SHORTIA NEWSLETTER OF THE WESTERN CAROLINA BOTANICAL CLUB SPRING 2016 Shortia galacifolia Oconee Bells President Penny Longhurst Susan Goldsworthy Secretary Kim Spencer Treasurer Alan Graham Vice-President a* a* 0* MEMBER NEWS Field Trip Cancellations: Occasionally, field trips must be cancelled or changed either for weather conditions or other reasons such as road closings. Such changes are sent out by email to all members by 7 AM the day of the field trip. If you do not have email access, please call the leader, co-leader, or recorder (whose phone numbers are listed on the schedule) to be sure that the walk is going to go as planned. Indoor programs are cancelled when Henderson County Schools are closed (see http: / /www.hendersoncountypubhcschoolsnc.org) but NOT necessarily cancelled because of delayed opening. For any change of address, email or telephone number, please inform Alan Graham, 544 Tip Top Road, Brevard, N.C., 28712. 828-884-3947 adgraham@comporium.net Attention: FINAL NOTICE The Annual dues of $15 for 2016 were payable by January 1st. For those of you who have not yet paid, please write a check to WCBC and immediately mail it to Alan Graham. If you can’t remember if you have paid, you can check with Alan at 828-884-3947 or adgraham@comporium.net. Alan Graham 544 Tip Top Road Brevard, NC, 28712 President’s Message by Penny Longhurst Here we go again. Another snow is just over, those crazy daffodils are already poking their leaves up, and some at my neighbor’s house are blooming! Many of you may know that for the last few years Lucy and her husband have gone hiking in the Lake District of England each spring. Last year before she left she asked me about the wild daffodils she’d seen growing there. I was surprised that she thought daffodils were indigenous to Britain. Being from the south of England, an area where the woods are crowded with bluebells and primroses in the spring, the only daffodils I’d seen were firmly ensconced in people’s gardens or in parklands associated with stately homes. I just assumed they were planted there by scores of gardeners. She reminded me that the poet William Wordsworth wrote his most famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1804 after seeing woods full of daffodils growing near the banks of Ullswater in the Lake District. A little more research revealed that William Shakespeare also wrote about wild daffodils in “The Winter’s Tale,” published in 1611. So daffodils have been around in the British Isles for quite some time. Just not in my neck of the woods. The British wild daffodil (Narcissuspseudonarcissus) probably originated from the Western Mediterranean region, particularly Spain and Portugal. It’s been suggested that daffodil bulbs were brought to Britain by the Romans, who used them for medical purposes. Wild daffodils were apparently once common in the British Isles, but are now quite rare except in a few isolated spots, in particular along the England/Wales border. In fact, in the early 1900s, the daffodil was considered a substitute for the leek as a national emblem of Wales (they smelled better when you wore them to celebrate St David's Day). The greatest threat to the “native” daffodil is hybridization with the common or garden variety of daffodil. A similar problem can be found with hybridization of native British bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta ) with Spanish bluebells (H. hispanica). So, what do you think? How long does it take for a plant to be accepted as a native? Is 1600 years considered acceptable, or should those daffodils be considered an invasive species? a* *0 a* a* An Update on the Sculpture of Frederick Law Olmsted Public Unveiling—April 22, 5:00 PM Muriel Siddall has informed me that the Zenos Frudakis’s eight foot tall bronze sculpture of Frederick Law Olmstead is now in the final stages of construction. She says it will be put in place in about a month and will be covered with a veil until we see its unveiling on April 22, at five o’clock. The Arboretum was John’s favorite place in Asheville and he spent so many days there watching the wonderful development of the site and the programs. I know those of us who will attend the unveiling will be thinking of John, our dear club member, and thanking him and Muriel for this tmly lovely gift. Welcome to out New Members! Carroll Toole —Carroll was raised in Western North Carolina at Christ School, Arden and in Asheville, at St. Mary’s Church where her father was chaplain, teacher, football coach and rector. They were an “outdoor family”. They gardened, planted vegetables, raised chickens and gathered their eggs. She was taught to love and protect the environment as well as the people around her. She became a champion swimmer and the Southeastern Girls Archery Champion. Reading, study and learning were and still are extremely important to her. These are some of the threads that wound together to begin making the person she is today. John Harrison —John is a 5th-generation native of Atlanta, a Deep Southerner. He went to the same schools to which relatives had gone to. He lived in the same house until he graduated from college. He has two children, a daughter and a son, both single and living in Chapel Hill. He has three sisters, 11 nieces and nephews. His parents and a brother are deceased. He graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Chemical Engineering, working his way through as a Co-op. His father also graduated from Tech, as a Mechanical Engineer. He worked in different industries over the years, with a fan amount of travel involved. (Ever hear of UOP, Egelhard, J. M. Huber?) He worked in research and process development and always felt he had made a good career choice (7 patents). After one retirement, he worked a second career as an Environmental Engineer, which he also liked. He retired again last summer. He was initially introduced to the outdoors as a Boy Scout. He liked the camping trips the most. In college and afterwards, he developed interests in birds, trees, and geography, with wildflowers coming a little later. His first real wildflower walk was in 1973 with Marie Mellinger near the Cambridge Center in Rabun County, Georgia. It was memorable and wonderful. He’s been a member of various outdoor groups over the years and led various trips for some. One of his favorite groups has been the Georgia Botanical Society. His wife Jodie and he have been married almost ten years. She’s from Morgantown and still has her parents and other family there. They bought a house in Hendersonville nine years ago, though he didn’t live there permanently until this past summer. They like reading, playing tennis together, going to the Y regularly, and working in the yard. They also have kayaks and bicycles. Jodie does some volunteer work and John likes being not too committed. They like living in