Winter 2014

Vol. 33, No. 5
ISSN 1085-9632

http://www.vnps.org

A publication of the VIRGINIA NATIVE PLANT
Conserving wild flowers and wild places

Society opposes natural gas pipelines across state

Since this summer, natural gas
pipelines have been grabbing head-
lines in Virginia. At issue is that some
people see natural gas as a cleaner al-
ternative to traditional, coal-burning
electricity-generating facilities and that
new technology has allowed energy
extraction companies to free large
quantities of natural gas trapped miles
underground. Most of these potentially
profitable natural gas reserves lie deep
within layers of Marcellus shale un-
derneath much of West Virginia, west-
ern Pennsylvania, and western Vir-
ginia. Natural gas customers, on the
other hand, are along the coast of Mary-
land, Virginia, and North Carolina.
Logistically, then, the problem be-
comes how to transport billions of
cubic feet of natural gas from the
fracking wells to customers.

To make money, gas supplies must
be connected with customers, even
customers overseas. Many, including
the governors of Virginia and West
Virginia, have decided that pipeline
projects are the answer, with a
fracking boom in the Allegheny Moun-
tains extracting and processing natu-
ral gas so quickly that there is a glut
on the market. Three proposed inter-
state pipelines would cross Virginia.
The Western Marcellus Pipeline, the
Mountain Valley Pipeline, and the
Atlantic Coast Pipeline are in various
stages of planning. The latter two are
in the prefiling stages with the Fed-
eral Energy Regulatory Commission
and have been endorsed by Governor
Terry Me Auliffe.

Of the three, the 550-mile, 42-inch,
high-pressure Atlantic Coast Pipeline

proposed by Dominion Resources
and three other energy partners is
probably the most worrisome and the
one that poses the most substantial
threat to the natural resources of West

(See Pipelines , page 3)

A cow knob salamander peers out
from leaf litter on Shenandoah
Mountain. The salamander lives in
the path of a proposed natural gas
pipeline. (Photo by Malika Davis)

Newly released GW forest plan lauded by conservationists

After years of anxious waiting for
the release of the George Washington
National Forest management plan,
the document was finally released
Nov. 18, with results that mostly
pleased environmental groups and
community governments throughout
the region.

Perhaps the biggest praise for the
document revolved around the fact
that the plan makes the 1.2-million-
acre national forest off-limits for oil
and gas drilling, except for a small

portion of the forest already under
gas lease (10,000 acres) or subject to
private mineral rights (167,000
acres). Because of their legal status,
those 177,000 acres were never a part
of the consideration on whether or
not energy development would be
allowed in the forest.

The George Washington Na-
tional Forest is the largest national
forest in the eastern United States
and is used recreationally by more
than a million people a year. Com-

prising the headwaters for the lames,
Shenandoah, and Potomac rivers, it
also protects the direct drinking water
supplies for approximately 329,000
people in the Shenandoah Valley and,
indirectly, more than 4.5 million
people. Much of the forest watershed
provides drinking water to Washing-
ton and Richmond, and the rivers it
feeds enter the Chesapeake Bay.

The forest is known for its biologi-
cal diversity. Within the forest are 40

(See GW Forest Plan , page 6)

See the Society's Annual Meeting highlights, pages 4-5.

Bulletin of the Virginia Native Plant Society

From the president

Annual Meeting provided enjoyment

W hat a fabulous weekend we had at the Beach for the
annual meeting hosted by our South Hampton Roads
Chapter! Many thanks go to Kathleen and Steve Stasulis, Beth
Richardson, Brenda Radford, and all the field trip leaders,
speakers, and volunteers for this successful meeting. The
weather was lovely, and Virginia Beach's Zone 8a climate en-
sured that there were plenty of blooms well into October. In
keeping with the theme of "It's the Water," our base hotel pro-
vided a magnificent view of the Chesapeake Bay and the Chesa-
peake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Most all of the field trips featured
water — the ocean, bays, rivers, swamps and lakes.

Harry and I were fortunate to enjoy three days' worth of
field trips. While the annual meeting is usually limited to just
lVi-2 days of field trips, this year we decided to add another
day for those we could accommodate. Who knew there would
be such demand that we had to limit participation? We were
aware that some trips would be very popular, so by offering
them twice, we thought that more people would be able to
take advantage of the opportunities.

