CastiHeja

A Publication of the Wyoming Native Plant Society

December 2005, Volume 24, No. 4

Posted at www.uvvyo.edu/vvyndd/wnps/wnps_home.htm

In this issue:

Botanica 3

Canada Creeping thistle 4

A Weed-Wary Word 5

Somewhere Over the Herbarium 6

Renewal, Ballot, and By-Laws Vote . . . insert

Giants in our Midst

Selaginella selaginoides {\o\N spike-moss)
is a giant among plants in assessing climate
change over geological time, and a lesser-known
part of the Wyoming flora and U.S. Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Region sensitive species list.

Selaginella selaginoidesx^x^Vj tops 10 cm,
so it is hard to imagine it producing such a
profusion of microspores that their relative
abundance might be used to gauge prevailing
climate conditions. Yet, it has a palynological
stature that belies its size in the field. Presence
and abundance of 5. selaginoidesxx\\x:xos\iOx^s
have been determined to correspond with climatic
cooling episodes and shifts from forested
landscapes to open boreal-alpine environments in
both North America (Baker et al. 1989, Garry et
al. 1990, Heusser and Peteet 1988) and in Eurasia
(Demske et al. 2002, Ambrosian! and Robertsson
1992).

Selaginella selaginoides \s not a moss but
a distinct member of the Selaginella genus,
primitive vascular plants that hearken back almost
unchanged to the Pennsylvanian (Lellinger 1985).
It differs from other species of Selaginella in that
it does NOT have a distinct bristle at the leaf
apex, leaves with dorsal grooves, or a 4-angled
strobilus. It is the only member of the genus in
Wyoming that is restricted to wet habitats.

The fertile stems of Selaginella seiaginoides {}o\n spike-moss)
are topped by a strobilus that produces two kinds of spores.
Megaspores (lower left) are dispersed by a catapault system,
and microspores (lower right) are dispersed by the wind.
From: Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. Illustrated flora of the
northern states and Canada. Vol. 1: 49. Courtesy of Kentucky Native
Plant Society. Scanned by Omnitek Inc.

There are six known occurrences of
Selaginella seiaginoides \x\ Wyoming, represented
by eight collections, including recent records of
Erwin Evert, Walter Fertig and Jennifer Whipple
from the upper Green River Basin and from
Yellowstone National Park. It occupies wetland
settings in foothills and montane valleys that
appear to have cold conditions - including a
cooled wetland of geothermal origin in
Yellowstone National Park! (Continued on p. 3)

WNPS News

Ho! Ho! - Please renew early in 2006. See the
mailing label for the calendar year through which
you are paid, and contact the Secretary-Treasurer
(boelter@uwyo.edu) if you need record of the
month when you last paid. Include your email
address if you would like to receive announcements
about wnps-related fieldtrips and events - this is
on a trial basis to announce activities across the
state that don't mesht with newsletter schedules.

By-Laws : WNPS By-Laws can be amended if we get
the same level of response as last year after
correcting our protocol. The WNPS By-Laws require
response of 2/3 of the membership at an annual
meeting, and any revisions to the membership fees
require response of a quorum of the membership
at an annual meeting. Therefore, the proposed
By-Laws amendments are presented in this issue as
a proxy vote and are printed in full, including a new
life member category. Whether or not you will plan
on attending the 2006 annual meeting, please sign
and send in this proxy vote with your renewal!

Wyoming Native Plant Society
P.O. Box 2500, Laramie, WY 82073

WNPS Board - 2005
President: Bonnie Heidel
Vice President: Laura Hudson
Sec. -Treasurer: Ann Boelter
Board Members: Mike Evans,

Katherine Zacharkevics

Newsletter Editor: Bonnie Heidel (Laramie;
bheidel@uwyo.edu)

Teton Chapter: PO Box 82, Wilson, WY 83014 (Joan
Lucas, Treasurer)

Bighorn Native Plant Society: PO Box 21, Big Horn, WY
82833 (Jean Daly, Treasurer)

New webmastermind: Melanie Arnett (Laramie;
arnett@uwyo.edu)

Contributors to this issue: Walter Fertig (WF), guest-
contributors Sarah Gage (SG) and Elaine Gordon (EG),
and Bonnie Heidel (BH). Comments, as always, are welcome!

Treasurer's Report : Balance as of 2 December: General
Fund: $803.22; Markow Scholarship Fund: $977.50;

Total Funds: $1780.72.

Annual Meeting : The Wind River Range and upper
Green River Basin will be our 2006 annual
fieldtrip/meeting destination! The date and itinerary
will be announced in the March newsletter. Thanks
to Pinedale organizers for stepping up (contact:
Carmel Kail; kail@wyoming.com; 307-367-3058).

New Members : Please welcome the following new
members to WNPS: Jennifer Banks (Laramie), Craig
Delphey (Woodinville, WA), Meghan Mutch
(Clearmont), and Brianna Schoessow (Laramie).

Wyoming Plant Conference : We are scoping
whether a 2006 Wyoming Plant Conference is
feasible. Comments are invited (contacts: Jennifer
Whipple, jennifer_whipple@nps.gov; or Bonnie
Heidel, bheidel@uwyo.edu).

Message from the President

What is a Bot-?

A "bot" is nothing more than a botfly
maggot. The word root for "botanist" {botan) is
little less obscure; a Greek derivative from the
words for pasture, grass, and fodder.

The botanical splinter-sciences (agriculture,
horticulture, forestry, range, etc.) claim all too few
allegiances and limited commonality in formal
training with botany. The Wyoming general public
is not apt to run into bot-people because almost all
the ones who teach facets of botany are
sequestered in Laramie, there are almost none in
government agencies, and the realm of the rest is
out of the limelight.