Hendersonville. Martha Rollefson —Martha and her husband David O’Connor recently moved to Etowah, NC from Naugatuck, CT (known to some as the snowy, frozen tundra.) She has lived in ten different states, four of them twice. Martha spent over 35 years working for various manufacturing companies in engineering, training, and quality roles. Newly retired, unless an interesting part-time job comes along, she and her 4 husband and two mini-dachshunds came here after discovering the area last spring. They chose Henderson County for the gentle seasons and the small-town charm with all the amenities, and they found a house they love on the 8th fairway of the Etowah Valley Golf and Resort’s South Course. She has long had a passion for gardening with shmbs and flowers, especially bulbs and perennials, starting with a peony from her grandmother’s mother-in-law, and she hauled an extensive collection from Connecticut to accelerate development of her dream cottage garden here in the mountains. With such a variety of birds, and time to enjoy their antics, she’s becoming a bird watcher. She’s also supporting the resort’s efforts to become Audubon-Certified and will be pushing them to beautify their garden spots, with hopes it encourages even more birds to enjoy the area. a* a* In Memory of our Botany Club Member, Don Herrman Most of us know that Don Herrman passed away this January. He was a long time member of the Botany Club and our president for many years. I can see him now, smiling kindly and greeting us when we arrive at his home Ramblewood for our annual picnic in October. We will certainly miss Don, our dear Botany Club friend. 5 The Green Violet by Lucy Prim When we take our yearly walk at Pearson’s Falls, we always see the Green Violet, Hybanthus concolor , growing beside the path. Years ago, when I first joined the Botany Club, I was puzzled why that plant was called a Violet It did seem to cause a little stir of excitement amongst the others, so I gave it a good look . It didn’t look at all like a Violet. It wasn’t growing low to the ground the way our familiar Violets do, but stood up quite tall, maybe two feet or so, and those strange little green flowers dangling down from the leaf axils looked nothing like the sweet little yellow and purple and white Violets that delight us in the spring. Furthermore, its scientific name, Hybanthus concolor , doesn’t have the word “Viola” in it the way our other Violets do. For years I was satisfied to be vaguely puzzled and think this plant had a very strange name and had nothing to do with Violets. But a few weeks ago, when Ken sent out the new schedule for our upcoming walks, I looked over what was in store for us and my eye alit on the description of our walk to Pearson’s Falls and what we’d see, and there, as it always is, was the mention of the Green Violet. It got me thinking, perhaps there was a good reason why it is called Green Violet. Why would it be called that if it really had nothing to do with Violets? And after a little reading, I found an answer! It turns out that this plant, although not containing the word “Viola” in its scientific name, is actually in the Violet family, Violaceae. The little green flowers are so small it is hard to study them closely, but if we take out our magnifying glass or take a picture and blow up the image on our i-phone or the computer, the flowers can be seen to have five petals, and the lower petal is longer than the others and lobed, and looks vaguely reminiscent of the flowers we readily recognize as Violets. 6 But it is the three parted seed capsule that to me has a real look of a Violet about it, especially when it breaks open and you can see the three compartments, sometimes with a few round seeds still inside. As with other plants in the Violaceae family, the capsule opens explosively and ejects the seeds and they are scattered in all directions. I found out a few other things about this plant. It can grow to be as high as a meter. It lives in moist, damp sorts of places throughout the eastern United States and even up into Canada. The genus name is said to be from the Greek word “hobos” meaning humpbacked, and “anthem” meaning flower, probably referring to the drooping pedicels attaching to the flowers. And the word “concolor” refers to the fact that the sepals and petals are the same color. So, now when I see that plant beside the path near Pearson’s Falls with those queer little inconspicuous green flowers. I’ll take a close look at them and think how, yes, if you look closely and use your imagination, they do look a little bit like green Violets! a* a* a* a* Wood Anemone or Rue Anemone? By Lucy Prim When we set out on our spring walks every year and see the lovely spring ephemerals that we haven’t seen for many long months, we are delighted of course, but we may also be dismayed that we have forgotten their names or are perhaps getting one confused with another, with a similar name or appearance. Last year this happened to me when I got Wood Anemone and Rue Anemone mixed up. I know some of us in the club will consider this a very silly mistake to make. Nevertheless, it happened to me last spring when walking with our club along the path in Sherwood Forest. We had spotted a little cluster of dainty white flowers. We knew they were called “Anemones”, but there are two flowers called Anemone, one Wood Anemone and the other Rue Anemone. Which was this one? I can’t remember what I thought now, but whatever it was, I remember Alan slowly shook his head, and kindly said no, it was the other one. So when I got home and looked it up in my book, I saw Alan was right. I had gotten these two flowers mixed up! 7 The similarities between these two plants is amazing. They are both poisonous and were first described by Tinnaeus in 1753. The flowers look almost identical from a distance. They are the same size, the sepal¬ like petals are the same color, usually white but sometimes flushed with pink, and the number of sepals is the same, often five but sometimes up to ten or more. The plants themselves are about the same height. They are both very common, bloom at the same time, grow in the same sorts of places and can spread from underground roots, sometimes forming colonies. The easiest way for us to tell which is which is to give a quick look at the leaves which have quite obvious differences. Anemone quinquefolia has deeply divided leaves which are toothed and notched, very unlike the rounded, gently lobed leaflets of Thalictrum thalictroides. Anenome quiquefolia Thalictrum thalictroides This point alone will make it easy for us to tell the two apart, that is if we can remember which name goes with which. Recalling the scientific names is made easier by thinking how the name “quinquefolia” means five leaves, which is what the very deeply divided leaf of A. quinquefolia sometimes looks like. Wood Anenome Anenome quiquefolia Rue Anemone is not a Rue and it is not an Anemone either. In earlier years, and currently by some authors, it was classified as Anemonella thalictroides and was the only member of this genus. Our “Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide” identifies it by this name. Now Rue Anemone is put in the Thalictrum genus, and is called Thalictrum thalictroides. Unlike the single flower of Wood Anemone, Rue Anemone flowers grow in umbels, with one central flower at the top of the stalk, and two to five flowers in a whorl just below. The plant spreads underground from black tuberous roots. 