A visit to False Cape State Park had been on my to-do list
for some time, and having naturalist Vickie Shufer and our
commonwealth's eminent vegetation ecologist Gary Fleming
to lead was a rare treat. It's a challenge just to enter the park
with its limited access through Back Bay National Wildlife
Preserve, so our tour group was constrained by the capacity
of the Terra Gator, our transport into the park. Some of my
personal highlights were colonies of ladies' tresses
(Spiranthes cernua var. odorata ), delicate meadow beauty
( Rhexia nashii ), a gorgeous specimen of beautyberry
( Callicarpa americana ), tiny sundews, and magnificent live
oaks ( Quercus virginiana ) with Spanish moss ( Tillandsia
usneoides). And what about those seaside goldenrods, ( Sol -
idago sempervirens ), with their bright-yellow blossoms
decorating the dunes! I also enjoyed eating the ripe acorns
of live oaks and delectable muscadine grapes. Our charm-
ing lunch spot was the porch of the Wash Woods Environ-
mental Education Center at the end of a peninsula with
lovely views of the water.

Saturday we stayed close to the hotel by visiting Virginia's
most popular state park. First Landing, originally known as

Seashore State Park, near Cape Henry. Its botanical distinc-
tion is that it is the northernmost East Coast location where
subtropical and temperate plants can be found growing to-
gether. Forester Mike Aherron and Chapter President Beth
Richardson led our tour of this enchanting park, with board-
walks through incredible bald cypress swamps and trails
through maritime forests. Groundcovers of Indian pipe
(Monotropa uniflora ) and partridge berry ( Mitchella repens)
were prolific. While this park is well used, it is still amazing
to me that many tourists to the boardwalk area of Virginia
Beach are unaware of this gem.

Sunday's trip to the Great Dismal Swamp allowed me
to check off another must-see site in Virginia. I wasn't quite
sure what to expect at this famous swamp, but it was dif-
ferent from anything that I had envisioned. Since there
was no conflict with any hunting on Sunday, we were able
to take the auto tour route through the main railroad ditch
to Lake Drummond. Far from appearing swampy and wet
to my untrained eyes, the forest simply seemed green. But
the ground was deep peat. Fires in recent years burned a
long time underground and produced thick smoke in
the nearby Hampton Roads area. The Atlantic white-
cedar ( Chamae -

cyparis thyoides ) was adversely affected by the fires, but
the refuge staff is seeking to return it to its former promi-
nence. The ditches were full of botanical treasures, with bril-
liant blue gentians eliciting a lot of interest. It was difficult
to botanize from our caravan of cars, but we were able to
stop a few times along the way to Lake Drummond. In
addition to botanical discoveries, we learned that the
swamp had a fascinating cultural history and was home
to Maroons, or escaped slaves, and was an important stop
on the Underground Railroad. Lovely Lake Drummond,
one of only two natural lakes in Virginia (the other being
Mountain Lake), was our breezy lunch stop. A shallow
(about 4 feet), dark-colored lake, it is rich in tannins. Though
we saw no eagles on our visit, we did spy an eagle nest
high in a tree on the other side of the lake.

At our annual business meeting, we voted in some new
members of our board of directors, John Magee as Horticul-
ture Chair, and Charles Smith as Registry Co-chair, and wish
them much success. We bid adieu to Kim Strader, who served
three terms as Horticulture Chair, and thank her for her
service for those nine years! She maintained the native plant
nursery source list and fielded questions about growing
natives. We also thank John Dodge, an amazing field bota-
nist and a true gentleman, for his years of service as Regis-
try Co-Chair as he steps off the board.

Our annual meeting is always a treat and, besides en-
riching our botanical knowledge, affords us a chance to
interact with fellow botanical enthusiasts from around the
commonwealth. Please consider attending next year 's meet-

Your president, Nancy Vehrs

Winter 2014

Page 2

Bulletin of the Virginia Native Plant Society

Front your Natural Heritage Program

How we determine a plant’s status for protection

Our last contribution to this news-
letter talked about some of our major
conservation initiatives. The heart
and soul of these initiatives and all of
our work here at the Virginia Natural
Heritage Program is the protection of
natural heritage resources, defined in
the Code of Virginia as the habitat of
rare, threatened, or endangered plant
and animal species, rare or state sig-
nificant natural communities, and
similar features of scientific interest
benefiting the welfare of the citizens
of the commonwealth. Natural heri-
tage resources and their ranks drive
all our work, from inventory to stew-
ardship and everything in between.
Your first question, and one I've been
asked for the past 34 years, may be
"How do you know what native plants
are rare and included as natural heri-
tage resources?" Let's talk about that!