For all of this identity limbo, the need has
never been greater to present the botanical
breadth and framework in Wyoming's natural
world, and promote an appreciation. The "native
plant" moniker of our organization is a more
inclusive term, though plant nativity does not have
the same familiarity as "wild" and "domesticated"
distinctions in the Animal Kingdom, and inclusion of
hobbyists is not meant to exclude scientists.

In short, I believe that all botany disciplines
and all members are integral to this organization
and these ideas. ...If I could have one wish, it is to
wish YOU a botanically Happy New Year. BH

742-9523

745-8236

745-5487

326-8217

2

Botanica

(Or Odds and Ends from the Botanical World)
by Walter Fertig

From: Douglas, G. W. et al. 1998. Illustrated Flora of British
Columbia, Vol. 1. Posted by: Klinkenberg, Brian. (Editor). 2004. E-
Flora BC. [www.eflora.bc.ca]. Lab for Advanced Spatial Analysis,
Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Asters back in Wyoming Flora Despite the best
efforts of North American systematists to remove
the genus AsterUoxw our midst (now placed in the
segregate genera Almutaster, Bucephalus, Eurybia,
lonactis, Oreostemma, and Symphyotrichum), one
species has made it back into the state's flora. In
2004, Luc Brouillet announced the discovery of
Aster a/pinusss^. vierhapperi ^roxw Beartooth Pass
in Park County, Wyoming (5/i:/<^ 21(1):459-461).
The Alpine aster is recognized by its low stature
(stems less than 20 cm tall), single-headed flowers
with white to purplish rays, leafy pubescent bracts,
and pubescent, spoon-shaped basal leaves. It is
readily confused with large-flowered Erigeron
species. /45te/'<^//7//7^/5is widely distributed in
Siberia and northern Eurasia and occurs
sporadically in the Rocky Mountains from Alaska to
central Colorado. Alpine aster belongs to a mostly
Eurasian group, allied to the true species of Aster,
though at least one researcher has proposed
carving out a new genus Diplactis^or A. alpinus
and its closest relatives. WF

Two Thousand Year Old Seeds Sprout The
Judean date palm once formed extensive forests
throughout ancient Palestine and served as an
important source of food, fiber, shade, and
medicinal drugs. The palm was wiped out by the
first or second centuries AD, a victim of warfare
and desertification.

Nearly thirty years ago, archaeologists
excavating the ruins of King Herod's palace on
Mount Masada discovered a stash of Judean date
palm seeds. Carbon dating indicated that the
seeds were 2,000 years old. In 2005,
ethnobotanist Elaine Solowey of the Arava Institute
for Environmental Studies in Israel acquired three
of the Masada seeds to study whether they might
still be viable. Solowey planted the seeds on the
day of the Jewish Festival of Trees (25 January
2005) after soaking them in warm water and
applying gibberellic acid and rooting hormones. To
Solowey's surprise, one of the seeds germinated
after five weeks and produced a small shoot with
three leaves. The seedling, named Methuselah, is
the new record-holder for having germinated from
the oldest known seed, eclipsing the previous mark
of 1,200 years for a species of Chinese lotus.

Date palms are dioecious (with separate
male and female plants) and the sex of Methuselah
is not yet known. It may be possible to
vegetatively propagate additional specimens from
this one surviving plant to build up a larger number
of Judaen date palms, though without at least one
male and one female the species won't be able to
form a viable breeding population. Still, the
resuscitation of a once extirpated species from
surviving seed provides some hope for other plants
considered long extinct. WF

Giants in our Midst - continued from p. 1

Extant sites of S. selaginoides temperate
latitudes have been characterized as Pleistocene
refugia (Heusser and Igarashi 1994) in the sense of
Pielou (1979), i.e., land areas that remained ice-
free during colder climates and with local
conditions that still harbor earlier floristic elements.

What does the future hold for Selaginella
selaginoides \n Wyoming? The answer is not clear.

If palynological research elsewhere in its range is
any indication, there is more at stake than meets
the eye. bh

(References are listed on p. 12)

3

Canada Thistle: Time for a Name Change

By Elaine Gordon

(Editor's note: Among the lesser-publicized facets of
international relations are plant species common names.
The following article is reprinted from Iris 46:3-4,
newsletter of the Alberta Native Plant Council, and
shortened, with permission.)

Anyone can change a common plant name. All it
takes is enough people using a name and spreading the
word until it is the most popular one around. In North
America "Canada" thistle {Cirsium arvense) is the most
often used common name for this obnoxious weed, but
it is also known as creeping thistle and California thistle.
In France it is goes by "chardon des champs", Germany
it is "Ackerdistel", and in Spain ask for "Cardo cundidoe'.
It's time we all got together and change the name
"Canada thistle" to its most widely-used European name,
creeping thistle. Here are some interesting facts about
Canada thistle (hereinafter known as creeping thistle)
just in case you ever wanted to know.

Carolus Linnaeus in 1753 wrote of this plant, "It
is the greatest pest of our fields". Creeping thistle is the
only species of thistle with rhizomes, which is how it got
its European name. It is native to Europe or Eurasia
(origins are quite fuzzy ... ) and was introduced to North
America early in the 17th century. It's thought that its
introduction was a case of mistaken identity by early
settlers who thought they were bringing crop seed. Or it
may have been brought with hay seed. As early as 1795
the state of Vermont declared it a noxious weed.
Apparently it grows at its best between 37' and 59'
latitude, which puts us [Alberta] smack-dab in the
middle of its favourite conditions.