8 Wood Anemone, whose scientific name is Anemone quinquefolia , rises up from slender rhizomes. The flowers are solitary, just one at the top of the stalk, unlike the several flowers we may see on the Wood Anenome. The flowers are tight-sensitive, and their petals draw in at night and on dark, cloudy days, enclosing and protecting the reproductive parts within. These dainty tittle white blossoms are some of the first flowers we see as we begin our outdoor walks in the woods after winter. Tike the woodland nymph they were named for, Anenome, their life is short. But with every spring, we will find them again, their pure white blossoms delighting us as they toss about in the cool forest breezes. a* a* a* a* Hardy Soul’s Hike—March 3, 2016 Walnut Creek led by Larry Ballard by Tucy Prim Four of us, Dana, Kim, Penny and I, went on this year’s Hardy Soul’s hike, led by our intrepid trail blazer. Tarry Ballard. We parked our cars beside Cathey’s Creek, and started walking up the path that travels beside Walnut Creek. It was very chilly, and here and there where the sun couldn’t shine, a tight dusting of snow lay upon the ground. But yesterday’s dark clouds had vanished, and off we set under a blue sky, the nearby creek splashing over the rocks and the Mountain Laurel and the Rhododendron leaves sparkling brightly in the sun. We crossed several creeks, and even crossed one on a big mossy trunk of a fallen tree. At the end of the trail, Larry asked us if we’d tike to do a loop walk or turn around and retrace our steps. We decided to do a loop. So off the path we went, right up the side of a big hill, climbing, climbing, on and on. Finally we got to an old logging road. We walked along the road for a while, and then suddenly Larry stopped and said we were to go over the edge of the road. I looked over the edge. It was incredibly steep! I thought maybe he was joking. But no, he wasn’t joking. So, over the edge we went. Even though it was very steep, there were no rocks to land on or to dislodge and roll down on us, just soft leaves, and we happily descended with no trouble at all. We had one more creek to cross, and that creek had some slippery rocks. But after a tittle excitement, we all got across. We walked on, and then right in the middle of our path, we found a tiny yellow violet, the tiniest Halberd Leaf Violet ever, about a third the size of a normal one. On we walked, down the old logging road, and after I slipped and fell on a muddy bank, there we were, back at the cars. Dana suggested we take Larry to lunch, so that is what a couple of us did. We went to the Pisgah Fish Camp and had a delicious lunch. Thank you to Larry for the lovely and adventurous walk! 9 SHORTIA c/o Lucy Prim 48 Oak Gate Drive Hendersonville, NC 28739 FIRST CLASS SHORTIA A quarterly publication of the Western Carolina Botanical Club Vol. XXXVIII No. 1 Editor: Lucy Prim [32Lucette@gmail.com] Proof-reader: Dave Lellinger Spring 2016 The purpose of the Club is to study the plants of the southern Appalachian Mountains and the Southeast through field trips and indoor meetings. Membership is open to all. Individual/family memberships are $15. New members joining from the period July 1-December 31 pay $8. All memberships are renewable on January first of each year. Send dues to Alan Graham, 544 Tip Top Road, Brevard, NC 28712. Please send me Botanical Articles or stories or tips on plant identification that you think would be good to include in one of our Sf lORTLAs. If you see anything that needs correction or if you have additional information about a subject or perhaps a personal experience related to a subject, send that in too, and I can include it in a future SHORTIA. Please try to get this to me by May 25 to get it into the Summer issue. 10 SHORTIA NEWSLETTER OF THE WESTERN CAROLINA BOTANICAL CLUB SUMMER 2016 Shortia galacifolia Oconee Bells President Penny Longhurst Secretary Kim Spencer Vice-President Susan Goldsworthy Treasurer Alan Graham a* a* £7^ ^£7 £7^ MEMBER NEWS Field Trip Cancellations: Occasionally, field trips must be cancelled or changed either for weather conditions or other reasons such as road closings. Such changes are sent out by email to all members by 7:00 AM the day of the field trip. If you do not have email access, please call the leader, co-leader, or recorder (whose phone numbers are listed on the schedule) to be sure that the walk is going to go as planned. Indoor programs are cancelled when Henderson County Schools are closed (see http: / /www.hendersoncountypubhcschoolsnc.org) but NOT necessarily cancelled because of delayed opening. For any change of address, email or telephone number, please inform Alan Graham, 544 Tip Top Road, Brevard, N.C., 28712. 828-884-3947 adgraham@comporium.net ^£7 £7^ ^£7 £7^ ^£7 £7^ ^£7 £7^ President’s Message by Penny Longhurst If you’ve ever been the WCBC President (and this is a warning to those who aspire to be) you’ll remember that sinking feeling that occurs four times a year when you get an email that says, “SHORTIA is ready to go to press. Have you written the President’s Message yet?”! Then you think WHAT can I say this time? I was going to write about the wildflowers I saw blooming in Yellowstone during my hiking trip there last week. But fortunately, while browsing the pile of mail that had accumulated while we were away, I saw an article by Janet Marinelli entitled “Native, or Not So Much?” in the June-July 2016 issue of National Wildlife Magazine. We all know that native plants are important for creating a wildlife-friendly garden, but they can be hard to find. “Nativars” (cultivars of native species) are increasingly being sold as decorative alternatives to true native plants. Last month Bonnie Arbuckle and Frances Jones gave a presentation at College Walk in Brevard entitled “Natives in Suburbia” based on Doug Tallamy’s books “Bringing Nature Home” and “The Living Landscape” which explain the ecological interactions between native plants and wildlife. After the talk there was a wee discussion among attending WCBC members about nativars, and Jean 2 Woods said, “They just don’t work the same.” So the timing was right for me to look into that and come up with something to hopefully make the Editor happy. Nativars