Sempervirens : the quarterly of the Virginia Native Plant Society

Spring 2018 M The Quarterly of the Virginia Native Plant Society

2018 Annual Meeting Set for Sept. 14-16

'Sustaining Nature, Sustaining Ourselves'

Article by Cortney Will, John Clayton Chapter

W e at the John Clayton Chapter
are excited that we will
be the host of this year’s annual
meeting, to be held Sept. 14—16 in
Williamsburg. The conference will
be held at the William and Mary
School of Education. Built in 2010,
the beautiful facility boasts a Gold
LEED rating and features prominent
rain gardens, which are of course
stocked with interesting native
species.

This year’s theme is Sustain¬
ing Nature, Sustaining Ourselves.
Conservation groups such as the
Virginia Native Plant Society are
excellent at adhering to our primary
purpose: sustaining and advocating
for the natural world. What some of
us are finding we aren’t so great at is
claiming the time and resources to

intentionally sustain our organiza¬
tions and members.

The conservation world faces
enormous pressure from climate
change, policy decisions, and an
expanding population. Added to this
landscape are profound technological
changes, shifting communications
preferences, and a general desire to
diversify our organizations to serve a
wider swath of the population. How
do we adapt?

Some longstanding conservation
groups want either to progress for
the sake of progress or to change to
ensure their survival, but many of
us don’t know where to start. VNPS
has watched two chapters close in
the past few years, one of which is
happily taking the steps to return.
But the trend has concerned some

other chapters, who want to know
what they can do to make sure that
they remain healthy in the coming
decades.

So this year, in addition to
showcasing the excellent and varied
habitats of the Coastal Plain, we
want to know what experts see on the
horizon and what they suggest that
our conservation groups do to sustain
ourselves as well as the habitats we
love so much.

And where better to do that than
the Historic Triangle and the Peninsu¬
la, the sites of so many firsts for our
nation? We hope you’ll join us for a
series of walks, workshops, talks, and
panels. Save the date, and watch for
more details over the spring.

We look forward to spending an
excellent weekend with you! ❖

Walks, talks, workshops, and panels will keep everyone busy at the Society’s Annual Meeting in Williamsburg September 14-16.
Conference attendees might see, from left, Cut-leaf Coneflower (R udbeckia laciniata ), Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora ), or Sundew.
(Courtesy John Clayton Chapter)

2

Sempervirens ,; Spring 2018

From the President

Visits to Blandy Move and Inspire

A s your president, I regularly drive
out to Boyce, where our office
manager Karen York works in a small
space in the administrative building at
Blandy Experimental Farm and State
Arboretum of Virginia. Blandy is a
field station of the University of Vir¬
ginia. An hour’s drive from my home
in Manassas,
it’s a world
away from the
fast pace and
congestion of
Northern Vir¬
ginia. I know
that I am in
the country as
soon as my car
enters Fauqui¬
er County as
1-66 crosses
Broad Run at
Thorough¬
fare Gap in
the Bull Run
Mountains.

Virginia’s Piedmont extends with
farms, estates, and wineries as far
as the eye can see. A solitary White
Oak tree caught my notice as I passed
an exit for Marshall. The last time I
drove past, the tree was no more; it
succumbed to the fierce early March
windstorm and was lying on the
ground. This magnificent tree had
been ailing, but seeing it on its side
saddened me. I vowed to drive home
on the local road and stop to pay
homage to this old friend.

Further on 66, the exit for U.S.
Route 15 north is straight ahead
as the interstate veers left. I enter a
scenic byway that leads to Paris from

Delaplane along Crooked Run Valley.
The speed limit is 45 and blinking
signs indicate that it is strictly
enforced. I set my speed control and
enjoy the opportunity to absorb
the scenery that lines the route:
magnificent estates, stone walls,
cattle, wineries, ponds, and several

entrances to Sky Meadows State Park.

Once in the beautiful Paris of
Virginia, I turn west on U.S. Route
50, a divided highway that leads to
Winchester and crosses the mountain
at Ashby Gap. I traverse the Shenan¬
doah River lined with giant Sycamore
trees. I often enjoy visiting a river put-
in spot on my way home. The turn for
Millwood is a mile before Blandy; it’s
the location of the historic Burwell-
Morgan Mill. More important, it
is the location of the Focke Store, a
former general store that is now a
deli and gourmet shop with many
locally grown products. A visit there
is always a treat on my way home.