It's too bad it's such a problem, because the
flowers are actually really beautiful. The plants
themselves are either male or female, although up to
26% of the male plants may have female flowers too.
The flowers of creeping thistle are almost always insect-
pollinated, and studies indicate that more insect species
visit creeping thistle than any other thistle species
because it puts out copious nectar that is easily
accessible. So, there you have it: actually one good
thing about creeping thistle - it's great for some insects.
However, the benefit that insects get from creeping
thistle is out-weighed by its negative impact on native
plant communities, which ultimately leads to a negative
impact on overall insect diversity.

The actual number of seeds can vary from 100-
64,300 viable seeds per square meter (Australia data).
Seeds have a feathery pappus to facilitate wind
distribution, but for many of them, the pappus breaks
off and they are left in the floret so they will germinate
near their mom.

CREEPING THISTLE {Cirsium arvense). From: Britton, n.l.,
and A. Brown. 1913. Illustrated flora of the northern states and
Canada. Vol. 3: 553. Courtesy of Kentucky Native Plant Society.
Scanned by Omnitek Inc. Usage Guidelines.

Interestingly, seeds cannot germinate on rubble
or turf. Not that that stops creeping thistles from
spreading. Root systems are the primary method of
colony expansion - as if that's news to anyone trying to
get rid of it! Seriously though, their rhizomes can grow
as much as 6 m in one season, putting up numerous
shoots all along its length. Meanwhile, their vertical roots
store water and nutrients in their many small branches.
No wonder it takes years of pulling and digging to
deplete it enough to actually kill it. Horizontal rhizomes
grow within 15-30 cm of the soil surface, in a straight
line for 60-90 cm, then bend down and grow vertically.
Another horizontal system is usually initiated at the
downward bend. This bend is where the root system is
thickest-up to 2 cm in diameter. The vertical root happily
grows on down up to 6.8 m. (if it can). Individual roots
live up to two years but new root buds develop in
autumn after the aerial shoots die. Root buds are
inhibited by the presence of the leaves and stem tissue,
due to a competition for water. So, if you mow the
leaves and stem it encourages formation of root buds
and a zillion more shoots cheerfully emerge, particularly
encouraged with a bit of humidity.

(Continued, p. 5)

4

In nature, roots are susceptible to damping off.
They are very drought tolerant in established plants, but
dry winters can result in mortality due to dessication of
roots. Cold weather? Hah! They laugh at the cold since
they easily develop cold tolerance with increased
exposure. Deep roots are likely susceptible to freezing,
but they are so deep that they are well insulated.

First Nations people quickly became familiar with
creeping thistle and used an infusion of its roots for
mouth diseases. Some considered it to be "tonic, diuretic
and astringent". The young shoots and roots can be
used in the same ways as asparagus and they were
eaten in Russia. The flowers supposedly make good
honey.

The problem with controlling creeping thistle is
that most methods kill everything around it so that little
or no native vegetation is left. The roots are too deep
for most pesticides and fire must be used early or it will
actually encourage growth. Usually a combination of
biological control, prescribed fire or mowing may help
control them, but these applications must be repeated
for at least two years. Burning during dormant periods
usually (but not always) reduces creeping thistle by
encouraging the spread of native vegetation. Also,
burning must be done early in spring. If done too late,
biomass and shoot density will actually increase.

Seedling density also increases following summer fire. In
some wetlands, burning has no effect on thistle density.
When spot applications of pesticides are used (e.g..
Roundup), root buds and re- growth of secondary shoots
is reduced. These seem to have greater impact on plants
at the bud to flowering stages than in younger plants,
and work the best in August.

Mowing, as we saw earlier, encourages growth
unless it is repeated over and over for only about four
years. Terrific!! Covering them so that they cannot
photosynthesize can kill plants, or they may actually be
choked out by competitive species such as alfalfa and
the sweet clovers, after which, you have to get rid of
those...

More interesting stuff. Seeds are available
online. Yes! 850 euros will get you 1000 g
of seeds. A steal-considering that there are 800 seed/g.

We have to admire their tenacity. Someone said
that after a nuclear war the only living things left on
earth will be cockroaches. Don't be too sure.

... So, here's to a new name: creeping thistle!
Spread it far and wide - - the name, that is!

[Additional information on CREEPING THISTLE, with literature
citations, is presented at:
(http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/esadocs.html)]

A Weed-Wary Word to
Wyoming Gardeners

[From announcement forwarded by members]

The seed packets may have labels with
romantic-sounding names such as meadow mixture and
wedding wildflowers, while others tout backyard
biodiversity and make reference to Earth Day. When
growing 19 such packets of wildflower mixes, however.
University of Washington researchers found that each
contained from three to 13 invasive species and eight
had seeds for plants considered noxious weeds in at
least one U.S. state or Canadian province.

And what makes it nearly impossible for
gardeners who want to be conscientious is that a third
of the packets listed no contents and a little more than
another third had inaccurate lists. Only five of the 19
correctly itemized everything.

"I can't recommend using any wildflower seed
mixes," says Lorraine Brooks, who did the work at the
UW's Center for Urban Horticulture while earning her
bachelor's degree.

The seed mixes in this experiment were
produced at or distributed from a variety of U.S. and
Canadian locations. Brooks and Sarah Reichard, UW
assistant professor of forest resources, say gardeners
are better off using their favorite plants, or seeds for
their favorites, to control what's
grown in their yards.

Gardeners might be surprised
at the flowers and seeds on the
market that are considered invasive or
noxious... Yellow toadflax {Linaria
vulgaris) is listed as a noxious weed in
Washington, Oregon, Idaho and 11
other states and provinces [including
Wyoming]. With yellow flowers tinged with orange that
resemble snapdragon blossoms, toadflax was found in
four of the wildflower mixes. One listed it.