Our first step, and one repeated
across the natural heritage network
in various forms, is to gather a list of
all plants, and we have done this
over the years with guidance from the
(now digital) Adas of the Virginia
Flora , a fantastic resource found here:
http: / / www.vaplantatlas.org/ . The
Atlas, more than 30 years in the mak-
ing, maps the counties of occurrence
for all native and naturalized vas-
cular plants. A consortium of most
of Virginia's best professional and
amateur botanists known as the Vir-
ginia Botanical Associates has de-
veloped and maintains this incred-
ible work in progress. Since 1986,
our staff botanists (we have had
only four: Gary Rouse, 1986-1988;

•Pipelines

(Continued from page 1)

Virginia and Virginia. Construction
will require a temporary right-of-way
of as much as 150 feet to allow digging
of a 10-foot-deep trench to lay the pipe,
followed by a 75-foot permanent right-
of-way. This broad scar in the land-
scape will cut through the
Monongahela and George Washington

Chris Ludwig, 1988-1997; Steve
Killifer 1998-2001; and Johnny
Townsend 2001-present) have used
the list and counties of occurrences
from the Atlas to look for plants that
are native and possibly rare.

If the rarity of a species identi-
fied from the Atlas is supported by
the literature and our botanist's ex-
perience, the plant is added to the
rare plant list maintained by the
Natural Heritage Program (find it
here: http:/ / www.dcr.virginia.gov/
n a tu r a l_heritage/ documents/
plantlistl4.pdf). As you review the list,
you will notice two codes that tell the
story of a plant's biological status, the
G (global) and S (state) ranks. They
work the same way; they are a scale
of rarity or endangerment from 1 (rar-
est and most imperiled) to 5 (common
to abundant and secure). If a species
has a rank of 1, it is usually believed
to occur only at 1-5 sites; 2 at 6-20
sites; 3 at 20-100 sites; 4 at 100-1,000
sites; and 5 at more than 1,000 sites.
Other factors are considered such as
population trend, sensitivity to distur-
bance, number of populations perma-
nently protected and managed, and
habitat imperilment; these may in-
crease or decrease a species' rank. In
addition to the 1-5 rankings, follow-
ing the G and S, a few other codes are
occasionally used such as H (historic)
or X (extirpated). This same ranking
system, developed and maintained by
Nature Serve, is used by all 82 mem-
ber natural heritage programs.

So consider the red maple ( Acer
rubrum). It is a G5 plant, meaning that

national forests, cross the Blue
Ridge Parkway and the Appala-
chian Trail, cut through karst forma-
tions in Highland and Augusta
counties, cut through the headwa-
ters of the James, Shenandoah, and
the Potomac rivers, go up and over
eight peaks of 3,000 feet or more in
Highland County, and cross the his-
toric James River in Nelson County

it is common and secure globally; it is
also an S5 species, common and se-
cure in Virginia. How about the beau-
tiful white trout lily ( Erythonium
albidum )? This is also a G5, but an S2,
with only about a dozen sites in the
state, along the Potomac and its major
tributaries. Sometimes we use hybrid
ranks. For example, Rand's goldenrod
(Solidago randii ) has a state rank of
S2S3 — it straddles the line between S2
and S3, with about 20 sites, many but
not all of which are protected and se-
cure. Almost every winter, we revise
the rare plant list as our understand-
ing of Virginia's native plants and
their status evolves.

As you look at our current rare
plant list with its 613 plant taxa, you
will notice that it doesn't have any
S3, S4 or S5 species. These plant spe-
cies are too common to be considered
rare, although we do keep our S3
plants on a watch list and keep tabs
on their status. That still leaves us
with the 613 rare plant taxa, and for
every one of these plants we have
mapped all populations that we
know of in the commonwealth. These
populations and their habitats make
up a large portion of our natural heri-
tage resources. Everything we do,
from buying land, advising landown-
ers, reviewing projects, encouraging
our conservation partners, and man-
aging our lands, is done with regard
to our rare plant sites, the locations
of our other mapped natural heritage
resources (animals and communi-
ties) and their ranks.

— Tom Smith , director ;

Virginia Natural Heritage Program

as well as hundreds of other smaller
rivers, creeks, and wetlands. Many
of the streams harbor some of the best
native trout populations in Virginia.
The permanently cleared easement
will open up a major pathway for
invasive plant and animal species,
thus affecting many unique and spe-
cial habitats.

(See Pipeline concerns , page 6)

Winter 2014

Page 3

Bulletin of the Virginia Native Plant Society

Annual Meeting

Coastal landscapes provide treat for visitors

There are many different experi-
ences at each annual meeting, since we
all head out on different field trips, with
different leaders and destinations. It is
usually hard to decide among the in-
teresting places that every chapter is
able to show us. This year instead of
two great field trips, some of us were
lucky enough to have three.

