the plants from seed. This species, related to spicebush, has declined due to habitat destruction and is rare in Arkansas and throughout its range. Three Arkansas sites are protected by state ownership but others are vulnerable. Although pondberry plants produce mature fruits, no seedlings have been found at any sites, and this is a major problem for the long term survival of the species. Even though the plants can reproduce clonally by sending out shoots, sexual reproduction is important for ensuring genetic diversity and healthy populations for the future. With the help of the botanists at the Missouri Botanical Garden, research on the pondberry continues hope for sustaining long-term viability. It may surprise some people to know that new flora discoveries are still taking place. Stern’s medlar, Mespilus canescens, a deciduous shrub in the rose family is a beautiful example of such a hidden treasure. This entirely new member of the rose family was not discovered and named by scientists until 1990. The world’s only known population consists of just 26 individuals, hidden away in a 22-acre deciduous grove in east- central Arkansas. It grows nowhere else in the world, and its closest relative grows far away in western Asia and southeast Europe. These 26 plants appear to have been isolated in a small remnant of a “slash” woodland (a rare wet woodland at the boundary between prairie and forest) in the Grand Prairie region of Arkansas. Most of this habitat has completely disappeared due to agricultural development. Fortunately, the concern of a private landowner led to the protection of Stern’s medlar through an agreement with the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission. Although the trees appear healthy, they are closely monitored for damage from nearby chemical run-off and changes in the water table associated with nearby agricultural activities. Various propagation methods are being tried on Stem’s medlar at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Researchers from Missouri Botanical Garden and Chicago Botanic Garden are also performing genetic studies on this species. Educating the public on native species is a crucial tool in spreading the work of Arkansas’s imperiled natives. Conservation education starts early. In a recent survey, a surprising number of students were unable to identify plants as being alive. Parents and educators may be interested in Plants in Peril, a guide to exploring biodiversity and rare native plant conservation for middle school educators. This intriguing lesson plan guide can help start dialogue with kids about native plants. Available at the CPC website by clicking on “Education Tools,” the topics include biodiversity, rare native plants, challenges to saving plants in peril, multiple student activities, ideas for action projects, and additional resources. This lesson plan was developed by CPC as a means of reaching youth with native plant information. While CPC’s institutions are working everyday with CPC’s scientific standards and protocols to make a difference for Arkansas’s vulnerable plants, it is a big job. In addition to partnerships with agencies, there is a role in support, education, and volunteerism for everyone who wants to help. You may already be active in helping control invasive species, monitoring rare plant sites, cleaning seed or entering data for a conservation project. If you are just getting started, the conservation directory is a good source of information. Building support for plant conservation and stewardship is one of CPC’s priorities. CPC has established a plant sponsorship program to build sustainable funding for vulnerable plants. For each sponsored species, funds are provided annually to assist in restoration efforts. These funds have already significantly supported work for pondberry. The Stern’s medlar is not sponsored. If you’d like more information about CPC or plant sponsorship visit our website www.centerforplantconservation.org or call 314-577-9450. Let’s work together to make sure Arkansas’s imperiled plants populations are restored for future generations! * Cossatot leaf cup (Polymnia cossatotensis) is known from just four sites in the world — all in Polk and Montgomery Counties . It was described as a new species in 1990 by Vernon Bates and Bert Pittman. It’s habitat is loose , novaculite talus and outcrops in the most rugged portions of the Ouachita Mountains. Photo by Bob Clearwater. 2 Dr. Don Culwell Retires By Brent Baker Don has served as Director of the Jewel Moore Nature Reserve on the UCA campus, which contains a remnant of the prairie that once occupied the Conway area. Photo by Mike Kemp. Don began teaching at UCA in the fall of 1970, his first teaching job after completing his doctorate. Over the course of his tenure at UCA, he taught courses in General Biology, General Botany, Plant Taxonomy, Biology of Lower Plants and Fungi, and Biology of Seed Plants. He also led numerous groups of students on field study trips in the western United States, visiting an array of sites in the Rocky Mountains, western deserts, and the Pacific Northwest. While at UCA, Don also served as Curator of the Herbarium and Director of the Jewel Moore Nature Reserve. For the last three years, he served as the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics representative in the Academic Advising Center, advising students on courses, scheduling, and career options. His teaching was not limited to college students, as he often gave presentations to grade school students and led field trips for the public as well. During his professorship, Don was awarded the University Teaching Excellence Award (1984-1985) and the University Public Service Award (2003) in recognition of his service. In retirement, Don will remain active with UCA as a Research Associate and will continue to be involved with management of the newly expanded and rededicated Jewel Moore Nature Reserve. This Reserve, located on the UCA campus, contains an unplowed remnant of the prairie that once existed in the area of Conway. Don was instrumental in helping to get this valuable piece of natural history set aside as a Reserve in 1980, and was equally involved in its recent expansion. Don is also on the Board of the Gates Rogers Foundation, based in Clinton. The Foundation owns the South Fork Native Plant Preserve, established in 2005, on Greers Ferry Lake. With some of the extra time retirement affords him, Don plans on a hands- on involvement in the restoration and management of the Preserve and the establishment of an educational and interpretative center on the property. Don is one of several botanists from around the state on the Arkansas Vascular Flora Committee, which is spearheading the Arkansas Vascular Flora Project. The ultimate goal of this Project is the publication of a Manual of the Vascular Plants of Arkansas. In addition to all of these activities, Don plans on spending more time on some of his favorite hobbies, including gardening and canoeing. He and his wife, Debbie, also plan on traveling more, starting with a month long trip this fall to Nova Scotia, New England and the East Coast. Dr. Donald Culwell, founding president of ANPS, retired from the University of Central Arkansas this spring after 37 years of professorship. Don, a native son of De Soto, Missouri, received