Even labels that refer to wildflowers as native
should be avoided because everything is native to
someplace, but that place may not be where you live,
Reichard says.

In closing, here are a couple of the key questions to
be considered by consumers:

• Should a consumer buy wildflower seed mixes
that don't list their contents?

• How can consumers know that wildflower seed
mixtures shouldn't be spread near or in natural
woodlands, meadows or fields when they are
labeled with words such as "native,"
"biodiversity" and the term "wildflower" itself?!

5

(Editor's Note: What would the world be like with a No be! prize
in Botany? an Olympic event in plant pressing? ...or an Oscar
award category in Botany?)

By Sarah Gage [sgage(g)seanet.com]

(Reprinted from BOTANICAL ELECTRONIC NEWS,
No. 342, of February 2, 2005)

I want to thank the members of the
Academy for inviting me to speak here tonight-the
first ever keynote address at the Oscars. It is a
great honor, and I feel privileged to be in the
company of the other incredibly talented nominees.
Addressing all you glittering stars here in the Kodak
Theatre, and all of you, the billion-some movie fans
in the worldwide television audience, well, truly it’s
stunning!

As you know, I am an educator as well as a
botanist, so to introduce my topic I want to start
out with a quiz. Please don't get nervous; you'll get
to grade yourself! But see if you can identify the
movie in which the following botanically oriented
character appears:

1. This timid botany professor compares his
bride to the delicate windflower. Anemone
nemorosa (1941).

2. A fern taxonomist-heiress is married for her
money (1971).

3. A scientist is charged with preserving Earth's
botanical heritage in a greenhouse-spaceship
(1972).

4. The male cousin has worked as a mycologist,
among other professions (1975).

5. This couple, on a plant collecting trip to Earth,
gets separated from their offspring (1982).

6. A horticulturist marries an illegal alien to
obtain a greenhouse apartment (1992).

7. A greenhouse volunteer has bad luck with
childcare (1992).

8. An ethnobotanist with a gray ponytail,
working in the Brazilian rainforest, finds and then
mislays the cure for cancer (1992).

9. Giant reptiles terrorize a palaeobotanist
(1993).

10. A toothless, stringy-haired plant fanatic
wades a swamp in search of a rare orchid (2002).

...How did you do. Jack? And you, Nicole?

The answers will follow, I promise.

The function of this quiz is to point out to
you how often we don't notice what is right in front
of us. Scholars tell us that one of the best ways to
learn is to have questions in mind, to always be
looking for something.

As a movie lover and a botanist, I notice
when plants and botanists show up in film. It's an
Aha! moment. And believe me, these moments
don't occur as often as I would like. In my remarks
tonight, I want to subject the movies to the lens of
botanical science - the study of the foundation of
all life on the planet.

Without the photosynthetic mechanism of
green plants to capture the sun's energy, life on
earth would not exist. Their role in our daily lives
as food, fuel, fiber, medicine, building material, and
aesthetic objects gives them importance as a film
subject.

Is it just that familiarity breeds contempt?
Yet how many people are actually familiar with the
plants (or the botanists) around them.

One of our roles as botanists is to name the
diversity of plants, and by naming it, make it
visible. A first question we all ask is "what is it?"
You have to know what to call something if you are
to see it well.

Plants of power and mystery do crop up in
the movies every now and then. The bloodthirsty
plant in "Little Shop of Horrors", the tree that kept
Merlin captive in "Camelot", the edelweiss in "The
Sound of Music", and the poppies in the "Wizard of
Oz" -these and more populated the movies I grew
up with. As my eye for plants developed, I also
noticed some botanical howlers. The Southern
California oaks and chaparral out back of Los
Angeles stood in for "the West" in countless
westerns. I saw green clothespins holding on the
bean leaves in "The Milagro Beanfield Wars". "The
Last of the Mohicans" featured tall shrubs of
"Rhododendron" in what was supposed to be
upstate New York. If you film in South Carolina, the
botanists in the audience are going to figure it out.

6

(Continued, p. 7)

I don't mention these botanical gaffes to
demean my colleagues, the "greens" staff whose
names are buried in the credits. Their work often
creates remarkable and diverse impressions, such
as the gardens in "Howard's End" and "A Room
with a View", or the topiaries in "Edward
Scissorhands". No doubt the greens workers, like
most botanists, labor under difficult conditions,
tight schedules, and budgetary constraints.

Plants in movies are rarely central to the
plot, even if they figure large in the setting. The
same can be said of botanists in film. Their work
seldom drives the plot, unlike that of cops,
murderers, and spies. You'll see that botanists
frequently portray stereotypes or personify societal
anxieties.

Throughout the nineteenth century, botany
ruled. Clubs, outings, and specimen exchanges
enrolled participants in the tens of thousands.

When botany was so popular, it was considered a
genteel and healthy activity for girls and women,
thus tainting it as an endeavor for boys and men.
Botany held less value than more masculine
pursuits.

One editorial lamented that "the boy who,
having an eye to see and a heart to feel the
beautiful in nature, undertakes to master the
charming science is taunted as a 'girl-boy' and as
unmanly."

By 1887, when botany was shifting from the
study of natural history and an emphasis on
taxonomy to more experimental work In fields such
as plant physiology and ecology, the journal
"Science" published an article titled ""Is Botany a

Suitable Study for Young Men?"" It argued that
botany was indeed appropriate for men who were
"able-bodied and vigorous brained."