My first day was spent at False
Cape State Park, one of the more inac-
cessible state parks I've been to, so I
really appreciated being on this tour.
We rode through Back Bay Wildlife
Refuge on an open bus, while our lead-
ers, Gary Fleming and Vickie Shufer,
told us a little about the place we were
headed to and pointed out dense,
showy patches of the smooth bur-mari-
gold (Bidens laevis). Before I took a step
from the visitor center, I was seeing
new plants, Spanish dagger ( Yucca
aloifolia ) in its northernmost location
and grass-leaved golden-aster (Pity-
opsis gramini folia), very common but
not to this out-of-towner. We walked
through a maritime forest and then
dunes with live oak ( Quercus
virginiana) embedded in sand so that
they looked like shrubs, finally reach-
ing the last row of dunes with sea oats
( Uniola paniculata) and blooming sea-
side goldenrod ( Solidago semper-
virens). We found bobcat tracks among
the ghost crab holes and skate egg
cases, stopped by an interesting
interdune swale, and then admired
some sundews ( Drosera intermedia ) on
the return path. After lunch we visited
a maritime bog and saw a coyote,
though I missed the cottonmouths seen
by others.

The following day we took a beau-
tiful trail through First Landing State
Park, with Mike Adhern and Beth
Richardson leading. The trail was part
boardwalk that traversed a bald cy-
press ( Taxodium distichum ) and tu-
pelo ( Nyssa aquatica) swamp and part
forested dunes with pines and mixed
hardwoods. The swamps were lovely,
with red leaves on the tupelo and Span-
ish-moss ( Tillandsia usneoides) sway-
Page 4

ing from the branches. A couple of trees
were decorated with resurrection fern
(Pleopeltis polypodioides ). Along the
sandy paths, we saw many Indian
pipes ( Monotropa uniflora ) in both
pink and white, netted chain fern
( Woodwardia areolata) and shrubs
typical of these coastal forests like red
bay (Persea palustris ) and devilwood
( Cartrema americana, formerly
Osmanthus americanus). Another in-
teresting plant was the small or switch
cane ( Arundinaria tecta).

On my final day, we took a car tour
through part of the Great Dismal
Swamp with leader Penny Lazauskas.
Right away we found Catesby's gen-
tian ( Gentiana catesbaei) in clusters in
the ditches along the road. We took a
brief walk through a swamp chestnut
oak (Quercus michauxii) grove with an
understory of sweet pepperbush
( Clethra alnifolia). Another trail led to
a 900-year-old bald cypress, and we
also saw several ferns and a bladder-
wort growing below a bridge. We could
not get to the plant to find out which
one it was. The trip continued to Lake
Drummond, and while it was beauti-

ful, there was a fierce, cold wind, and
we shivered through our picnic. The
road to the lake passed through an area
that has burned twice in recent years
and is now open ground. Interestingly,
the peat had burned, and the toppled
trees were burned at the roots rather
than their tops. The wood that lay in
the ditch provided good spots for
turtle sunning.

It is quite a treat for me to see these
landscapes, since I live in the northwest-
ern corner of the state, many hours'
drive from these interesting locations.
And as always, seeing many of you is a
great pleasure of our meetings. The din-
ners on Friday and Saturday were tasty,
and the talks that followed them high-
lighted some good progress that has
been made in involving residents in
water issues and improving the qual-
ity of the water in the coastal streams
and the Chesapeake Bay. Many thanks
to Steve and Kathleen Stasulis, Chap-
ter President Beth Richardson, and all
who helped with this year's VNPS
Annual Meeting in Virginia Beach.

— Sally Anderson, VNPS 2nd Vice President

Winter 2014

Bulletin of the Virginia Native Plant Society

Coastal
habitats
showcased at
Annual
Meeting

Page 5

Winter 2014

Bulletin of the Virginia Native Plant Society

•GW Forest Plan

(Continued from page 1)

species of trees, 2,000 species of
shrubs and herbaceous plants, 78
species of amphibians and reptiles,
200 species of birds, 100 species of
freshwater fishes and mussels, and
60 species of mammals. There are 53
species of federally listed threatened
or endangered plant and animal spe-
cies. The forest has 2,340 miles of
perennial streams.