his B.S. in Botany from Southeast Missouri State University, his M.A. in Biology from Indiana University, and his Ph.D. in Plant Taxonomy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At Chapel Hill, he studied under Albert R. Radford, lead author of the Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. Don’s doctorate research was on members of the Euhypericum section of the genus Hypericum (St. John’s worts). Dr. Culwell, On behalf of all the students you have mentored over the years and in whom you sparked a passion for plants and nature, thank you for your unfailing service and dedication. Enjoy your retirement! Your student and friend, Brent Baker 3 FI ELD TRIP REPORTS SPRING MEETING FIELD TRIPS ON EAST CADRON CREEK— by Eric Sundell A lot of us spent the whole day Saturday at Margaret and Tom Beasley’s Drutherbe Ranch and enjoyed not one but two or three field trips to East Cadron Creek. Tom Beasley would fire up the tractor, a load of botanists — on the first trip, Margaret, Nancy Graddy, Jean Ann Moles, Betty Heck, Ron Doran, Don Culwell, Brent Baker, Linda Chambers, Geoff Gardner, Lois Wilson, Steve Smith, Sandy Davies, and Eric & Milanne Sundell — - would climb onto the hay wagon, and away we’d go to the rich wooded terraces along the creek. (Okay, on that first trip there might have been a few of us inside Margaret’s dry SUV — but we got out at every stop!) A lot of eyes spotted a lot of plants: by the end of the day, I had 35 species of trees, shrubs, and woody vines on my list, and 30 species of wildflowers and ferns. River birch, sugarberry, red maple, water oak, white oak, sweetgum — a lot of familiar faces — dominated the canopy. Musclewood (or blue beech, or hornbeam, or ironwood) were the most common understory trees. And colonnades of tupelo gum, with swollen trunks, stood in the creek along the bank, quite a different aquatic system from the broad tupelo gum swamps of the Coastal Plain to the south. Paw paws, the host plants for zebra swallowtail caterpillars, were in full bloom, which means that the leafless branches were sparsely hung with modest, strange, charming purplish beetle- and fly-pollinated flowers. The fruits are delicious enough to have generated some commercial interest, but I’ve never noticed paw paws in the produce section at Walmart. Growers posting information on the Internet say that pollination is the limiting factor to fruit production, and some have recommended placing meat and road kill in the orchards to attract more pollinators ! Others suggest hand pollination, the way the Lather of Genetics did his parental pea crosses, but that sounds like it would require too many work- study students, even for an Ag Department! A patch of slender paw paw trees with their foot-long leaves gives a streamside forest a tropical touch. The genus Asimina, the paw paws, with eight species, is the only one among about 120 genera of the large, tropical custard-apple family that occurs entirely in the temperate zone; and paw paw itself, A. triloba, is the only species that grows in our eastern forests north of the Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plains, ranging all the way into southern Canada. Devil’s walking stick or tear blanket, Aralia spinosa, has the largest leaves in the eastern forest and similarly gives a tropical feeling to the upland woods. At the creek bank the Beasleys call the Bluff Hole, some of the hardwood trees were spectacular in size, with trunks 2-3 feet in diameter. Dutchman’s pipe, Aristolochia tomentosa, a high- climbing, woody vine with large heart-shaped leaves, was common but about a day or two short of blooming — unfortunate, because they’re a perfect lesson in flower specialization. The yellow-green, J-shaped, tubular flowers attract tiny flies and gnats that lose their footing on the waxy A little rain didn’t dampen the spirits of these hardcore plant enthusiasts on the Beasley Ranch on East Cadron Creek at the Spring Meeting. Photo by Sandy Davies. surface and fall into the tube, where they are trapped inside for about 2-3 days, the time required for the flowers to remove the pollen the gnats bring in and then dust them up again with fresh pollen. When the system works, the gnats are released as the flowers wilt and carry the new pollen load to flowers of another plant to effect cross-pollination. Theo Witsell’s group at Bell Slough reported seeing another fascinating species of Aristolochia, Virginia snakeroot, A. serpentaria. This one is a perennial herb, scarcely a foot tall, with deliciously aromatic roots that Old Timers used to flavor homemade candy; but the flowers are as beautiful and intriguingly specialized as those of pipevine, and they bloom right at or even under the leaf litter of the forest floor. At the Blue Hole, we ate the succulent, crunchy shoot tips of round-leafed greenbrier (scientific name, Dang greenbrar ) and chewed the slimy, medicinal inner bark of slippery elm. On the ledges were Palmer’s saxifrage and Jack-in-the-pulpit, two beauties, in bloom. I tried to get Brent Baker to come over and look at a gorgeous population of rue anemones, but he was feasting his eyes on ferns instead: Christmas ferns, spleenworts, and fertile rattlesnake ferns. He shouted back, “With fronds like these, who needs anemones?” Next to the creek at the Blue Hole, Margaret spotted and collected three morels, which were later sliced and fried in butter to garnish the evening meal. There were at least two more notable fungi on that outing. Don Culwell found the black, cup-shaped fruiting bodies of the wood-rotting ascomycete Urnula along the woodroad — my dendrology students used to call them “black roses”. Microscopic spore cases line the floor of the cup like the pile of a carpet, and when you rub the black surface with a finger, a cloud of white 4 FI ELD TRIP REPORTS ascospores is fired off and drifts away on the wind — rather like Aladdin’s lamp, only you don’t get any wishes! Surprisingly, the mechanism worked perfectly, even in the rain. On the drive back to the ranch house, the redcedar trees lining the road were decked in bright yellow cedar-apple galls, some of them as big as golf balls and rather ornamental. The galls are one of several stages of a rust fungus that attacks both redcedars and apple trees, the spores produced in the yellow cedar galls infecting apples, while other spores produced on the apple trees reinfect the cedars. Apple growers take care to remove the cedars that grow close to their orchards to minimize rust damage to the apple trees. The rust fungi — wheat rust and fusiform rust of southern yellow pine are other examples — typically have life cycles as complex as those of some of the parasitic worms from your old high school biology class (No, I don’t mean the guy who used to copy your homework!). By the way, Jay Justice, a longtime ANPS member, is also the longtime president of the Arkansas Mycological Society and leads several field trips — “mushroom forays” — in spring and fall in central Arkansas. If you’d like to know more, contact Jay at iustice@aristotle.net . By afternoon, the weather cleared, and by evening we were all enjoying a great feast of a barbecue at the Beasley’s ranch house. What a great day: Drutherbe Ranch was as grand as the plant hunting. Thanks again to Margaret and Tom Beasley for all their hard work and generous hospitality, and to Linda Chambers for organizing a fine spring meeting. May apple ( Podophyllum peltatum) is one of our most distinctive woodland plants of early spring. Its umbrella-like foliage is often variegated. If the stalk doesn’t branch, you won’t get a flower, but if it does, you are sure to find a large cream-colored bloom right in the fork. This species has an interesting chemistry and was used by Native Americans and early settlers for a variety of ailments. The active component, podophyllum, is still used to treat venereal warts. Photo by Craig Fraiser. Margaret Beasley knows that she has a morel obligation to share these tasty fungi with the guests at the evening’s barbecue! Photo by Sandy Davies. Visitors to the Spring Meeting enjoy a hayride (well, as much as they can in the rain...) at the Beasley Ranch near Greenbrier. Photo by Sandy Davies. 