result from selective crosses between native plants in order to enhance some characteristic that’s thought by the breeder to be desirable, such as leaf or flower color, habit, berry size, and/or disease resistance. However, there are several drawbacks to their use. For instance, most nativars are mass produced or cloned using vegetative methods; by cuttings, by division, or by tissue culture. Therefore they have less genetic diversity than open-pollinated or straight native plants. Furthermore, it’s been observed that some of these so called desirable modifications reduce or prevent interactions between the plants and the wildlife that feed on them. For instance, sterile cultivars produce no seed for birds, fancy flower shapes may prevent bees and butterflies from gathering pollen or nectar, or changes in flower or leaf color may cause the plants to be less attractive to insects than native plants. In the summer of 2014, Drs. Doug Tallamy, Deborah Delaney, and their graduate students at the University of Delaware started two research projects in collaboration with the Mt. Cuba Center, a non¬ profit botanical garden located near Wilmington, Delaware. They are studying whether nativars support the transfer of food energy from plants to insects in the same way that native plants do. One of Dr. Tallamy’s studies compares the ability of straight native shrubs and trees with nativars to see how well they attract and support insects. In addition to directly observing interactions between insects and the plants, three times during the summer they collect and identify caterpillars and beetles from the 160 test plants and then use vacuums to collect and identify all other insects on the plants. Preliminary results show that insects are less attracted to purple and highly variegated leaves, preferring trees and shrubs with a more normal green leaf coloration. In the second study. Dr. Delaney and her grad student are monitoring the influence of color, nectar, and pollen quality and quantities in cultivars of Coreopsis and Monarda to see how well they attract pollinating insects. They have set up beehives in their test areas to collect pollen, identify on which plants the bees are feeding, and determine which have the greatest nutritional value. We eagerly await the results of their studies. In the meantime we should, of course, try to plant straight species natives grown from seed or plant divisions rather than nativars. Personally, I love the looks of our local natives and see no reason to search out “showier” plants. Don’t forget you can obtain native plants at the plant swap to be held after the WCBC Annual General Meeting to be held at Bullington Gardens on Friday July 15 th . You can read more and see a great picture of the researchers using a converted leaf blower to suck insects off leaves at http: / /canr.udel.edu/blog/ud-partnership-with-mt-cuba-aims-to-make-eco-friendly-a-selling- point-for-modern-gardeners / . You can also hear an interesting podcast interview conducted by Kim Eierman of Eco Beneficial with Dr. Tallamy by clicking here . 3 Welcome to out New Members! Eleanor Claveomb —Eleanor moved to Hendersonville in June, 2015 from the small town of Pulaski, WI (near Green Bay.) The natural beauty of the area attracted her. She retired in January 2015, from a very long career as a clinical social worker in Wisconsin. She has three children and one grandchild. She enjoys cycling, hiking and camping. She is looking forward to many new adventures in retirement. Marianne Mooney —Four years ago, Marianne Mooney moved with her husband Joe Sasfy to Asheville from Arlington, VA. Having retired from life as a chef many years ago, she spent 20 plus years in northern Virginia doing volunteer work. Most notably, Marianne served as president of the Potowmack Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society for ten years. She also volunteered for 19 years at Huntley Meadows Park, a 1,400 acre nature preserve with beaver-created wetlands. There she led wetland plant walks, helped on the weekly Monday morning bird walk, and served on their friends’ board. At Green Springs Gardens, a horticulture education park, Marianne served on their friends’ board for over ten years. At Green Springs she volunteered in children's education and gardened in the VNPS propagation beds. Since moving to Asheville, she's joined the board of the Elisha Mitchell Audubon Society, has volunteered in elementary schools, and worked as a volunteer Healthcare navigator for Pisgah Legal Service. She and her husband Joe Sasfy are part-owners of the acclaimed All Souls Pizza. a* a* a* Atabidopsis by Lucy Prim This Spring we had a wonderful presentation on Gray’s Lily by Dr. Frosty Levy. After the talk was over, we went outside, and Dr. Levy started looking down on the ground right in the dirt area where we’d all parked our cars and he pulled up a little weed and excitedly showed it to us and informed us that it was a very interesting plant. It was Arabidopsis , a member of the Mustard Family! I don’t think any of us had heard about this plant before. Dr. Levy told us that extremely important plant genetic studies are done on this little plant. He said it was to the plant world what Drosophila melanogaster is to the animal world. I looked at the little plant he showed to us. It looked alarmingly familiar. In fact it looked very much like, and is a close relative of, Cardamine hirsuta , the familiar little weed that many of us gleefully pull up by the thousands each spring, in a frantic effort to get them all before they spray their seeds explosively all over the ground. As soon as I got home I looked it up on the Internet and learned that this plant was useful with genetic studies because of the short time it takes to grow and set seeds, the large number of seeds, the plant’s 4 small size, and its small nuclear genome. How intriguing all this was! I was aware that this world of genetic studies and genomes exists, especially when a plant’s name mysteriously changes and we have to learn the new name. Usually in our Botany Club, that is the extent of our contact with this other world and we don’t give it much thought as we merrily go out on our walks in the woods with identification books and plant lists in hand and magnifying glasses hanging around our necks. But here at the Bullington Garden these two worlds came together for a moment as we listened to Dr. Frosty Levy and passed around the wonderful little plant, Arabidopsis , whose genome has been fully sequenced! a* a* a* a* Western Carolina Botanical Club Web Site Remember to look at our new website from time to time. You can find it by typing in “Western Carolina Botanical Club”. If you click on “Posts,” you can find pictures from the walks we have been on this year (see https://wcbotanicalclub.org/posts/) . It is great to see pictures of the flowers we