Three years ago the U.S. Forest
Service released a draft plan that pro-
posed prohibiting horizontal gas
drilling (fracking) but still made most
of the forest available for vertical
drilling. Even though the draft would
have allowed the continuation of ver-
tical drilling, some energy groups
called foul on the proposed ban on
horizontal drilling, claiming this
would set what they perceived to be
a bad precedent. On the opposite side
of that, however, the threat of open-
ing the forest up to wide-scale, indus-
trialized drilling raised concerns
from 75,000 citizens, community
groups, U.S. senators Tim Kaine and
Mark Warner, as well as 11 local gov-
ernments. In the end, the Forest Ser-
vice listened to the citizens and the
communities surrounding the forest
and banned not only horizontal drill-
ing, but vertical drilling as well.

"This decision protects the exist-
ing uses and values of the special
George Washington National For-
est," said Sarah Francisco, senior at-
torney with the Southern Environ-
mental Law Center. "As a native Vir-
ginian who grew up in the Shenan-
doah Valley, I'm pleased that the U.S.
Forest Service has done the right thing
and recognized that the George Wash-
ington National Forest — a beloved
place for our entire region — deserves
protection."

The release of the new forest
management plan stating unequivo-
cally that the George Washington
National Forest is off-limits to indus-
trialized energy development calls
into question the compatibility of
Dominion's proposed 550-mile, 42-
inch high pressure natural gas line
that would cross the forest in High-
Page 6

land, Augusta, and Nelson counties.
(See related article.)

Making the forest off-limits to en-
ergy development was not the only
cause for cheering from environmen-
talists with the recent release of the
plan. The plan also officially recom-
mends that Congress begin working
on legislation to authorize the pro-
posed 90,000-acre Shenandoah
Mountain area as a National Scenic
Area. Such a recommendation is the
necessary first step in what could be
a long process in permanently pro-
tecting the largest, most
unfragmented tract of national for-
est land east of the Mississippi River.
Finally, the plan recommends an ex-
pansion of the Ramsey's Draft Wil-
derness to the north and east and a
new 9,500-acre Little River Wilder-
ness in the center of the National Sce-
nic Area.

The Shenandoah Mountain pro-
posal, now officially endorsed by the
Forest Service, was developed after
years of collaboration from a variety
of groups. Those diverse national for-
est stakeholder groups found com-
mon ground and forged an unprec-
edented agreement that recognizes
the importance of all that is special
about Shenandoah Mountain and
several other special wild areas.

(Continued from page 3)

Perhaps the biggest concern to
those who work to protect the natural
areas are the many miles of pipeline
that would cross national forest land
in Highland, Augusta, and Nelson
counties. In a nine-page letter to the
supervisor of the George Washington
National Forest, Greg Buppert, a se-
nior attorney with the Southern Envi-
ronmental Law Center, expressed his
firm's "grave concerns" over the pro-
posed route, noting that "the mature,
undeveloped forests in this area make
[the pipeline] fundamentally incom-
patible with a major infrastructure de-
velopment project."

Groups that don't ordinarily work
together and that are often in oppo-
sition, were able to come together,
compromise, and support each
other's goals for how the George
Washington National Forest should
be managed. This unusual collabo-
ration resulted in an agreement
signed by 14 groups that was sub-
mitted to the forest planners as joint
comments on the draft management
plan in October 2011.

The stakeholders' agreement,
among the first of its kind in the east-
ern United States, would protect
90,000 acres of Shenandoah Moun-
tain as a combination of National
Scenic Area and Wilderness, Beech
Lick Knob as Wilderness, and add
several additions to existing Wilder-
ness areas. It espouses large-scale
landscape planning using a "tiers of
management" approach.

Although environmental and
conservation groups are generally
pleased with the new plan, some
groups, like Wild Virginia, worry
about the amount of timber produc-
tion that will be allowed under the
new plan. Such timber management
practices could affect threatened spe-
cies such as the endangered Indiana
bat that would lose 23,000 acres of
potential habitat.

— Nancy Sorrells, VNPS Bulletin Editor

An important concern is that the
proposed route would cross through the
southern portion of the Shenandoah
Mountain area recently accepted into the
George Washington National Forest
Management Plan. The construction
corridor would specifically endanger
the Cow Knob salamander, mentioned
in Buppert's letter, likely causing the
death of salamanders, fragment the
salamander habitat, and violate the
1994 Cow Knob salamander conserva-
tion agreement that permanently pro-
tects the salamander and its habitat.
This species of salamander is found
only here.

(See Pipeline path , page 9)

Winter 2014

•Pipeline concerns

Bulletin of the Virginia Native Plant Society

’Peppermint flowers’ bloom in Leopold's new book!