5 PRESIDENTS MESSAGE ■ NEW MEMBERS We had an absolutely lovely Spring Meeting! Despite a little rain, it really was nice. I’m so glad we managed to get the meeting in before that unprecedented late freeze! That was one for the record books, wasn’t it? ! ! Seems like we’re having more and more of these anomalous weather events these days... I want to thank everyone who helped with the meeting, but several people deserve extra THANKS. First, Linda Chambers deserves recognition. I know from experience that it is rather stressful getting a meeting organized. Everything came together nicely. Of course the most praise must go to Margaret and Tom Beasley. How incredibly wonderful of them to invite all of us into their home, fix us such an incredible meal, and shuttle us around their property to look at all the interesting plants and habitats! ! We simply can not thank them enough! The Nominating Committee has secured nominations for all officer positions up for election this fall. The nominee for Vice- President is Kerri McCabe. Susie Teague has accepted nomination to continue in the position of Secretary/Historian. Maury Baker has accepted nomination to continue as the Membership Chair. The fourth position up for election is the Scholarship/ Awards Chair. Bumetta Hinterthuer has accepted nomination to continue in that capacity. We are still accepting donations to the Carl Hunter Memorial Fund to pay for donating his Wildflowers of Arkansas book to all the public libraries in the state. More information can be found elsewhere in this issue. It would be a shame to let the generous offer by Maury and Barbara Baker go unmet! I guess it’s time for the Annual Plant Auction reminder! It’s one of our major fundraisers, supporting student scholarships. Remember that we had a record-breaker last year, when we raised over $3,000! We definitely have a challenge this year to best that record! Anything and everything can be donated; not just plants, but seeds, books, garden tools, carved wood items, crafts, etc., etc. Don’t forget your checkbooks! Finally, this is my last Claytonia address to you as an officer (at least for this particular rotation) and I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to the Society for allowing me to serve. I was very green when I took office, having only been in the Society for a year when I accepted the vice-presidential nomination, as well as being one of the younger members. This has all definitely been a learning experience for me and I appreciate everyone’s patience and for bearing with me while I sometimes muddled my way through. I really have enjoyed it and I look forward to many years of continued service with the Society. Brent Baker ANPS President The following new members have joined the ANPS since the last issue of Claytonia: Marj Anderson ( Conway, AR) Finda Bynum (Waveland, MS) Ann Cantrell (Greenbrier, AR) Jane Craig (Hot Springs Village, AR) Helen Squires Ferguson (Evansville, AR) Geoffrey Gardner (Fittle Rock, AR) Nancy Graddy (Conway, AR) Jeanne Gripp (Mena, AR) Debby Haines (Fittle Rock, AR) Tony Harris (Paron, AR) Gina Jenkins (Fittle Rock, AR) Mildred Krisik (Omaha, AR) Richard & Dana Fawrence (Fittle Rock, AR) Erin Feone (Barling, AR) Michael Montgomery (Rogers, AR) Janet Miron (Greenbrier, AR) Troy & Finda Odom (Newport, AR) Betty Owen (Morrilton, AR) Rita Penny (Hot Springs, AR) Pat & Jim Phillips (Fittle Rock, AR) Fred Robinson (Mena, AR) Judy Rosenthal (Hot Springs Village, AR) Fred & Carol Stiffler (Fittle Rock, AR) New Life Members Johnnie L. Gentry (Fayetteville, AR) Carolyn Minson (Hot Springs Village, AR) Jean Ann Moles (Benton, AR) We welcome these new members to the ANPS and hope to see them at the Fall Meeting! ANPS members sample the fruit of the southern highbush blueberry (Vaccinium virgatum) near the Alum Fork Saline River on a field trip June 30. Photo by Clint Sowards. 6 PLANT OF THE ISSUE: OZARK SPRING BEAUTY The Ozark spring beauty ( Claytonia ozarkensis Miller & Chambers) was described as a new species in 2006, making it one of the “newest” plants in Arkansas. The plants had been known to Arkansas botanists for years but had been mistaken for disjunct (far-from-home) populations of the Carolina spring beauty 0 Claytonia caroliniana ). As it turns out, however, the Arkansas plants, at least those that grow on bluffs, are this new species. Ozark spring beauty grows in a remarkable habitat - on fairly dry, shaded sandstone bluffs, often under rock overhangs. It roots deep in cracks and crevices in the rock, seemingly in no soil at all. Its leaves are much wider than the common Virginia spring beauty ( Claytonia virginica), which is common throughout the state, even occurring as a lawn “weed” in many areas. C. ozarkensis , on the other hand, is presently known in Arkansas only from Faulkner, Cleburne, and Van Buren Counties, with an old (1955) collection from southern Washington County. It is also known from southern Missouri and eastern Oklahoma, where it is very rare, and nowhere else in the world. One day in late March, I, along with ANPS members John Pelton and Bob Clearwater, accompanied Genevieve Croft and Kate Waselkov (two researchers from Washington University in St. Louis) to three of the known Ozark spring beauty sites in Arkansas. We saw literally thousands of plants at these three sites in Faulkner & Cleburne Counties. As I stood at the base of a bluff studying these beautiful plants, one baffling question kept coming to mind. How in the world do the seeds of this species get into the deep crevices where they germinate and take root? As the members of our little expedition stood around and discussed this, several hypotheses were put forward. “The capsules must explode and sling the seeds in every direction” or “maybe ants or some other bluff-dwelling insect transports the seeds back into the cracks”. . . Yet we didn’t see any signs of ants or other insects around the bluffs and it was hard to imagine seeds getting thrown back into those cracks. So the question remained with me as we left and eventually faded away as more mundane matters took over my brain. Then in late April I took my friend Paul, a botanist from Missouri, to see the plants and I believe we found the answer. In fact, we witnessed one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen in nature. The stems, which had been cascading down from the crevices in March, with the flowers facing out away from the bluffs, were now in full fruit. But