came upon and our friends, and remember the happy times spent together. Thank you Penny and Ken for doing this! Heuchera by Lucy Prim With summer soon upon us, I thought it would be interesting to learn a little more about the genus Heuchera. The English name for these plants is Alumroot. A reason for this name is that the roots of Heuchera contain a lot of tannin, and this makes them a possible substitute for alum, a chemical that had traditionally been used in the pickling process to preserve crispness. There are many species of Heuchera, thirty seven or more, and all of them are native to North America. Many of these are found in the western states, and one of them is endemic to canyons in the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California. According to Weakley’s Flora, there are only three Heuchera species that we are likely to see on our walks here in the mountains of North and South Carolina: Heuchera americana , H. villosa var. villosa , and H. parvijlora. The first two grow in similar places, but the leaf shape and color of the calyxes allows us to tell them apart. Heucheras have a great ability to hybridize, so we will want to remember this if we find one that doesn’t fit any description in our plant identification books. 5 Heuchera americana , American Alumroot, is the most common Heuchera on the eastern side of our continent and the one we are most likely to see on our walks. It grows in woods and in areas on and around rocks. It blooms earlier than the other Heucheras, starting in April and continuing on through June. The calyx is green, and the leaves have rounded lobes. The flowers are not showy and because the petals are shorter than the calyx; the flowers never seem to really open. I have waited and waited for the buds to open, but now I realize that the flowers may be open but just not look like it. If you look closely at an opened flower you can see the bright orange, protruding anthers and the little petals, just barely peeking out from behind the green calyx. Heuchera villosa var. villosa , Rock Alumroot, is endemic to the Blue Ridge area, a common plant on high elevation rock outcrops, cliffs, and summits. The leaves tend to be more sharply lobed than those of the American Alumroot. The little calyx is white or pink, often with little green tips on the lobes, and it is extremely hairy. The wispy petals reach out and curl about in odd ways, so tiny you can barely see them at all. Heuchera parviflora , Cave Alumroot, is a rare plant for us here in the Blue Ridge. It grows in deep shady areas such as the base of cliffs, in wet caves, and under ledges, areas that have very little sunlight. The flowering period is from late June to October. The calyx is white or pink, and the leaves are sticky. This is an uncommon plant for our area, so whenever we are out exploring around a waterfall, we should peek amongst the rocks, into little caves, and under ledges to see if we can find this lovely little Heuchera. 6 Many times I have been out with the club and we’ve seen a plant that looks like either Tiarella or Heuchera. Without the flowers it can be hard to tell. Weakley’s Flora tells us that one way to make a good guess is to look at the leaves and notice whether they are longer than wide. If so, it is probably Tiarella , and if the leaves are as wide as they are long, (measuring the midvein), it is likely to be Heuchera. It is not just a coincidence that the leaves of these two plants look so similar. Both Tiarella and Heuchera are in the Saxifrage family and are very closely related. They have been artificially crossed to create hundreds of cultivars that have come to market in the nursery trade, amazing plants of all sorts of colors. These crossed plants are called Heucherellas. Interest in the Heucheras as garden plants started in the 1600s, when Europeans sent Heuchera americana back to Europe. For centuries this plant has been valued for its use in the garden. Over the last 15 or so years this interest in breeding Heucheras has exploded, and now we can just marvel at all the colorful hybrids and tissue culture creations that have come to market. There seems to be no end of fantastic colors and leaf patterns that can be created. The science around Heucheras and their ability to hybridize makes a fascinating story all in itself. How amazing to think all this came from our native North American Heuchera species! But, keeping in mind what we learned in Penny’s article about Nativars, our own native Heucheras will remain my favorites. *0 a* a* *0 Can You Spate a Tuesday? The Bullington Botanical Bunch ljuanita and Larason Lambert, Wes Burlingame, Frances Jones, and Bonnie Arbuckle) have plans for the Western Carolina Botanical Club's Native Woodland Garden at Bullington. With our grant from the North Carolina Native Plant Society, we will turn our sparsely decorated garden into a strikingly beautiful garden. We want visitors to be impressed and understand as never before the value of planting natives. We've begun to plant evergreen shrubs to break up the open space and create “rooms.” We have wildflowers on order and will plant them as soon as they arrive. We'll enlarge our patches of plants such as heuchera, geranium, phlox, and trilliums; add new wildflowers and rearrange to create a showier garden. Can you spare us a Tuesday morning from 9:30 to 12:30? Our project will last from May to October, and we'd love your help. You could offer just one Tuesday or several Tuesdays or one Tuesday a month—whatever is feasible for you. Let Juanita (685-0180, nitalambert@gmail.com) or Frances (696-2730, fthorjon@hotmail.com) know on which Tuesday(s) you'll join us. We hope you will. We have lots of fun. At noon, after working hard, we stop and eat a lunch we've brought and enjoy each other’s company. 7 How to Use Weakley’s Flora of the Southern and Mid-Atlantic States by Lucy Prim There is a very good resource for identifying plants called "Flora of the Southern and Mid-Atlantic States" that we can download for free onto our computers or mobile devices. I have known about this resource for a few years now but I never actually knew how to use it. I could download it, but I couldn't figure out how to get to the index or the pages inside the enormous document without flipping through the 1,500 pages. But I have learned how to use it, and it is all thanks to Penny! She and I walked up Big Glassy at Carl Sandburg's and saw some sort of Robinia blooming beside the path. I had looked it up before in my identification books and thought I knew what it was. But Penny, when she got home, looked it up on Weakley's Flora and thought it was a different Robinia, and sent me a page number to refer to in Weakley's Flora. I, of course, didn't know how to get to that page number! But this time, instead of giving up, I downloaded the entire "Flora" onto my computer and