Botanists of various stripes have been
popping up in films since the 1920s, and in the first
half of the twentieth century they reflected this
idea, that botany wasn't quite a manly profession.
This attitude shows up in films such as "Local Boy
Makes Good" (1931) In which a timid, bookish
botany major pines for a beautiful coed. He is a
proverbial ninety- eight pound weakling, but one
who overcomes his limitations (and his interest in
botany) to win a track meet and get the girl. In the
French film classic "Grand Illusion" (1937), Erich
von Stroheim plays the stern and upstanding
German commandant of a World War I prisoner of
war camp, complete with monocle and stiffly
buttonedup uniform. He summons an imprisoned
aristocratic Frenchman to his office. When the
Frenchman observes the one bright spot of color in
the prison, a potted geranium on the windowsill,
the commandant says scornfully "We are not just
"botanists" here." As if to say, botanists could not
be soldiers, could not be "men".

In "Ball of Fire", a 1941 movie starring Gary
Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, this botanist-as-
wimp stereotype reaches its peak. Cooper plays
Professor Potts, an awkward but handsome
grammarian who lives with seven other scholars,
including a botanist (Richard Haydn). Cooper
recruits Stanwyck, a lounge singer named
Sugarpuss O'Shea, to help him with his research
into slang. The botanist is the only one of the
scholars who is a widower, not a bachelor, so he is
considered a man of the world, and capable of
giving Cooper/Potts advice on love. But our
botanist wears an old fashioned (even for the
1940s) high starched collar, a wing coat, a white
bushy mustache, and pince nez glasses that hang
from a chain. He walks with his chin thrust forward
and his rear stuck out behind, slightly stooped and
clearly silly. His voice emerges from halfway down
his throat, as if he were gargling with marbles, and
he enunciates his words with over-elaborate care.

Toward the end of the film, when the road
to true love isn't running smooth for Sugarpuss and
Professor Potts, the botanist tells about his long
ago honeymoon in the Alps. (Continued, p. 8)

He compares women with the trembling
windflower. Anemone nemorosa, enunciating this

7

scientific name carefuiiy in a cascade of syiiables.

He emphasizes that a woman must be treated with
utmost delicacy, or like an Anemone nemorosa that
has been visited by an unruly bee, all will be lost.

During their honeymoon, he says that his
bride produced a collection of fourteen excellent
watercolors, and that each evening he kissed the
palm of her hand. Even now he is stunned at his
boldness. ...The botanist's name? Professor Oddly.

After World War II, the climate in American films
shifted for botanists. While still all male and white, they
could be botanists and consummate heterosexuals. In
1949's "Family Honeymoon", the "bachelor botany
professor" Is plagued with a scheming ex- girlfriend after
he marries a widow with three children. "The Snow
Creature" (1954) features a botanist adventurer whose
collecting expedition to the Himalayas nets not only
plant specimens, but an abominable snowman who
escapes captivity to murder and pillage in New York.

"All that Heaven Allows" (1955) features Jane
Wyman as Cary Scott, an upper middle class suburban
widow who falls in love with her gardener. Rock Hudson
plays Ron Kirby, the gardener who is "taken with trees."
He points out to Cary that she has a "Koelreuteria", or
golden chain tree, growing on her patio, and that the
Chinese say a house will be full of love with that species
growing nearby. Their relationship really takes off when
he asks her "Do you want to see my silver-tip spruce?"

Kirby/Hudson is tall, dark, and handsome, with a
deep voice and a well-groomed pompadour. He wears
khaki pants and plaid shirts open at the neck, showing a
clean white undershirt beneath. A friend of his says that
Kirby "doesn't read "Walden", he lives it!" A member of
Cary’s country club calls him "her nature boy." What a
dreamboat! He's sensitive, his own man, and an ardent
lover. What delicious irony that Rock Hudson, a gay
man, plays this masculine heterosexual hero - a war
veteran who pulls corks out of Chianti bottles with his
teeth.

Ron Kirby/Rock Hudson has such a way with
those Latin names! He's very botanically oriented
although he defines himself a gardener and a
nurseryman. He lives in a room next to his greenhouse.
Botanists in film all tend to work in greenhouses or in
the field. While in real life botanists do work in those
settings, we also work in labs, libraries, herbaria,
museums, and offices. You members of the Academy
may not know that botany can encompass all branches
of plant science, from plant physiology, plant anatomy
and morphology, to the study of algae (phycology),
fungi (mycology), and mosses (bryology), just as

filmmaking involves everything from costume design and
catering, to accounting and acting.

Botanists can study ecosystems, whole
organisms, cells, or molecules. Some botanists never set
foot in the field, but most will work in a laboratory at
some point, or collaborate with someone who does. Labs
and offices are less picturesque than greenhouses or
jungles, and I can understand why you filmmakers rarely
or briefly show them in most movies.

Incidental botanist sightings occur in a number
of films. In "E.T.-The Extraterrestrial" (1982) the space
creatures come to earth to collect botanical specimens-
that is what E.T.'s parents are doing when he gets
separated from them. They are hurriedly gathering
species in the dark, a difficult working situation for any
botanist. In "Jurassic Park" (1993), Laura Dern plays a
paleobotanist. She has just a little time to ooh and ahh
over some living examples of extinct plants before she
starts running for her life.

In "Cousin, Cousine" (1975), a French romantic
comedy, cousins by marriage start a relationship with
each other. Ludovic (Victor Lanoux), the male cousin of
this pair, is a free spirit; he changes occupations every
three years. The job before last was as a mycologist; he
found a prize specimen of Boletus parasiticus. When I
saw this film, the college-aged audience laughed
knowingly, in a way that reminded me that most people
think of fungi primarily as mushrooms, and that
"mushrooms" can have a psychedelic connotation. This
character's charm depended in part on his dilettantism,
although in real life a three-year long acquaintance with
fungi is hardly sufficient time to develop the proficiency
he claims. Botany attracts a certain number of
dilettantes, as do other fields, but botany also draws
many obsessive-compulsive personalities. How else
could people find themselves specializing in phallic and
foul-smelling corpseflowers and stinkhorns?