Blandy’s stately stone signs flank¬
ing the entrance road are on my left,
and I drive by trees that are protected
by deer barriers without which the
State Arboretum’s trees, occupying
more than 170 acres on the property,
would be browsed by the deer herd
that I often spot on the grounds.

Once I have
conducted
business
with Karen
by signing
letters or
checks,
reviewing
mail, and
generally
catching up
on VNPS
business
issues, I
always
take a walk
along the
Nancy Far-
rick Native Plant Trail. It begins just
beyond the pollinator beds near the
building. I walk through the arbor
covered in Trumpet Honeysuckle
(Lonicera sempervirens ), pass the
irises, and enter the upper part of
the woodland native plant garden.
The Dead Tree Hollow sports an old
chimney, a stone wall, and fallen logs
covered in moss. Huge Witch Hazels
(Hamamelis virginiana) are on the
left. I pass the “Sally Anderson tree,”
a Tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipifera)
planted in her honor a few years ago,
and descend the newly redone stone
steps to continue on the trail.

I head down the trail where

Woodland Redbuds. (Photos by Nancy Vehrs)

Sempervirens, Spring 2018

3

(“buttons”) well into March. There is
an observation pavilion overlooking
the pond, and I always pause there to
look for birds and take in the vista.

In late winter I am rewarded with
Cedar Waxwings, an Eastern Phoebe,
White-throated Sparrows, and, in the
sky, a Red-shouldered Hawk.

As I continue along the trail, I pass
some rock outcrops and the remains
of lobelias that had a magnificent
showing of red and blue early last fall.
Some of the Joe-Pye Weed seedheads
are still evident, and birds hide in
the Dogwood shrubs. I pass a rock
wall and approach the Baldcypress
tree that grows quite well despite dry
conditions. As I re-enter the wood¬
land garden, I think about the coming
blooms. This time of year the Yuccas
provide greenery, and the Possum-haw
(Viburnum nudum) still holds some
red berries from its abundant fall crop.

It’s a privilege to visit our State
Arboretum at Blandy regularly so
I can view its changes through the
seasons, and I encourage you to
visit as well. Its special Garden Fair
(for which there is a parking fee) is
scheduled for Mother’s Day weekend,
May 12—13. Our Piedmont Chapter
participates with a table at this event.
Learn more about Blandy at www.
blandy.virginia.edu. ❖

Wild meadow management.

Flowering Dogwood, almost open.

distant mountains provide the back¬
drop to the meadows. The native
grasses look lovely even in late winter
when they sway in the breeze. Accord¬
ing to assistant plant curator Kim
Strader, “Meadow management is
going okay. We continue to have areas
of problems with Dahurian Buck¬
thorn ( Rhamnus davurica), nonnative
Bush Honeysuckle (. Lonicera spp.),
and Black Locust ( Robinia pseudoa¬
cacia ).” The native Black Locust tries
to return to the site where it previous¬
ly grew. She says that Yellow Bedstraw
(<Galium verum) , an invasive from
Europe, may never be under control
and that it needed more eradication
efforts before meadow establishment.
In the past I have mistaken it for a
very early-blooming goldenrod. Fire

is used for management and Kim
says that the meadow is split into
three sections that receive treatments
on a rotation. One year a section is
burned, the following year that sec¬
tion is bushhogged, and the third year
it is left fallow. She said that for the
first 10 years, rotational fire manage¬
ment was the only technique used.

In 2013 bushhogging was added to
the rotation and it has reduced, but
not eradicated, the aforementioned
woody plants.

The trail passes a small pond
and wetland where the Buttonbushes
(Cephalanthus occidentalis)
still retain last year’s seed heads

Dead Hollow Trail.

Sempervirens, Spring 2018

Natural Area Preserves Home
to Rare Botanical Discoveries

From Your
Natural Heritage
Program

By Zach Bradford

V irginia’s Natural Area Preserve
(NAP) system protects some of
the state’s rarest plants, animals, natu¬
ral communities, and geologic features.
As such, most of our 63 preserves
have received many years of attention
from good botanists, so it is easy to
assume there is not much left to find.
Yet resurveys of Virginia’s preserves are
still turning up rare and extraordinary
plants. Here are some highlights from
the past two years:

BLACKWATER ECOLOGICAL PRE¬
SERVE (Isle of Wight County).