noticed for the first time that it had a "slider" to the side of the screen that allows going through the document very quickly. That is how I was able to look up the Robinia. I was delighted! When I talked to Penny some time later, she said that another, even better way to look things up is to push the key that says "control" and at the same time hold down the "F" key and that will make a little "Find Box" appear on the screen and you can type in the name of the plant you want to find and it will right away take you to that page. That method worked on my Windows computer. If you have an Apple device, there will be a built in Search function to use, an icon of a magnifying glass ^ which you can click. If you go to our WCBC website and look at the section called "Plant Identification" you will see that Penny has put in a link to Weakley's Flora for regular computers (http://www.herbarium.unc.edu/flora.htm) and other links for downloading it onto mobile devices. Penny has put the Flora on her phone and says it works fairly well!. There is a wealth of information in Weakley's Flora, with maps telling where the various plants can be found, and identification keys and information about whether a plant is native or not, and if not native, where it comes from. It is definitely not written in an easy to understand, friendly style, and in my case it takes a lot of slow, careful reading to make sense of the descriptions, and lots of looking up of unfamiliar words. But with patience, I was able to find very good information about Heuchera for this SHORTIA, and I felt so delighted to have finally figured out how to find my way around in Weakley's Flora. So, if any of you want to use this resource, give it a try. It seems so difficult at first, but after a little trying, it is not so impossible after all! a* Georgia Botanical Society Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage by John Harrison (Our new club member, John Harrison, has been a long time member of the Georgia Botanical Society, and I asked him if he would write a little description of his weekend pilgrimage this year, so we in the WCBC could get an idea of what they did). The Georgia Botanical Society has a long weekend get-together each Spring, changing the location and timing each year, depending upon what's blooming. The focus this year was 'bogs' in south-central Georgia, with 22 separate half and full day field trips with diverse habitats plus a workshop with sedge expert Dr. Richard Carter. Many of these trips were on private lands. There were evening programs at Valdosta State University (VSU). Friday, Dr. 8 Carter gave a talk and tour of VSU's herbarium (70,000+ specimens!). It was very impressive to see and hear about Dr. Carter's passion and lifework. Saturday, Lisa Kruse of GA Department of Natural Resources presented a program on the Manassas Bog in southeast Georgia, and Dr. Debbie Folkerts of Auburn University presented a program on "Fascinating Pitcherplant Bogs." My trips: 1) Climax Cave, near Climax, GA, sinkhole—evening trip—saw cat-tongue liverwort ( Conocephalum salebrosurn) lining cave entrance; highlight was 25,000 southeastern bats exiting cave at dusk. 2) Lost Creek, Thomasville, GA, hardwood slope forest—lots of old growth beech, Magnolia grandiflora, spruce pine, oak, hickory; notable plants included: beechdrops, squaw root, Indian pipe, crane fly orchid, green fly orchid, sarsaparilla vine {Smilaxpumila), and the rare Florida milkvine ( Mateleafloridana). 3) Greenwood Plantation, Thomasville, GA, a premier old growth longleaf pine forest—very diverse plant community—notable plants: wiregrass ( Aristida stricta ) of course, ground oak {Quercuspumila ), orange milkwort (Polygala luted), candyroot ( Polygala nana ), Osceola's plume ( Stenanthium densum ), and Treat's rainlily (' Zephyranthes treatiae) —notable carnivorous plants: dwarf sundew, blue butterwort, yellow butterwort, and hooded pitcher plant. 4) Quail Ridge Plantation, Norman Park, GA, longleaf pine, active quail hunting plantation—notables: rare chaffseed ( Schwalbea americana ) and three pitcher plants ( Sarraceniaflava , S. minor ; and S.purpurea). 5) Dixie Bog, near Dixie, GA, longleaf pine, quail hunting plantation—similar to above, but also notables: dewthreads ( Drosera capillaris) and rose pogonia ( Pogonia ophioglossoides ), one of my favorite plants. a* ^0 Andrew Hamilton sent a lovely poem for inclusion in SHORTIA, with these comments: “While we were walking with Betty Jones, this poem by Robert Frost came to mind, and I thought the members of the WCBC might enjoy it, perhaps as a poem that describes our own frame of mind?” Thank you, Andrew, for such a perfect poem suggestion! Time Out by Robert Frost It took that pause to make him realize The mountain he was climbing had the slant As of a book held up before his eyes (And was a text albeit done in plant.) Dwarf cornel, gold-thread, and maianthemum, He flowingly fingered as he read, The flowers fading on the seed to come; But the thing was the slope it gave his head: The same for reading as it was for thought, So different from the hard and level stare Of enemies defied and battles fought. It was the obstinately gentle air That may be clamored at by cause and sect But it will have its moment to reflect. 9 SHORTIA c/o Lucy Prim 48 Oak Gate Drive Hendersonville, NC 28739 FIRST CLASS SHORTIA A quarterly publication of the Western Carolina Botanical Club Vol. XXXVIII No. 2 Editor: Lucy Prim [32Lucette@gmail.com] Proof-reader: Dave Lellinger Summer 2016 The purpose of the Club is to study the plants of the southern Appalachian Mountains and the Southeast through field trips and indoor meetings. Membership is open to all. Individual/family memberships are $15. New members joining from the period July 1-December 31 pay $8. All memberships are renewable on January first of each year. Send dues to Alan Graham, 544 Tip Top Road, Brevard, NC 28712. Please send me Botanical Articles or stories or tips on plant identification that you think would be good to include in one of our SHORTLTs. If you see anything that needs correction or if you have additional information about a subject or perhaps a personal experience related to a subject, send that in too, and I can include it in a future SHORTIA. Please try to get this to me by August 25 to get it into the Fall issue. 10 SHORTIA NEWSLETTER OF THE WESTERN CAROLINA BOTANICAL CLUB FA LL 2016 Shortia galacifolia Oconee Bells 1 President Penny Longhurst Vice-President Susan Sunflower Secretary Mary Standaert Treasurer Alan Graham * * * * Member News Field Trip Cancellations: Occasionally, field trips must be cancelled or changed either for weather conditions or other reasons such as road closings. Such changes are sent out by email to all members by 7 AM the day of the field trip. If you do not have email access, please call the leader, co-leader, or recorder (whose phone numbers are listed on the schedule) to be sure that the walk is going to go as planned. Indoor programs are cancelled when Henderson County Schools are closed (see http: / /www.hendersoncountypublicschoolsnc.orgl but NOT necessarily cancelled because of delayed opening. For any change of address, email or telephone number, please inform Alan Graham, 544 Tip Top Road, Brevard, N.C., 28712. 