the stems had turned around and were stuffing the mature seed capsules back into the bluff! In many cases the capsules had found cracks and crevices in the bluff and were being inserted right into them. We can only assume that the seeds either germinate in the capsule or are deposited in the crevice where they germinate. I am still impressed every time I think about this amazing adaptation to such a challenging and inhospitable habitat. While the species description of the Ozark spring beauty says that the flowers are white (vs. pink or candy striped in C. caroliniana and C. virginica ), a trip to the Arkansas populations will show that, while the average color of the flowers is white to very pale pink, dark pink and candy-striped flowers are not all that uncommon. It should also be pointed out here that there are plants from non-bluff habitats in at least two stations in Pope and Van Buren Counties that key out to Claytonia caroliniana in Miller & Chambers’ key, though they show C. caroliniana only east of the Mississippi River this far south. These plants have only a single bract in their inflorescence (vs. several in C. ozarkensis ), have wide leaves, and often have prominent pink veins in their petals. Further study is needed to determine whether or not these plants are really C. caroliniana, a wide- leaved form of C. virginica, or perhaps a hybrid between C. ozarkensis and C. virginica. As is often the case, there is still a lot to discover about these remarkable native plants. - Theo Witsell Photos by Genevieve Croft. March 2007. 1 BOOK REVIEW NATIVE TREES of the SOUTHEAST L. KATHERINE K1RKMAN, CLAUD L. BROWN and DONALD }, LEOPOLD Native Trees of the Southeast: An Identification Guide , by L. Katherine Kirkman, Claud L. Brown, & Donald J. Leopold. 2007. Timber Press. 370 pages. $34.95 — Review by Eric Sundell Good news: an excellent, shiny new tree book is available for Arkansas naturalists, brought out this year by Timber Press of Portland, Oregon, another of their diverse and beautifully designed botanical books offered to an appreciative but specialized audience. The bad news is that Native Trees of the Southeast has some flaws and especially as ‘an identification guide’ for Arkansas trees some serious limitations. But the good news first. It’s a very attractive book, with bright, sharp color photos, range maps, and full descriptions — and all of them on the same page! — as well as identification keys for summer and winter. The size and weight are perfect for a ‘field- friendly’ manual. The tough, flexible covers — the book is a hybrid between paperback and hard bound — should wear well, and the pages are sewn as well as glued, so unlike those of my treasured and hardbound Carl Hunter Arkansas tree book, they ought to hang together through several years of use. The authors treat 229 species of native southeastern ‘trees’, almost everything except those limited to tropical southern Florida. Classifying borderline things as small trees rather than large shrubs is tricky, but the authors generously give all such species the benefit of the doubt: anything woody over 15 feet tall or 3 inches in diameter makes the cut. Included in the book, for example, are possumhaw, Carolina buckthorn, smoketree, winged and smooth sumac, corkwood, waxmyrtle, bigleaf and American snowbell, bladdernut, and wafer-ash or hoptree. Preparatory to the species treatments that form the body of the book are the necessary amenities of user-friendly manuals: a few words on scientific and common names, instructions on how to use the keys, and a thorough and nicely illustrated section on the structural features used to identify trees. Leaf types and arrangements, leaf shapes, as well as their margins, bases, apices, and venation patterns are illustrated by clear line drawings. Twigs, buds and the runic adornments of lenticels, leaf scars, bundle scars, bud scale scars, twig scars, and stipule scars are similarly illuminated, although the bundle scars are carelessly confused with their leaf scars. (Remember that just as you don’t go birding without binoculars, you don’t go after trees without a hand lens, the tool that lets you make sense of all the information encoded on the twigs in buds and scars.) Solid, diaphragmed, and chambered piths are neatly drawn. (I can see that you’re smiling because you’ve never thought about piths as desiderata for a tree ID book. But have you ever seen black walnut pith?) And maybe most arcane and satisfying, the technical distinctions between prickles, spines, and thorns are accurately described and illustrated. (What? You didn’t know there was more than one way to skin a finger?) Last of the line drawings are the reproductive structures: inflorescences — catkins, cymes, umbels, etc. — and fruit types — legumes, samaras, nuts, drupes, etc. And last of the introductory material, a rather lengthy section on ‘Tree Diversity of Southeastern Forests’ lays out ecological matters: the role of climate, topography, geology, soils, fire, disease, and human impact on the distribution of tree species and vegetation types. The book ends with a glossary, a bibliography (‘references that proved useful in the compilation of the text’), and an index to botanical and common names. The heart of the text — the fine species treatments — is organized alphabetically by family, from maples to elms, Aceraceae to Ulmaceae. Each family is arranged alphabetically by genus: in the Fagaceae, for example, first come the chestnuts ( Castanea ), then beech ( Fagus ), then all the oaks ( Quercus ). To identify your unknown tree, you have two choices — you can picture hunt through 300 pages or you can take a deep breath and plow into the ten page summer key to trees — some 38 genera and 56 species of them, a virtual forest! I recommend the Key. As Mark BOOK REVIEW Twain said of Wagnerian opera, “It’s not as bad as it sounds!” Especially as the authors have made a successful effort to hold down the technical terms. Almost immediately, your path will be directed to one of four subkeys: conifers, trees with simple & opposite leaves, trees with simple & alternate leaves, and trees with compound leaves. Most trees have simple, alternate leaves, so when you find yourself wandering in that key, take along some bread crumbs and scatter them as you work your way forward. You’ll arrive at a genus or a species name to be verified against the pictures and description in the text. If you’ve arrived at the wrong tree — technically the ‘Gingerbread House Syndrome’ — follow the breadcrumbs back through the key and double check the sign posts at each fork in the road. No key is perfect and all keys can be frustrating, even for a seasoned botanist. But this key works pretty well. Most of the road signs are accurate and unambiguous, so if your observations are carefully made, you will, before too long, possess the name of your tree. (I do not entirely agree with the joker who said, “Identification keys are written by people who don’t need them for people who can’t use them.”) For intermediate and advanced students, a nine page “Winter Key to Flowering Trees” follows the summer key: Enter at your own risk! Now that you’ve advanced to the right genus or, even better, the right species, your mood improves. Each family treatment starts with an informative description that includes