"Silent Running" (1971) is one film in which
botany is central to the plot. Bruce Dern (father of Laura
Dern) plays Lowell Freeman, a scientist who continues
to maintain his spaceship- greenhouse in opposition to
the rest of his crew and contrary to orders from the
authorities. He is trying to save Earth's plant life after
the planet has become too polluted to support it.
Freeman sets his spaceship greenhouse loose into the
outer beyond, and his only companions are the small
robots and the plants on board his ship. The robots take
on more and more endearing qualities, but the dialogue
devolves into a series of monologues from Dern's
character, with some chirps and squeaks from the
machines. At least he doesn't talk to the plants.

(Continued, p. 9)

This free man, a man of conscience, is torn over
losing human companionship but he commits himself to
preserving what remains of Earth's plant life. He'll never
know the ultimate fate of his space- bound,
photosynthesizing cargo. In this way, his circumstance
echoes our own, whether we are botanists or not, as
stewards of life on this planet with a responsibility not
only to our own species but also to life as it has evolved
here. This life that may be unique in the universe,
despite the hundreds of science fiction films that posit
otherwise.

Freeman grows long hair and a beard, and he
wears a series of oh-so-seventies caftans. Although he's
a man of principle, his taste in clothes strikes us now as
laughable, even embarrassing. What to wear in the field
is always a troubling mix of practicality and fashion.

Another botanist with sartorial difficulties
emerged in the 1971 film, "A New Leaf". Walter Matthau
plays Henry Graham, a monumentally self-centered
rogue who has run through all his own money; to stay
solvent he must marry a rich woman within six weeks.
The object of his scheming is the marvelous Elaine May
playing Henrietta Lowell, a socially inept and clumsy
botanist and heiress who forgets to clip the tags off her
new clothes. She is a fern expert, a pteridologist. The
script enhances its botanical credibility by having May's
character speak excitedly about receiving
correspondence from "Wagner in Michigan." The late
W.H. Wagner was an eminent American pteridologist at
the University of Michigan for some forty-plus years. Any
botanist interested in ferns will recognize his name. In
the movie, Matthau's character succeeds in wooing the
toothy, spectacled taxonomist. Then, on their
honeymoon, he attempts to murder her by pushing her
off a cliff.

Before her rescue, while clinging to the rocks,
she finds a fern species new to science. She names it
after her new husband.

The character of Henrietta Lowell interests me
for several reasons. Despite the "gentility" of botany and
thus its suitability for women. May's character is the
earliest female botanist in film that I have found. Elaine
May wrote, directed, and starred in the movie, but in
1971, during the second wave of feminism, she made
Henrietta awkward and mannish. This perhaps follows a
comedic imperative, but it also expresses society's
uncertainty about women's roles during that time.

Still, the character is ultimately, determinedly
her own person, with a vocation and a marriage. We see
her doing what taxonomists do: finding and naming and
classifying life on the planet. Her interest in science is
not predicated by any ideas of usefulness for human
beings, or any conservation urgency, or any spiritual

calling. She doesn't give a reason for her engagement
with her study; she doesn't feel that she needs to.

Early in the 1990s, as a working botanist, I had
a brush with the film industry myself. At the University
of Washington Herbarium I received a call one day from
an assistant set dresser for the film "The Hand that
Rocks the Cradle". The movie was being filmed in
Seattle. My heart beat fast, my face flushed, I was all
atwitter-was this the start of my career as Botanist to
the Stars? Little did I know I would end up here on
stage in front of you tonight!

The set dresser asked me to look around and
tell her what I saw. What was on the walls of my office?
Surely I had some botanical prints they could rent for
their set? I told her about the dull brown metal
bookshelves, stuffed with fraying nineteenth century
books. I described the smudged white walls that
surrounded me, and how ranks of seven-foot tall
cabinets filled most of the room. I explained that I sat in
a windowless basement, with a ten- dollar wildflower
calendar hanging above my desk.

In "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" (1992),
Annabella Sciorra plays Claire, who is building a
greenhouse in her backyard. The house she shares with
her picturesque family sits in one of Seattle's tonier
neighborhoods. Unlike my office, her home is clean,
bright, cheerful, and tastefully decorated with art prints
and area rugs. My input didn't appear to have had much
effect.

Claire also volunteers at a city park greenhouse
(filmed at Seattle's Volunteer Park Conservatory), which
provides another colorful backdrop. She says that the
Conservatory is "one big botanist family" that talks about
"root rot and the drainage properties of shredded bark."

I think the script consultant who talked with my
colleague at the University greenhouse paid better
attention than the set dresser; drainage and root rot are
big topics. In the film, Claire and her husband hire a
nanny, the too-good-to-be true Peyton Flanders
(Rebecca De Mornay). This woman proves to be a
psychopath, and she uses the backyard greenhouse to
commit a grisly, glass shattering murder. The botany
here is subservient to the plot's expression of societal
tension. The film demonstrates a profound misogyny, in
keeping with 1990s apprehensions about yuppie women
"having it all." While purportedly showing Claire's
fulfilling life with her loving husband, cute kids,
affluence, and satisfying avocation, the real message is
that Claire should stay at home with her children. She
shouldn't need a nanny.