Though this preserve has been a focus
of intensive field botany for many
decades, several new rare plants have
been recently found here. The summer
of 2016 marked the discovery of the
rare orchids, Large Spreading Pogonia
(Cleistesiopsis divaricata ) and Eaton’s
Ladies’-tresses ( Spiranthes eatonii ), the
latter of which had not been docu¬
mented in Virginia in more than 80
years. Later, in 2017, Lytton Mus-
selman of Old Dominion University
found several stems of Pineland Scalyp-
ink ( Stipulicida setacea ), likely the
northernmost known occurrence of
this fire-adapted southeastern species.

Next door, at ANTIOCH PINES
NAP, staff of the Virginia Natural
Heritage Program found Sandhills
Butterfly-weed ( Asclepias tuberosa
var. rolfsii ), a southern variety of
butterfly-weed that inhabits dry, sandy
pinelands subject to frequent fire.

BUFFALO MOUNTAIN NAP (Floyd
County). A 2018 review of photo¬
graphs taken in 2014 revealed Yellow

Nodding Ladies’-tresses ( Spiranthes
ochroleuca ), a rare orchid of high-ele¬
vation meadows and clearings.

THE CEDARS NAP (Lee County). In
2016, Heritage ecologists found Vir¬
ginia’s first verified record of Catesby’s
False Bindweed ( Calystegia catesbe-
iana) in a dry calcareous woodland
atop a cliff overlooking the Powell
River.

CUMBERLAND MARSH NAP (New
Kent County). The uplands have been
an afterthought at this preserve where
rare freshwater tidal communities
and their federally listed Sensitive
Joint-vetch (. Aescbynomene virginica)
have long been the focus. But in 2017,
Natural Heritage staff found Virgin¬
ia’s third occurrence of Narrowleaf
Golden-aster ( Pityopsis graminifolia
var. tenuifolia ), Chapman’s Purpletop
('Tridens chapmanii ), and Cream-flow¬
ered Tick-trefoil ( Desmodium ochro-
leucum) in the uplands of the preserve.
The latter two species had not been
seen in Virginia for many decades, and
the newly discovered Cream-flowered
Tick-trefoil population is possibly the
largest in existence for this globally

Desmodium ochroleucum. (Zach Bradford)

imperiled species that is thought to
number only around 1,000 individuals
in the world.

ELKLICK WOODLAND NAP (Fairfax
County). Surveys in 2017 resulted in
the discovery of Purple Milkweed
(.Asclepias purpurascens) and Rough
Hedge-nettle ( Stachys aspera) in this
preserve that protects a globally rare
Northern Hardpan Basic Oak-Hicko¬
ry Forest in a rapidly developing area.

MOUNT JOY POND NAP (Augusta
County). A small population of feder¬
ally listed Swamp Pink ( Helonias bulla-
ta) was found in 2017 on this preserve,
a new target of land acquisition and
protection by the VNPS.

In addition, prescribed fire and me¬
chanical forest thinning have promoted
expansions of rare plant populations at
numerous Natural Area Preserves. No¬
table examples include the drastically
increased recruitment of Northern
Rattlesnake-master ( Eryngium yuccifo-
lium) at THE CEDARS NAP, a
a population explosion in globally
rare Cuthbert’s Turtlehead ( Chelone
cuthbertii) at CHERRY ORCHARD
BOG NAP (Prince George and Sussex
counties), and expansions of federally
listed Smooth Coneflower ( Echinacea
laevigata) and Tall Barbara’s-buttons
(Marshallia legrandii) at DIFFICULT
CREEK NAP (Halifax County), the lat¬
ter known from two places on Earth.

These finds show that the pre¬
serves are truly biodiversity hot spots,
and additional significant plant and
animal populations will continue to be
discovered within them. The Virginia
Native Plant Society, through both its
advocacy and direct support of the
Virginia Natural Heritage Program,
deserves immense credit for the health
of Virginia’s natural heritage and the
growth these places. ♦♦♦

—Zach Bradford is the Chesapeake
Bay Region Steward for the Virginia
Natural Heritage Program.