828-884-3947 adgraham@comporiumnet. * * * * President’s Message by Penny Longhurst Remembering Dana Herman Do you associate plants or trails with certain people? I do. Maybe that’s because as a relative new¬ comer to the club and a novice plant identifier I often remember the person who first clued me in on what each new or forgotten plant was. This summer Fve had plenty of time to reflect on that as we revisited old favorite places. I was excited after my first Sky Valley Road field trip. The Yellow Fringed Orchids were spectacu¬ lar. I had never seen so many in one place. After everyone left, I stayed behind to take pictures. While I was running up and down the road urging butterflies to land on the flowers, Dana drove by and stopped to talk. She had also been dawdling. She said “I should really come here more of¬ ten. It’s so close to my home”. She then told me to drive further down the road and park by Sky Valley Camp Road to see the Steeplebush Spirea (a first sighting for me) and also to come back to the rock at stop 2 at 2 PM to see the Fameflower bloom. Great advice. 2 At the Kellogg Center there’s a boggy spot with what I thought was Sensitive Fern growing the first time I was there. Wrong again! Dana crawled around and came up with the distinctive fertile stalk to show me that it was actually Netted Chain Fern, which I had never heard of before. Once you know to look for that, it’s quite easy to distinguish between the two. However, I think I can almost work them out now based on the leaves alone; opposite pinnae are Sensitive and alternate pinnae are Netted Chain, right? Dana was a leader on my first Shut-In trail field trip. I remember her “Parking Lot” workshop at the intersection of 151 and the Parkway where she explained the differences between Sundrops and Evening Primroses (the “O” plants), and then we crossed over the road and I saw my first Pe¬ ruvian Daisies. I know most people think they’re weeds but I have liked them ever since that first sighting, and whenever I see them they always remind me of Dana. Without a doubt, all of us who were on the Graybeard Mountain to Glassmine Falls Overlook trip on June 17 th will remember Dana’s last outing with the club. Alan and I drove to the trailhead with Dana, who was the recorder. She was busy reading Dick Smith’s book, reminding herself of the identifying characteristics of Lovage. The Catawba Rhododendron blooms were spectacular that day. Fortunately both Ken and I took lots of photographs and, for many of us, the picture of Dana with the Rhododendrons that we posted on the blog for that day is a fitting memorial. We’re all going to miss her. Western Carolina Botanical Club Web Site Remember to look at our new website from time to time. You can find it by typing in “Western Carolina Botanical Club.” If you click on “Posts” you can find pictures from the walks we have 3 been on this year. It is great to look back over the lovely outings we have been on, seeing pictures of the flowers we saw and our friends, remembering happy times spent together. Thank you Penny and Ken and Jim for your beautiful pictures! * * * * Welcome to our New Members! Donna Ingram.—Donna is a newly retired teacher, moving to Brevard this August from Raleigh. She walked the Camino in Spain a few years ago. She is looking forward to all the outdoor opportunities here in Transylvania County. Donna also loves gardening and has on her list to grow all her own mushrooms. She is researching this now. Donna would really like to find a group that goes on foraging hikes. She looks forward to learning more about the native plants in this area while hiking with this group. Jo Hubbard.—Jo had the pleasure of attending two of our walks and now she is back in Florida, where she has lived for 57 years. She looks forward to being once again in our mountains in May. She is interested in birds as well as botany. Jo also likes hiking. She is a retired Microbiology tech, so identifying organisms is a familiar pleasure to her. Jo thanks us for sharing the bounty of our mountains with her, and we thank her for joining us! Jock and Jan Aplin.—Jock and Jan and moved to Hendersonville from eastern Iowa a year ago. Jan is an Iowa native, Jock grew up in Chattanooga. They’ve enjoyed exploring the natural wonders around here, day hikes and some photography. The Aplins' botanical expertise pretty much amounts to “that’s a cool flower. I wonder what it is,” but they look forward to learning more about the plants and trees and critters in the area, and the area itself, and to meet people with similar interests. They heard about the Botany Club on a recent wildflower walk along the Oklawaha Greenway. * * * * Profiles of New Board Members The Club began its 44th year with two new officers and two returning ones. I will introduce the two new board members to you. Mary Standaert, Secretary.—Mary is from Abbeville, SC. She has a Biology degree from Winthrop, a masters in forest science from Yale School of Forestry, and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of South Florida in Tampa. She had a career with the Veterans Administra¬ tion Hospital in Tampa Florida as research/biochemist doing basic diabetes research. Now she 4 serves on the Montreat Town Council. She is active with the history museum in Montreat, volun¬ teering and doing history presentations. She co-authored “Montreat” and “Swannanoa Valley” history books with Joe and edited an additional book on the Montreat Gateboys. She enjoys two daughters, living in Durham and Greenville, a son-in-law, two grandsons and a foster grand-daugh¬ ter. Susan Sunflower, Vice President.