The early 1990s were a hard time to be a
woman botanist In the movies. In "Green Card", Andie
(Continued, p. 10)

9

MacDowell plays Bronte Mitchell, a New Yorker
desperate for an apartment that includes a greenhouse.
This is no little rooftop hothouse built from a kit, with
listing shelves of vegetable seedlings. Rather, it's
reminiscent of a Victorian conservatory, with high arched
ceilings and mature plantings. To be able to lease this
apartment, she must convince the building's board that
she is married, which is how she hooks up with Georges
Faure (Gerard Depardieu), a French musician who wants
to stay in the United States. At the beginning of the film,
Brontb's occupation is the nicest thing about her: she
facilitates the provision of garden spaces in the city.
Otherwise she is a hard driving hardass, selfish, self-
centered, dishonest, and unethical. During the course of
the film, the sensitive artist Georges teaches the rude
scientist Bronte how to be nicer, more genuine, and
more compassionate.

Then consider the treatment of Dr. Rae Crane
(Lorraine Bracco) in "Medicine Man" (1992). This film
intends to show the environmental urgency of rainforest
destruction-how the tropical rainforest is the repository
of so many of the planet's resources, and yet we don't
know or understand all that lives there. Sean Connery
plays Robert Campbell, a botanist who has requested a
research assistant from the private foundation that
funds him. Fle's been incommunicado for the past three
years but now he seems to have found something
important, although he's not saying what. Rae Crane's
occupation isn't explicitly stated although her self
introduction implies that she is a plant biochemist. She
journeys to Campbell's rainforest compound, bringing
with her a gas chromatograph and the other supplies he
requested.

Campbell is by turns rude, arrogant, demanding,
mysterious, and officious. Fie expresses scorn for Crane
on all levels. Fie ridicules her expectations for food and a
place to sleep. He jeers at her boots and her lack of field
experience. And he derides her gender. Bracco's
character shrieks and gesticulates, repeatedly demands
a bath, and threatens to withdraw funding for his
research program. Clearly, they deserve each other.

All this bad behavior must be for dramatic
effect, of course. We moviegoers rarely reward films in
which people are nice to each other with blockbuster
attendance records. In my experience, however, most
scientists in remote field locations go to great lengths to
extend courtesies to one another across divides of
culture, gender, age, and nationality. If field biologists
are new to a location or a culture, they will go without
rather than presume. If they are hosting visitors, they
will try their utmost to provide information and comforts
to new arrivals. Incivility and arrogance can certainly be
found in plant science, but among botanists in the field I
have rarely encountered it.

Despite his rudeness, Connery's character is
deeply, almost fanatically, committed to his research, to
the rainforest, and to the people he is living among.

Early in the film he subjects Crane to a medical exam so
that she won't infect the native people with any diseases
she might be carrying. A noble sentiment, profoundly at
odds with historical precedent, but made ludicrous by
the superficial medical knowledge portrayed in the
exam; it is the screenplay's excuse for Campbell to
probe Crane and to set up the inevitable love-thang
between them. Unfortunately, this begins a long series
of scientific inanities in the movie. When Connery's
character says, in his mellifluous brogue, ''I _found_ the
cure for cancer, but I Jost_ it," he is giving voice to
farcical popular misconceptions about science. The idea
that one scientist, working alone in a rustic, palm-
roofed, field station, could know that he had a cure for
anything-let alone cancer, which is really many different
diseases.well, that is so ludicrous that I choked,
laughing, on my popcorn.

Now, my point here is not that I am so much
smarter about the workings of science than the
screenwriters who developed this script. I understand
that drama has exigencies of its own, and that a
Hollywood film is primarily about entertainment and not
education - although we all learn from movies, whether
that is their intention or not. The plot of "Medicine Man"
disappoints me precisely because it has so much
potential to say something true, or at least pertinent,
about the tropical rainforests' importance to humans and
to the planet.

At least in "Medicine Man" the botanist's work is
central to the story, which isn't the case in almost all of
the other movies in which botanists appear. You could
replace "horticulturist and greenhouse" with
"photographer and darkroom." Or "botanist on an
expedition" with nearly any other kind of field scientist
(e.g., geologist, zoologist, entomologist). The occupation
of most of these botanically oriented characters is
secondary to the main drivers of the plot, which are
usually love, murder, mayhem, or all three.

With Chris Cooper's Oscar for Best Supporting
Actor as John Larroche In "Adaptation" (2002) to start
off the century, I have great hopes for botanical
presence in films to come. Are you listening Harvey
Weinstein? How about you Steven Spielberg? And you,
Martin Scorsese? John Larroche is worlds away from
Elaine May's timid pteridologist, but he too follows his
own way. He is disrespectful of authority, convinced of
his own righteous opinions, but he has a painful past
that makes him sympathetic. He's no better than he has
to be, but he's awfully good at what he does.

(Continued, p. 11)

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"Adaptation" works on many levels, but John
Larroche fascinates Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), the
journalist who is writing about him, precisely because of
his passion. It's his passion she's hot for. Well, maybe
it's the drugs, too. But her urban jadedness contrasts
with his rugged, working-class enthusiasms, in a
tradition that can be traced at least as far back as Lady
Chatterley's lover. The cross-cultural romance is one of
film's stocks In trade. Certainly the class transgression is
part of the draw in "All that Heaven Allows". We see it
also in "Greenfingers" (2000) when sexy lout Colin
Briggs (Clive Owens) and his fellow prisoners create a
garden that attracts the attention of horticulture diva
Georgina Woodhouse (Helen Mirren in some fabulous
hats). Clive Owen and the diva's daughter start a
romance, and the diva herself takes up with one of the
other gardener-convicts.