Susan Leopold's children's
book about spring ephemerals and
Virginia botany is now available!
Isabella 's Peppermint Flowers takes
us on a journey in nature with a
woman and her two young daugh-
ters, Isabella and little Flora May.
Every spring they go walking on
their farm to look for the wildflow-
ers that bloom so beautifully and
then disappear for another year.
Foremost among these is, of course.
Spring Beauty, which reminds the
girls of peppermint candy. The "pep-
permint flowers" are the girls' ticket
to John Clayton and Mark Catesby,
field work and nature journaling,
American Indians and early botany,
ants and elaisomes, and pollinators.

In 2011 Leopold received a Ph.D.
in environmental studies from
Antioch University. With a disserta-
tion titled Dormant Ethnobotany: A
Case Study of Decline in Regional
Plant Knowledge in the Bull Run
Mountains of Virginia , she did not
have to make a great leap to get to
Isabella. "The idea came to me one
day as I was driving to the library

where I worked at the time," she
said. The botanizing takes place
at Fiery Run Farm, and "Fiery
Run is a stream that runs
through our property," where
Leopold lives in Fauquier
County with her two daughters
(named, you guessed it, Isabella
and Flora May!).

But the story goes further, of-
fering information for use in the
classroom and meeting Virginia
standards of learning. "The
book is especially targeted to the
fourth grade," Leopold said,

"and it has related SOL compo-
nents, with quotes from historic
texts, Virginia history, drawing,
and plants." But it's also clear
that Isabella and Flora May do
not suffer from nature deficit dis-
order, a syndrome identified by Ri-
chard Louv in his best-selling Last
Child in the Woods. So teachers (and
parents) can also use the book to en-
courage a sense of wonder regarding
nature, a more involving way to learn.

Added information is provided
in a thorough glossary, which will be

helpful to the young reader, because
Leopold doesn't shy away from im-
portant botanical terms. And good for
her! Words defined in the glossary —
like elaisome and spring ephemeral —
are printed in red in the text.

The book was several years in the
making, and Leopold worked it in

See the address label for your membership expiration date

VNPS Membership /Renewal Form

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Address

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Family $40 Associate (groups) $40*

Patron $50 Sustaining $100

Life $500

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To give a gift membership or join additional chapters: Enclose dues, name, address, and
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Make check payable to VNPS and mail to:

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Boyce, VA 22620

Membership dues are tax deductible in the amount they exceed $5. Contributions are tax deductible in accordance with IRS regulations.

(See Peppermint , page 8)

The Bulletin

ISSN 1085-9632
is published five times a year
(Feb., April, June, August, Nov.)
by the

Virginia Native Plant Society

Blandy Experimental Farm
400 Blandy Farm Lane, Unit 2
Boyce, VA 22620
(540) 837-1600

vnpsofc@shentel.net

www.vnps.org

Nancy Vehrs, President
Nancy Sorrells, Editor

Original material contained in the Bulletin may be
reprinted, provided credit is given to VNPS and the
author, if named. Readers are invited to send letters,
news items, or original articles for the editor's con-
sideration. Items should be typed, on disk in Microsoft
Word or e-mailed to: Editor, 3419 Cold Springs Rd.,
Greenville, VA24440, or lotswife@comcast.net
The deadline for the next issue is Jan. 5, 2015.

Winter 2014

Page 7

Bulletin of the Virginia Native Plant Society

Fire Pink

Catesby's Trillium

Grea t Smoky Mountains trip in April

Have vou been longing to see r>ptMlc ar p not wt avails

you been longing
the fabulous spring wildflowers in
the Great Smoky Mountains? By
popular demand, the Virginia Na-
tive Plant Society will reprise its
2013 trip with its five-day foray the
week of April 12, 2015. Organized
and led by Sally Anderson and
Betty and Butch Kelly, the trip will
be limited to 22 participants. At least
five species of trillium, carpets of
fringed phacelia ( Phacelia

fimbriata), fire pinks ( Silene
virginica ), Fraser's sedge ( Carex
fraseriana ) and much, much more
will delight you with their blooms.

Details are not yet available, but
if you would like to be placed on a
list to be notified as soon as they
are, please send a note to
vnpsofc@shentel.net.

Purple Phacelia

Visit high-elevation
habitat at Virginia's
Mountain Lake

Johnny Townsend, staff bota-
nist, at the Virginia Division of Natu-
ral Heritage and VNPS board mem-
ber, will lead a two-day visit to the
Mountain Lake area on July 31 and
August 1. One of Virginia's two
natural lakes. Mountain Lake is sur-
rounded by thousands of acres of
forest and is located in north Giles
County at an elevation above 3,800
feet. The region's diverse topogra-
phy influences sharp ecological gra-
dients including a wealth of differ-
ent habitats ranging from ridge tops
to saturated bogs and waterfalls.
Among the many interesting plants
we could see is Bentley's coralroot,
Corallorhiza bentleyi, a very rare or-
chid. Space will be limited, with reg-
istration likely occurring in early or
mid-May. More information will fol-
low in future newsletters.