—Born in New England, raised on an avocado ranch in Southern California, Susan Sunflower received her BA and MA from Goddard College and School for International Training, respectively, in Vermont. She worked in community development in Alaska, Washington and Oregon and was in Peace Corps in Burkina Faso as a spinner/weaver/dyer, before returning to teaching English and training teachers, mostly overseas. Thus, she’s combined her three passions, teaching, learning other cultures through living there, and nature, having taken part in environmental projects in many parts of the world where she’s lived and worked. She began developing kids’ eco activities for the UN COP 10 Wetlands Conference in South Korea, at the Chungnam Marsh, in 2008. In 2009 she came to the Southern Blue Ridge and was (finally!) able to indulge full time in her passion for nature. She has learned a lot from the Master Gardeners, the NC Native Plant Society, and the Western Carolina Botanical Club wildflower walks. She became an NC Environmental Educator and periodically continued her “day job” of training language teachers overseas. She has used her teaching and training background, her social services program development skills, and her love of nature to further knowledge and planting of native plants, initiating “Tran¬ sylvania Naturally” as part of a year-long effort to increase the appreciation and use of native plants (especially those of native pollinators) that enhance our lives and increase economic value of land and water. That resulted in the 2014 Transylvania, Brevard, and Rosman PROCLAMA¬ TIONS: If you love land in Transylvania County, PLANT NATIVES FIRST! In 2015, Sunflower facilitated “Eradicate Invasive” Workshops. In 2016, it was BREVARD TREE WALKS and Polli¬ nator Day activities. She continues to talk about our native plants in schools and community groups and to assist our local governments in planting natives throughout Transylvania County. * * * * Anne Ulinski Most of us know that Anne Ulinski passed away this July 18, 2016. She was a long time member of the Botany Club and Editor of Shortia for many years. Several articles have been written about her amazing life and accomplishments. They can be found here: Http://www.carolinamountain.org/news and events/stories land ulinskis vision lives 5 Goldenrods by Lucy Prim The season of Goldenrods is here, their yellow blossoms spreading so much beauty across the meadows and beside roadsides and trails here in the mountains of North Carolina. Have you ever seen a Goldenrod with a tight cluster of leaves bunched up together in a rosette at the top of the stalk? I have often won¬ dered what caused that to happen. I have discovered that this is usually (but not always) caused when a fe¬ male Goldenrod Gall Midge, Rhopalomyia solidaginis , lays one or several eggs in a leaf bud near the top of a Goldenrod stem. This causes the stem to stop growing longer. However, the leaves continue to be pro¬ duced, and that is what creates the tight cluster of leaves that looks at first glance like a big green flower. The larvae hatch, and a gall forms around them, with one chamber for each larva. The larvae feed and shelter in their gall until they have matured. At maturity they have become tiny flies that quickly mate and die, perhaps all in a single day. The rosette becomes a good place for other creatures to live, especially little spiders who find safety nestled amongst the tight cluster of leaves. The midge is called an “eco-system en¬ gineer” because it creates a home for other creatures. I found about six of these rosettes one morning when looking for them among the Goldenrods in my gar¬ den. I picked all six and brought them into the kitchen to see if any larvae were still inside. I didn't find any at all; they must have already matured and flown away. But it was interesting to look inside the little gall snugly surrounded by the tight circle of leaves and see the tiny chambers where the larvae had been. I shook the leaves to see if any spiders were hiding inside the rosette. Yes, there were spiders, and several fell out on the kitchen counter! I swept them all up, leaves, spiders, galls, and all, and quickly took them back outside. I saved one little gall and rosette to draw a picture of, and here they are. 6 American Lovage —Ligusticum canadense by Lucy Prim Quite often while walking along the trail we find a plant that we think might be American Lovage. I no¬ ticed when I first joined the Botany Club, that people who normally seemed very sure of what the plants were, seemed a little less sure about American Lovage. They’d say in a tentative sort of way, “It might be Lovage” or something to that effect. I was never altogether sure what features we were looking for. This summer, Penny suggested that I write an article about Lovage and try to pinpoint exactly which features can be used for identification. This assignment turned out to be harder than I’d expected. Surprisingly, Lovage, although quite tall (5 feet or higher in the summer, when it has reached its full height) and although very pretty with its umbels of white flowers and bright green leaves, is not even mentioned in many easy-to-use identification books. Among the books that do not include American Lovage are Newcomb’s and A Guide to Wildflowers of South Carolina. (I wondered whether Lovage is found in South Carolina, and it definitely is, mostly in the moun¬ tains but sometimes on the Coastal Plain, down through Georgia and all the way to Alabama and into Florida. To the north it extends up to Virginia and Pennsylvania. Wild ¥ lowers of Tennessee mentions it only as a species similar to Water Hemlock. Six of my identification books do not include Lovage at all. Dick Smith’s book Wildflowers of the Southern Mountains does have a short description of Lovage, saying that it has petioles with narrow basal sheaths and main stems sometimes ending in a whorl of branches. He in¬ cludes a nice photograph from a few feet away, but not close enough to see the leaves in detail. Among my other identification books, (Britton & Brown, Small, Gleason & Cronquist,) the descriptions of Lovage are so difficult that I gave up trying to decipher them. I wanted an easy way to distinguish Lo¬ vage out in the woods, not a way that requires a great deal of cogitating. I continued looking and finally, to my relief, I found a sentence in Weakley that states, “A distinctive character is the straightish and toothless basal portion of each leaflet.” Here at last was a sentence with understandable words! I also found a site on the internet. Consortium of Midwest Herbaria, which illustrates over 200 pressed Lovage specimens that we can look at. The pages can be enlarged, and the photography of the pages is so clear we can zoom in on the features and see them fairly well. Studying these pages made me realize that the leaves are variable in shape. All but the apical ones are trifo¬ liate, with a terminal and two lateral leaflets. Especially the terminal leafets have “straightish” basal por¬ tions as described in Weakley; others have slightly curved basal portions. But I think that the “straightish” feature is very helpful. Most of the pressed leaves also have this feature. So when we go out on our walks and see a big plant with sheathed, divided leaves and lovely white flowering umbels, we can look for the terminal leaflets and say with a little more confidence, “I think it is Lovage!” 7 i a U sVitum C. a.na.A < S$vr\. e. le.a\Je-“> rc,a >f, t a. ujfeW\oei cA +• U e. Va cl S e.. Sa\*>.e- \ec^.vl£?> Vva.\i£. £,uje. c \e£-VU. \W«. MVat S. Seme \ai\i£*i cl t e_ \rr\o ve_ ^ o orv A Wu^AVe. ^>fA.\Vl«kW. ^tooArVAes^ Y>