unifying, diagnostic characteristics and some interesting statistics, namely the number and distribution of genera and species worldwide. The authors note economically important species, including non- residents of the Southeast, and they reveal intriguing and colorful family secrets. For instance, did you know that salicylic acid, used in the production of aspirin, was originally derived from willow bark? Or that Native Americans used buckeyes as fish poison? Genera with two or more species, like ash (5), maple (9), hickory (10), holly (11), and oak (34!), start off with summer and winter keys to species. With a few exceptions, every species receives full coverage: description, discussion, range map, and color photos. There are typically 3-5 wallet-size photos per species that include leaves, flowers, fruits, bark, and twigs; despite their size, the photos are pretty consistently sharp and brilliant, excellent and useful. I have been grumbling only about some of the twig pictures that are just too small to show critical characters like buds and bundle scars clearly. (Detailed line drawings of the twigs would better serve — see, for example, North American Trees, ed. 5 by R. J. Preston, Jr. & R.R. Braham.) Discussion of ‘distinguishing characteristics’ is especially well done and helpful; each species is compared to those it most closely resembles and nicely distinguished from them by an enumeration of critical details. Finally, habitat and economic and wildlife uses are described. Native Trees of the Southeast does have some problems. First, there is the bizarre decision by the authors, announced by the book’s title, to include only native trees. This strategy poses no problem for a user who already knows which trees are native and which are introduced and naturalized. However, for beginners and intermediates who might not already recognize the Devil (Callery pear), or China berry, or tree-of-heaven, or popcorn tree (Chinese tallow), or Siberian elm, or empress tree (paulownia), or white poplar, or trifoliate orange, or paper mulberry, or white mulberry... OK, OK, I’ll stop. True, most of these species are described at the back of the book (but not the Devil or Siberian elm), each with a brief paragraph, but they are not keyed, mapped or illustrated. Many are invasive and among the most common in yards and on roadsides. I can’t think of any logical reason to relegate them to an appendix where they will be far more difficult to identify. To be fair, the authors do not leave you marooned in native red mulberry without a good discussion of the characters that separate it from alien white mulberry. And then there is the curious tale of native species that have extended their range since settlement time — not many, but a few are quite important. Bodark, for instance, is not mapped throughout the Southeast, where the authors observe it has been introduced and gone native, but only from the southwest comer of Arkansas, east Texas and southern Oklahoma. Black locust, another weedy native, is shown missing from all of eastern Arkansas where in fact it is common. (It turns up completely missing on the map from the states of Fouisiana and Mississippi.) Again the authors are not trying to keep any secrets: they state that “black locust is widely planted and naturalized throughout the Piedmont and found occasionally in the Coastal Plain. . .” I believe it would be less confusing to map the entire range of a species and point out intriguing post- settlement range extensions during the discussion. Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida). Photo by John Felton. BOOK REVIEW But things get curiouser. Native Trees of the Southeast sticks strictly to natives but does not stick to the entire Southeast: the region covered by the book extends from Virginia south through northern Florida and west to eastern Texas and eastern Arkansas — namely the Mississippi Valley, Crowley’s Ridge, and most of our Gulf Coastal Plain. If you live in the Ozarks or Ouachitas or in the blackland prairie region of southwest Arkansas, there’s still little reason to worry, because the book’s range maps, fortunately, encompass the entire state, indicating the distribution of species throughout Arkansas. In other words, the explicit omission of western Arkansas from the area covered by the book affects only a few species that are found there but no farther east. Some are rare, some controversial, all are sorely Kentucky coffee tree (Gymnocladus dioica). Photo: John Pelton. missed: Eve’s necklace, western soapberry, Ashe’s juniper, Ozark chinkapin, vernal witch hazel, and maple-leaf oak. The damage is light because most of our plants, and especially our trees, share a floristic affinity with the deciduous forests to the east. The book’s range maps make this connection clear: virtually every species mapped anywhere in Arkansas also occurs east of the Mississippi River and often all the way to the Atlantic Coast. More disappointing to an Arkansas naturalist is the short shrift the Natural State gets generally on the range maps. Magnificent basswood is shown only along our northern border and on Crowley’s ridge, but the trees are common throughout the state. Winsome sweetbay magnolia is shown only at the Louisiana border, but they occur north at least into Hot Spring County in central Arkansas. Swamp cottonwood is mapped only from northeast Arkansas but extends into southeast Arkansas, too. Downy serviceberry and smooth sumac are mapped to the Interior Highlands and Crowley’s Ridge but grow across the whole state. The list goes on: Chickasaw plum, bigleaf snowbell, rusty blackhaw, tag alder, river birch, hornbeam and hophornbeam, and everybody’s favorite, Hercules’ club or toothache tree. Why so many inaccuracies? Apparently author inertia. From the acknowledgments: “The distribution maps are adapted from Volumes 1 and 4 of the Atlas of United States Trees f — which were published more than 30 years ago! When the two lead authors, Kirkman and Brown, “reproduced” from the same source their distribution maps for their 1990 Trees of Georgia and Adjacent States, they were careful to modify some of the maps “to indicate occurrence or extension into Georgia” of several species, documented “by more recent... collections in the University of Georgia Herbarium.” The same checking and updating for Arkansas range distributions could easily have been done here by referring to Ed Smith’s 1988 atlas of Arkansas vascular plants, which is based on voucher collections on file in several state herbaria. Or more conveniently, the authors could have seen those same range distributions on the USD A Plants website, www.plants.usda.gov , where the Arkansas maps are apparently taken directly from Smith’s atlas. And finally there are a few omissions. Where is sandbar willow, an elegant, distinctive, and not at all uncommon species? One of my grand moments of botanical satisfaction came when I finally learned to tell it apart from the much more common black willow that grows beside it inside the Mississippi River levee. Delta post oak, too, has disappeared, but this species is cryptic and controversial enough to be missed only by the most fastidious tree student. Mexican plum, our most common and widespread wild plum of tree stature, is relegated to one sentence distinguishing it from American plum. Northern sugar