Beyond being a working class hunk, what John
Larroche does in "Adaptation" is find and grow orchids.
He tantalizes Susan Orlean with his obsessive curiosity.
When she meets him, his interest is orchids. Before that
it was fish. But when he is interested in something, he
gives it his all. That rings true for me. The botanists I
know tend to be impassioned about their subject. This
can be lucky for them, to be so committed and engaged
in their work when so many others have less passion
about what they do.

Perhaps it is similar to a mania for filmmaking?

In "Adaptation" we see screenwriter Charlie Kauffman
(Nicholas Cage) tormented as he wrestles with the
unwieldy but fascinating material of Orlean's book "The
Orchid Thief". Ultimately he opts for the conventions of
cinematic storytelling, with drugs, guns, car chases, and
murder. This serves as a commentary on his creative
struggle, but more importantly it slyly scrutinizes - and
lampoons - the expectations of Hollywood and the movie
consumer.

Well, this consumer loves a movie that makes
me laugh and cry! Your industry understandably focuses
primarily on the human condition. But while some
movies do show concern for issues of social justice,
more often they dwell on sensationalistic crimes,
infidelities, and explosions. Film is another medium
where we as a species show our almost complete focus
on ourselves. This anthropocentrism may be our
ultimate undoing. I suggest that the intersection of
humans and nature at large - and not just big animals
with sharp teeth - offer a fertile ground for the
practitioners of your art.

Botanical and other scientific adventures can be
exciting and rich. There are big stories to explore here.
Spectacular stories could be told about the science of
plants: their discovery, their use, the tragedies of habitat
loss and the extinction crisis. I'm thinking about Erin
Brockovich-type stories of halting development to
preserve biodiversity.

I'm thinking about the heroism of Soviet
scientists who literally starved to death rather than eat
the seeds they were charged with preserving during
World War II. I'm thinking about larger than life, colorful
characters:

• Adventurous Ernest "Chinese" Wilson, who
collected innumerable plants in remote valleys of
China that are now familiar in our gardens.

• Cantankerous and lonely Wilhelm Suksdorf, who
roamed the southern flanks of Washington's Mt.
Adams and whose ideas were often at odds with
the botanical establishment.

• Wealthy and spoiled Ynis Mexja, who collected
plants in Mexico during the 1920s and 30s, and
whose talent for self-promotion was exceeded
only by her ability to alienate others.

• Brave Alice Eastwood, who rescued plant
specimens from a burning building during the
1906 San Francisco earthquake, and who
collected plants well into old age.

• Charismatic and exasperating Al Gentry, who
knew more about tropical trees than any other
scientist, who cut a swathe through the hearts
of his female colleagues, and who died in a
plane crash on a fog-cloaked mountain in
Colombia.

These are just some of the possibilities. You are the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences! I invite
you to consider how your art, your science can interact
with the green life that supports us all. There are a
million stories in the naked herbaria, laboratories, and
greenhouses of the world.

What would happen if you make plants and our
planet more central to your art? The winner would be ...
all of us.

11

Giants in our Midst - References rcont. from p. 3^

Ambrosiani, K.G. and A. Robertsson. 1992. Early Weichselian

interstadial sediments at Harndsand, Sweden. Boreas Vol.

21: 305-317.

Baker, R.G., A.E. Sullivan, G.R. Hallberg and D.G. Horton. 1989.

Vegetational changes in western Illinois during the onset of
late Wisconsinan glaciation. Ecology 70(5): 1363-1376.

Demske, D., B. Mohr and H. Oberhansli. 2002. Late Pliocene

vegetation and climate of the Lake Baikal region, southern
East Siberia, from palynological data. Palaeogeography,
Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 184: 107-129.

Garry, C.E., D.P. Schwert, R.G. Baker, T.J. Kemmis, D.G. Horton, and
A.E. Sullivan. 1990. Plant and insect remains from the
Wisconsinan interstadial/stadial transition at Wedron, north-
central Illinois. Quaternary Res. Vol. 33: 387-399.

Heusser, C.J. and Y. Igarashi. 1994. Quaternary migration pattern of
Selaginella selaginoides \x\ the North Pacific. Arctic and
Alpine Research. Vol. 26: 187-192.

Heusser, C.J. and D.M. Peteet. 1988. Spores of Lycopodium bx\6

Selaginella of North Pacific America. Canadian Journal of
Botany. Vol. 66: 508-525.

Lellinger, D.B. 1985. A Field Manual of the Ferns and Fern-Allies of the
United States and Canada. Smithsonian Institution Press,
Washington, D.C.

Markow, S. and W. Fertig. 2001; updated in 2005. State Species
Abstract; Selaginella selaginoides. Wyoming Natural
Diversity. Available on the internet at www.uwyo.edu/wyndd

Pielou, E.C. 1979. Biogeography. John Wiley & Sons. New York, NY.

(Editor's note: This article was written incidental to producing a species

assessment for the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service,

for later posting at: www.fs.fed.us/r2/projects/scp/)

The Wyoming Native Plant Society, established
in 1981, is a non-profit organization dedicated to
encouraging the appreciation and conservation of
the native flora and plant communities of
Wyoming. The Society promotes education and
research on native plants of the state through its
newsletter, field trips, and annual student
scholarship award. Membership is open to
individuals, families, or organizations with an
interest in Wyoming's flora. Members receive
CastiHeja, the Society's quarterly newsletter, and
may take part in all of the Society's programs and
projects, including the annual meeting/field trip
held each summer. Dues are $7.50 annually. To
join or renew, return this form to:

Wyoming Native Plant Society

P.O. Box 2500

Laramie, WY 82073

Name: _
Address:

Email:

$7.50 Regular Membership

$15.00 Scholarship Supporting Member

($7.50 goes to the Markow scholarship fund)

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