•Peppermint

(Continued from page 7)

alongside her day job. She is execu-
tive director of United Plant Savers
(united plantsavers.org), whose mis-
sion is "to protect native medicinal
plants of the United States and
Canada and their native habitat
while ensuring an abundant renew-
able supply of medicinal plants for
generations to come," as its website

VIRGINIA NATIVE
PLANT SOCIETY

reads. Nicky Staunton, former presi-
dent of the Virginia Native Plant Soci-
ety, illustrated the book with lovely wa-
tercolors. Marion Lobstein, a charter
member of the VNPS and professor
emerita at Northern Virginia Commu-
nity College, Manassas, was science
adviser. I provided editorial assistance.

Order Isabella's Peppermint
Flowers for $18 at floraforkids.com.
Profits (about $5 per copy) will be
donated to the Flora of Virginia
Project. As Leopold writes in her
epilogue, "This story became a vi-
sion to plant a seed, a children's
book that could be a spark to teach
the basics of botany, this historical
context of botanical pioneers in the
state of Virginia, and to highlight the
role of one single native plant in the
ecosystem." It promises to be just
such a spark.

— Bland Crowder

mint Flowers by Nicky Staunton.

The view from Shenandoah Mountain looking west across the Allegheny Mountains where the pipeline will cross.
Many worry that building a pipeline across these steep mountain slopes will create severe environmental impacts
(Photo by Jonathan Drescher-Lehman )

•Pipeline path -

(Continued from page 6)

The argument against running
the pipeline through the national for-
est was strengthened recently with
the release of the George Washing-
ton National Forest's long-awaited
management plan. That plan prohib-
its industrial energy development in
the forest. The construction and ex-
istence of this pipeline would of ne-
cessity then be incompatible with the
management plan.

Although it does not cross the na-
tional forest, the proposed 300-mile, 42-
inch natural gas pipeline that would
begin in West Virginia, crossing
through Giles, Pulaski, Montgomery,
Roanoke, Franklin, and Henry coun-
ties before terminating in Pittsylvania
County, also presents many environ-
mental concerns. As proposed, this
pipeline would intersect Virginia's
Mill Creek Springs Natural Area Pre-
serve. "The 222-acre preserve consists
of limestone hills drained by Mill
Creek," reads the Virginia Department
of Conservation and Recreation's
website. "This preserve supports por-

tions of two natural heritage conser-
vation sites, a globally rare Red Cedar-
Chinkapin Oak dolomite woodland
community, several globally rare inver-
tebrate species and provides water
quality protection for Mill Creek."

In addition to Mills Creek Springs,
the Mountain Valley pipeline would run
about 2.5 miles from Bald Knob-Rocky
Mount conservation site and intersect
many conservation easements includ-
ing the North Fork Roanoke River Na-
ture Conservancy Preserve, a cave con-
servancy and — like the Dominion pipe-
line — the Blue Ridge Parkway.

A number of localities, including
Nelson, Montgomery, Roanoke, and
Augusta counties and the city of
Staunton, have passed resolutions
opposing or expressing grave con-
cerns over the pipeline projects. A
number of groups along both routes
have formed to oppose the pipelines.
Strongest among those have been
Friends of Nelson , the Augusta
County Alliance, and the Highland-
ers for Responsible Development.

Recently the board of directors of
the Virginia Native Plant Society

passed, "in accordance with its mis-
sion to protect the natural areas of
Virginia," a resolution opposing the
Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley
pipelines. In its full letter of opposi-
tion the board noted that "these two
pipeline projects propose to pass
through some of the most biodiverse
regions that occur in the United
States. They are recognized as 'hot
spots' by both the Nature Conser-
vancy and the Virginia Department
of Conservation and Recreation's Di-
vision of Natural Heritage."

The full resolution and informa-
tion about the pipelines is at vnps.org.
Society Conservation Chair Marcia
Mabee Bell has been following these
projects and has written about them.
Following passage of the resolution,
the VNPS board also voted to join the
Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance
(ABRAlliance.org), a consortium of
more than 30 organizations from
West Virginia, Virginia, and North
Carolina concerned about the Atlan-
tic Coast Pipeline.