maple is not recognized for Arkansas, though collections document its occurrence across much of the northwest half of the state. (Of the sugar maple complex, only southern sugar maple and chalk maple are attributed to Arkansas.) None of the numerous, taxonomically aggravating species of hawthorns receive treatment, one solution to their baffling diversity with which no taxonomist can be entirely unsympathetic. And yet. . .surely parsley haw and maybe even mayhaw are distinctive enough to earn a picture and a paragraph. And then there is the Mysterious Case of the Exact Same Map, in which laurel oak ( Quercus laurifolia ) and laurel oak ( Quercus hemispherica ) are given identical geographic ranges — fair enough, if you ask me, for two species whose differences have only recently been appreciated but whose “known” distributions remain hopelessly entangled. So. Can you live with some inadequate range maps and a few other minor shortcomings? If yes, this book is recommended for its otherwise accurate accounts of Arkansas trees, a sturdy, handy, beautifully designed and illustrated field guide. In conjunction with the old workhorse, Carl Hunter’s Trees, Shrubs and Vines of Arkansas, Native Trees of the Southeast can serve very well indeed, with the former providing more helpful information on statewide geographic distributions, while the latter furnishes rigorous keys and detailed descriptions that will allow determination of even the tougher species. Together they comprise a kind of Compleat Arkansas Trees, a perfect guide and companion for your next walk in the woods. 10 ARKAN SAS N ATI V E PLAN T SOa ETY FALL 2007 MEETING OCTOBER 12-1 4, 2007 HOT SPRINGS ARKANSAS This year’s fall meeting will be the second weekend of October. Mark your calendars for the 12 th , 13 th and 14 th , and join the Arkansas Native Plant Society in beautiful Hot Springs, in the heart of the Ouachita Mountains. It promises to be a full weekend of educational opportunities, outdoor adventures, speakers and fun. Learn everything you want to know about Arkansas’ native plants as we walk and learn from the wealth of knowledge in our casual group. LOCATION We will meet in the Meeting Room of the Econo Lodge Motel at 4319 Central Avenue. DIRECTIONS To get there take Central Avenue traveling south through the middle of Hot Springs past Wal-Mart and the Ford dealership, look to the left and you’ll see the Econo Lodge. The address is 4319 Central Avenue, Hot Springs AR 71913. REGISTRATION Registration costs $5.00 and occurs on-site Friday from 5:00 PM on, in the Econo Lodge Meeting Room. At the registration table we'll have sign-up sheets for various field trips throughout the weekend along with handouts, local restaurant recommendations, etc. After registration is a great time for socializing with friends old and new, deciding which events you want to attend or joining friends at a local eatery. ACCOMODATIONS The Econo Lodge is offering ANPS members the discounted rate of $45 per night ($51.08 including tax). Make your reservations immediately to get this special rate at 501-525- 1660. The manager is Vishal Patel. For more information go to www.choicehotels.com or follow the link below: http://www.choicehotels.com/ires/en-US/html/HotelInfo? hotel=AR050&sarea=4259&sname=Hot+Springs&sstate=AR &scountrv=US&sradius=40.22&slat=34.50360107421875&sl on=- 93.05560302734375&schain=E&exp=&scitv=Hot+Springs&s ort=&srp=SSC&nroom= 1 &nadult 1 = 1 &nchild 1 =0&nadult2= 1 &nchild2=0&nadult3= 1 &nchild3=0&nadult4= 1 &nchild4=0& naduk5=l&nchild5=Q&sid=flN7M.J4O70g31Gg.6 AGENDA FRIDAY EVENING OCTOBER 12th NATIVE PLANT AUCTION - FUNDRAISER This year’s event begins at 7PM on Friday evening with our annual native plant auction in the Econo-Lodge Meeting Room. This popular fundraiser is great for those who want grow and culture natives in their own gardens. The informal auction offers plants lovingly grown by our members; these plants have not been taken from their native location unless threatened by habitat destruction. Items such as books, seeds, crafts, homemade jams, garden tools, carved wood items, etc. are often included in the auction. SATURDAY OCTOBER 13th MORNING FIELD TRIPS Join us on Saturday morning for one of several ANPS sponsored outings in the Hot Springs area. Each of the three outings is led by knowledgeable trip leaders familiar with the natives in the region. Outings may be as long as four hours or as brief as one hour and vary in intensity and learning opportunities. You’ll review and register, if you wish, on Friday night for the outing(s) of your choice or you may just show up and join us in the parking lot of the Econo Lodge at 8AM Saturday morning. Groups depart promptly at 8:30 and usually caravan to the destination Option 1; Susie Teague, ANPS Secretary, and Theo Witsell, botanist with the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, will lead a trip to see some interesting habitats in the Hot Springs area. Access is being negotiated to get into some seldom-seen areas. More specific information will be available at the fall meeting. Option 2; Susan Hooks, Botanist for Ouachita National Forest, along with Burnetta Hintertheur, ANPS Scholarship Chair, will lead an informative outing along the wonderfully rich Walnut Creek, from Charlton Rec Area north to Lake Ouachita, deep in the heart of the beautiful Ouachita National Forest. This hike will feature rich woodlands, springs, and seeps along 11 ADDITIONAL LODGING OPTIONS with large numbers of rare species. Option 3: We are planning two outings to Garvan Woodland Gardens, one Saturday morning and one Sunday morning. Each will be lead by President-Elect Linda Chambers and new member, Sandy Davies, who worked at the garden during its inception. Other hikes may also happen! Special Interest: October 12-14 is Garvan Woodland Gardens’ fifth annual plant and landscape sale. Vendors from around the state will offer hundreds of varieties of hard-to-find plants, shrubs, and trees for sale. Contact Garvan for more information on the garden itself at 501-262-9300 or 800-366-4664. http:// www. garvangardens.com info@garvangardens.com AFTERNOON FIELD TRIPS Option 1; Eric Sundell and John Simpson will lead a trip to the Trapp Mountain Preserve south of Hot Springs, a remarkable natural area donated by the Simpson Family to The Nature Conservancy. This trip will feature rugged novaculite glades, seeps, and loads of wildflowers. Option 2; Dr. Daniel L. Marsh, retired botany professor from Henderson State University, has offered to lead a less strenuous, more leisurely walk. Complete information will be available at the Friday night meeting. Other hikes may also happen! EVENING PROGRAM New Buffalo River Findings Dinner is on your own, then at 7PM, back at the Econo Lodge meeting room, we have guest speaker, Mark DePoy from the Forest Service at the Buffalo National River. Mark will present a slide show and share the latest research about populations of native plant species along Arkansas’ only National River. The evening promises to be full of essential and surprising information on this ongoing research; don’t miss this exciting informational opportunity. After a break for refreshments the Society’s business meeting will follow the presenters and the new officers will be presented as they assume their ANPS responsibilities. SUNDAY OCTOBER 14th Option 1. Sunday morning, those who haven’t had their fill of learning, will once again gather at 8:30 in the Econo Lodge parking lot to embark on the field trip of their choice. Two outings will be offered; one of the field trips will be to Garvan Woodland Gardens. Admission is $8 for adults and $7 for seniors. The park opens at 9AM. Option 2. To be announced. Hot Springs offers numerous choices for lodging, including cabins, resorts and B&Bs. Here is a short list of accommodations if you’d like to make your own lodging arrangements: Arlington Resort Hotel 239 Central Avenue 501-623-7771 or 1-800-643-1502 Best Western Stagecoach Inn 2520 Central Avenue 501-624-2531 or 1-800-643-8722 Clarion Resort on the Lake 4813 Central Avenue 501-525-1391 or 1-800-432-5145 Comfort Inn and Suites 3627 Central Avenue 501-623-1700 or 877-682-4442 Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites 4253 Central Ave. 501-520-6400 or 800-465-4329 Campers will find a place to pitch their tents at the following sites: Hot Springs National Park Gulpha Gorge Campground 501-624-3383 (convienient to downtown) Ouachita National Forest - Camp Charlton Recreation 870-867-2101 (beautiful & peaceful) Lake Ouachita State Park 501-767-9366 (pretty regulation campsites at State Park facility) The dotted bee-halm (Mondarda punctata) is one of the summer’s most beautiful wildflowers , with its pink and white bracts and yellow petals with reddish-brown spots. Extremely drought tolerant, this self-seeding annual is an ideal candidate for planting in dry, sandy soil. Photo by Craig Fraiser. Taken near Malvern in Hot Spring County. 12 AN PS SPRI N G 2007 GEN ERAL MEETING MIN UTES Tom and Margaret Beasley’s Farm Greenbrier, AR, March 31, 2007 ANPS President, Brent Baker called meeting to order at 5:30. A motion to accept minutes from the 2006 Fall General Business Meeting as published in the Claytonia was made by Peggy Bums. Theo Witsell seconded the motion. All members accepted. The Treasurer’s Report was handed out to all members. Jerry McGary explained the Operating Fund, Overall Balance, the amount taken in and all expenses. He explained the funds concerning the now closed Northeast Chapter of ANPS. The funds associated with the Northeast Chapter were sent to the U of A at Fayetteville for the Arkansas Vascular Flora Project. He explained the Balance of funds. The total balance included two $8,000.00 CDs earning interest at 5.35% APY. Jerry reported $500 was in the Carl Hunter Memorial Fund and he had taken in an additional $365 the evening before. Brent recapped Maury and Barbara Baker’s Challenge for the Carl Hunter Fund. Everyone applauded the generous offer made by Maury and Barbara. Maury Baker moved to accept the Treasurer’ s Report and Mary Ann King seconded. All members approved. Brent Baker encouraged a big round of applause to Jerry McGary for the great job on the Treasurer’s Report. He also thanked Linda Chambers for arranging a great meeting and he thanked Margaret and Tom Beasley for inviting us to their ranch. Brent explained that the By-laws needed to be revised as to the frequency in publication of the Claytonia. The By-laws state the Claytonia is to be published quarterly. With the expense and limited submissions, it would be better to publish semi- annually instead of the current quarterly publication. The semi-annual publication is working very well. Brent Baker suggested members submit news to the Claytonia in order to make the Claytonia a great publication. He suggested submitting writings about recent hikes, book reviews and small snippets of such. He thanked Theo Witsell for the great job and hard work he had done putting the Claytonia together. Brent encouraged everyone to help with the Claytonia. Theo Witsell made motion to accept this change in the By-laws as were printed in the latest issue of Claytonia. Linda Chambers seconded the motion. Everyone approved. Brent Baker told everyone that Earth Day was set for April 21. Eric Sundell will be manning the booth. He suggested going to the Jewel Moore Dedication at UCA that morning and visiting Eric in the afternoon. Mary Ann King reminded everyone of the Carl Hunter Memorial at Pinnacle Mountain State Park on the 20 of April. Brent Baker also reminded everyone of the Asteraceae Workshop in Conway. It was noted that $100.00 was donated to the Jonesboro kindergarten where Barbara Little-Schoenike had worked. The Library plans to set aside a space for “Books about Plants” in honor of Barbara Little-Schoenike and our donation will be used to buy books for this section of the Library. Burnetta Hinterthuer announced three students, Dulcinea V. Groft, Robert McElderly and Jeremy Whisenhunt, had been recommended by the Scholarship and Awards Committee, to each receive a $500.00 Grant from the Delzie Demaree Research Grant Fund. Brent Baker encouraged everyone to spread the word about our Scholarship/Grant Program. A motion was made to approve the Grants by Bill Shepherd, Maury Baker seconded. All approved. A suggestion was made to invite the Awardees to give a presentation about their research at one of our meetings. Becky Moran made a suggestion for the recipients to write a paper for the Claytonia. A date for the fall meeting was not confirmed. The possible alternate meeting dates given were September 28-30 or October 12-14. When the date is set it will be posted on the ANPS website. Maury Baker reported as of the recent mailing, we have 402 individual members including 97 life members. Brent Baker said we need to give Maury a big round of applause for all the work he had done. Everyone applauded. Eric Sundell reminded everyone about the Arkansas Audubon Halberg Ecology Camp. Information can be found at www.arbirds.org . Brent Baker invited members to write about projects we are working on for the Claytonia. Eric Sundell reported about 2 interesting fungi that were spotted today. We all were given the chance to sample the morel mushroom. Eric reminded everyone about the Mycological Society and anyone interested should contact Jay Justice. At 5:54 PM Jerry McGary made a motion to adjourn, Mary Ann King seconded. Everyone accepted. Respectfully submitted, Susie Teague, Secretary 13 Upcoming Events AN PS AWARDS GRANTS September 22 Glades and Seeps of Brady Mountain — Join Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission Botanist Theo Witsell to discover what fall brings to these rare habitats on Brady Mountain, west of Hot Springs. Participants will get off the beaten path in high-quality shale barrens and wooded seeps. A number of rare species occur at these sites, including many species endemic to the Ouachita Mountains, so we’re bound to see something good. Emphasis will be on composites, shrubs, and ferns. Bring boots or shoes that can get wet (for the seeps and creeks). Limit 20 people. Call Theo at 501.831.7473 to reserve a spot. September 29 Fourche Mountains & Winona Scenic Drive — Join Ouachita National Forest Botanist Susan Hooks for a tour of the rugged Fourche Mountains north of Lake Winona. Meet at the Paron Baptist Church at the junction of Highway 9 and Kanis Road at 9:00 AM. Call Susan for more information at 501.321.5323. October 6 & 7 The Arkansas Audubon Society will be giving their annual Arkansas Ecology Adult Workshops at Ferncliff Conference Center. Arkansas Ferns (taught by our very own Don Crank, past president of ANPS), Arkansas Geology taught again by UAM prof Jim Edson, and Eric Sundell's famous Tree I.D. workshop for beginners and intermediates. Folks interested should contact lindachamb3rs@yahoo.com, who is in charge of reservations. October 12-14 ANPS FALL MEETING IN HOT SPRINGS!!! More info this issue! November 3 Pinnacle Mountain State Park — Eric Sundell will lead a hike to explore areas at the base of Pinnacle Mountain and along the Little Maumelle River. Highlights include old-growth baldcypress trees in the 500-600 year old range as well as a wide variety of trees and shrubs. Meet at the Kingfisher Trail trailhead, which is in the main day use area off of Highway 300, just south of the mountain. Call Eric for more information at 870.723.1089 Announcements The Ouachita Chapter of the ANPS, which had become inactive in recent years, is starting up again. Loose, but determined plans were made by participants at the June 30 trip to the Alum Fork, who agreed that the Ouachitas are too botanically interesting and important to NOT have a chapter. Contact the editor for more information or watch the pages of the Claytonia. This spring, the ANPS awarded three $500 Delzie Demaree Research Grants to Arkansas students. Three applications were received and reviewed by the Scholarship and Awards Committee (Burnetta Hinterthuer - Chair, Eric Sundell, George Johnson, and Brent Baker). All three were approved by the Committee, Executive Board, and the General Membership. Dulcinea Groff, a senior biology student at the University of Central Arkansas, was awarded a scholarship to assist in her research analyzing introgressive hybridization of Erigeron strigosus (daisy fleabane) apomictic (asexually reproducing via seeds) complexes with sexual endemic populations of Arkansas cedar glades. Her research will provide a better understanding of how the hybridizations with the more weedy apomictic Erigeron plants are affecting the populations of the unique glade Erigeron plants. Dulcinea is working under the direction of Dr. Rick Noyes. Robert McElderry, a Master’s student at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, was awarded a scholarship to assist in his research on the endemic Ouachita Mountain goldenrod, Solidago ouachitensis. Robert is studying the population demographics and ecology of this relatively rare plant in order to provide resource managers with data to assist in the conservation of this species. Jeremy Whisenhunt, also a Master’ s student at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, was awarded a scholarship to assist in his research on the non-native and invasive Japanese stiltgrass, Microstegium vimineum. Jeremy is collecting data on the distribution of stiltgrass within Arkansas and studying its competitiveness with our native vegetation. Both Robert and Jeremy are working under the direction of Dr. Johnnie Gentry. The ANPS awards scholarships and grants on an annual basis to deserving students of Arkansas botany. The Aileen McWilliam Scholarship honors a respected Arkansas biology teacher, botanist, author, and naturalist. This scholarship is partially supported by the Annual ANPS Plant Auction. The Delzie Demaree Research Grant honors a world renowned Arkansas botanist and plant taxonomist. This fund is partially supported by Contributing and Life Memberships. Both funds are also partially supported by donations. If you would like to make a donation to one or both of these funds, please send them to the Treasurer, Jerry McGary (address listed in the Directory, or contact via phone or email listed on the back page of this issue to make arrangements). Please write on the check or send a note explaining which fund the donation is for. Those who dwell , as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. -Rachel Carson 14 In pursuing 501(c)3 [non-profit, tax exempt] status for ANPS, it was discovered that in order to be eligible for this status, we must have a “dissolution” plan. In other words, if the Society was to dissolve at some point in the future, we need to have a plan for the allocation of the Society’s remaining funds that would meet the requirements for a non-profit, tax exempt or- ganization. Basically, we need to state within the Bylaws that the funds would be used for exempt purposes. This is to ensure that no member of the Society would benefit financially from monies that were originally designated for charitable, educa- tional, and/or scientific purposes. To this end, the following addition to the Bylaws has been proposed by the Executive Board and is being submitted for a general membership vote at the Fall Business meeting in October: “Article X - DISSOLUTION Section 1. Upon the dissolution of the Arkansas Native Plant Society, all remaining assets shall be distributed for charitable, educational, and/or scientific purposes to one or more exempt allied organi- zations, the designations of which will be at the discretion of the Executive Board at the time of dissolution.” ANPS Secretary Susie Teague, in addition to being an excellent photographer and plant hunter, is quite an artist. She designed this logo which has been adopted by the Board. Thanks for all your hard work Susie! Arkansas Native Plant Society Membership Application Please check the appropriate box below. Membership Categories: $10 Student $15 Regular $20 Supporting $25 Family Membership $30 Contributing $150... Lifetime Membership (55 and over) $300. . . Lifetime Membership (under 55) New Member Renewal Please make checks payable A j j ^ to “Arkansas Native Plant _ Address Change society”. NAME(S) ADDRESS: Street or Box City State Zip Code Telephone - - Email address Please cut and send this form along with any dues to: Maury Baker, Membership ANPS 29 Pandilla Way Hot Springs Village, AR 71909-7121 15 Please check your mailing label! If your mailing label has an 06 or earlier it is time to renew! Life members will have an LF. Please fill in the information form on the opposite side of this page and send it with your renewals, applications for membership, changes of name, address, email, or telephone numbers to the address given on the form: [Not to the editor]. Thank you. PLEASE SEND SUBMISSIONS/ SUGGESTIONS TO: 219 Beechwood St. / Little Rock, AR 72205 anpsdaytonia@yahoo.com 2007 ANPS OFFICERS President Secretary Brent Baker Susie Teague btb2001@hotmail.com cedarcreekns@sbcglobal.net 479.970.9143 501.262.9695 President Elect Awards & Scholarships Linda Chambers Burnetta Hinterthuer Lindachamb3 er s @ yahoo .com bhintert @ n wacc . edu 501.952.0112 479.582.0317 Vice President Membership Chair Staria Vanderpool Maury Baker s vand@ astate . edu mbbaker@suddenlink.net 870.972.3082 501.922.6077 Treasurer Editor Jerry McGary Theo Witsell Jlmac 1216(3) aol.com anpsclaytonia@yahoo.com 479.646.4180 501.614.8465 The purpose of the Arkansas Native Plant Society is to promote the preservation, conservation, and study of the wild plants and vegetation of Arkansas, the education of the publicto the value of the native flora and its habitat, and the publication of related information. CLAYTONIA Theo Witsell, Editor 219 Beechwood St. Little Rock, AR 72205 anpsclaytonia@yahoo.com Newsletter of the Arkansas Native Plant Society— Fall / Winter 2007 AVAI LABLE ON U N E I N FULL COLOR AT www.anps.org