— Nancy Sorrells, VNPS Bulletin Editor

The pipeline path in
the George Washing-
ton National Forest.
(Photo by Emma
King)

Flora Project upda te: There 's an App for tha t!

m a ei ra n V- Q i a a
Flora of Virginia

% * m 1 1 :1 8
HOME Qj SEARCH HELP

Select characteristic:
I nstruction s
947 Found

Type of Plant:

* •

Flower Color:

I I I I I

Number of Petals:

Abs

1 or 2

3

4

5

6

7+

Incon

Alpine

Forest

Open

Fresh-

water

Leaf Arrangement:

1

<

vis

Xr

4

Leaf or Leaflet Margin

(T

Salt-

water

As we at the Flora of Virginia
Project turn our sights to education
and outreach, the Flora App is our
first priority. We are talking with a
developer as we tackle the question
of how the App will link the user and
taxonomic descriptions by means of
a simple, graphic key (though the
App will still include the traditional
dichotomous keys!). Cliff Gay and
Lonnie Murray are working hard to
determine which characters are the
most important and how to make de-
scription data available to the App.
In the graphic key, as the user tries
to identify a plant, the App will drop
species from consideration if they
don't match the descriptive choices
the user makes. It's going to be the
hit of the App. Which brings up an

... App Volunteer Op! We're
looking for volunteers to begin in
early 2015 to add these bits of data
from the Flora 's plant descriptions
to the database. Basically, we will
be using those descriptions to an-
swer the App's questions about each
plant structure for each species —
3,164 of them.

For each species, an online data-
entry form will provide the name of
the structure or character (e.g., "flower
color") and a blank for the descriptive
value ("answer") for that structure.
The volunteer will copy data (e.g.,
"pink") from the description (also dis-
played) and paste it into the blank.

A volunteer will need 1) broad-
band Internet access, 2) a grasp of
plant structures and keys, and 3)
comfort at the computer. If you're
interested, you may want to do
some math before you decide that
this is for you: roughly calculate the
number of characters for each spe-
cies multiplied by the number of
species. This is a long process, a
significant time commitment even
if we have lots of volunteers, and
decidedly not sexy. It will, however,
be the backbone of the graphic key,
and volunteers will be acknowl-
edged in the App.

The database will be simple and
used online at a Windows or Macintosh

desktop or laptop computer.
Volunteers must attend a
training session in Richmond
(not yet scheduled).

If you are interested or have
questions, please e-mail me at
bland, crowder
@dcr. Virginia. gov or call 804-
371-5561.

Fundraiser In October
you probably received our
appeal for your support as
2014 draws to a close. I want
to take a moment to make the
same appeal here. As you
know well, the Flora Project
receives no funding from the
Commonwealth or from uni-
versities. All our funding
comes from individuals and
foundations. Now, following
intensive work on publica-
tion and two years of speak-
ing engagements and the Li-
brary of Virginia exhibition,
we are revving up for Phase
2. While we are seeking grants
to fund specific projects (and
we note in our proposals the funding
you, as a designated partner of the
Flora Project, provided toward the
App), we have a critical shortage of
operating funds.

If you did not receive our bro-
chure, please see our site,
floraofvirginia.org, where you can
download and print a PDF of the bro-
chure, which includes a donation
form. We would welcome your con-
tinued support. Thank you!

Traveling Exhibit hope you had
a chance to see the traveling panel
exhibit "Flora of Virginia" while you
were at the Annual Meeting. The mo-
bile version of our extensive 2014 ex-
hibition at the Library of Virginia —
which you paid for! — had its debut
at the Norfolk Botanical Garden in
October in time for the meeting. The
attractive, accordion-style, graphic
exhibit condenses the best of the big
show into five two-part, two-sided
panels (for a total of 20 panels).

The exhibit is making six-week ap-
pearances at libraries and museums

A conception of how the Flora App's
graphic key will probably look on your
smart phone or tablet (based on a simi-
lar app fora different region). "Ques-
tions" from the app (FLOWER COLOR
["Wha t color is the flower?"] or NUM-
BER OF PETALS ["What is the num-
ber of petals?"]) are answered by tap-
ping the appropriate graphic square.
The number of species ( top , center; 947
here) decreases as each answer elimi-
nates another chunk of species from
the running.

around Virginia and is already booked
through 2016! The exhibit opened on
December 22 at the Middlesex County
Public Library in Deltaville. For its full
itinerary, visit our site.

If you'd like to have the exhibit
spend six weeks at a facility near you,
have someone at that facility contact
Barbara Batson, manager of exhibi-
tions, at the Library of Virginia,
barbara.batson@lva.virginia.gov.

— Bland Crowder, executive director.
Flora Project