Sempervrrens ; Spring 2018

5

How Cornus florida Got Its Name

Article and illustrations by W. John Hayden, Botany Chair

I n 1753, Swedish botanist Carolus
Linnaeus was the first to apply
the scientific name Cornus florida
to the plant we know as Flowering
Dogwood. That simple and straight¬
forward declarative sentence belies
the complexity and obscurity of how
Linnaeus named this and nearly 6,000
other plants in his seminal work, Spe¬
cies Plantarum. To understand what
Linnaeus actually did requires a dive
into the arcane world of 18th-century
botany. And that is what this article
endeavors to accomplish, to explain
how Cornus florida , the 2018 VNPS
Wildflower of the Year, got its name.

Before Species Plantarum was pub¬
lished, scholarly names for plants were
polynomials, essentially descriptive
phrases, in Latin, used to distinguish
each plant from all others known at
the time. Polynomial names are (and
were), downright cumbersome. And
to make matters worse, they were not
standardized. Often, different bota¬
nists would describe the same plant by
emphasizing different features, coining
different polynomials for the same
plant. It may be a surprise to learn
that Linnaeus, the originator of bino¬
mial scientific names of organisms,
also used polynomials in his early
works. In fact, these cumbersome
phrase names are at the heart of each
plant recorded in Species Plantarum.

In essence, the first Linnaean binomial
names were derived from polynomials.

Cornus florida is the first of five
species of Cornus included in Species
Plantarum, and Linnaeus’s polynomi¬
al for it is Cornus arborea, involucro
maximo; foliolis obverse cordatis,
reasonably translated as, “Dogwood
trees, with the largest involucre;
involucral bracts obversely cordate.”
The only other large-bracted species

of Dogwood known to Linnaeus were
Cornus canadensis (Bunchberry) and
its European counterpart, Cornus
suecica. Of these three, Cornus florida
easily stood out as the species with the
largest involucre. The other descriptive
element in this polynomial pertains to
bract shape; “obversely cordate” refers
to the notch at each bract’s apex, i.e.,
the portion that developed first and
served as a winter bud scale. Most

Cornus florida flower buds surrounded
by four involucral bracts derived from
overwintering bud scales.

leaves with a cordate (heartlike) shape
are widest at the base with a notch
where the blade meets the petiole; in
Flowering Dogwood’s bracts, however,
the widest portion is above the middle,
and the notch is at the apex, hence
these bracts are obversely cordate.

Following this phrase name for
Flowering Dogwood, Linnaeus cites,
in highly abbreviated form, other
published works that used the same
name for this plant:

• Hort. cliff. 38. Hortus Cliffortianus ,
published by Linnaeus in 1737. Johan¬
nes Burman Cliffort was a wealthy
Dutch merchant who had amassed a
large collection of herbarium speci¬
mens and living plants in his gardens
and hot houses. Cliffort hired Lin¬

naeus to compile a catalogue of his
living plant collections, published as
Hortus Cliffortianus. Cornus florida
is treated on page 38.

• Hort. ups. 29. Hortus Upsaliensis ,
published by Linnaeus in 1748. For
many years, he practiced medicine
and taught botany at Uppsala, Swe¬
den. In 1741 he took on the respon¬
sibility of overseeing its botanical
garden, which he reorganized to
represent his ideas about plant rela¬
tionships. Hortus Upsaliensis is his
catalog of plants in this garden; Flow¬
ering Dogwood appears on page 29.

• Roy. Lugdb. 249. Flora Leydensis
Prodromus , published by Adriaan
Royen in 1740. Royen was a profes¬
sor of botany at Leiden and well
acquainted with both Cliffort and
Linnaeus. Evidently, Cornus florida
was cultivated in Leiden, known to
Royen, and included on page 249 of
his Leiden flora. One might wonder
how “Lugdb.” refers to a flora of
Leiden. At one time Leiden was asso¬
ciated with the location of an ancient
Roman outpost, a fort called Lugdu-
num Batavorum\ it is now understood
that the ancient fort lay not within the
city limits of Leiden, but some short
distance away.

• Gron. virg. 17. Flora Virginica , pub¬
lished as two volumes by Jan Frederik
Gronovius in 1739 and 1743, based on
the work of colonial Virginia botanist

CORNUS.

J ' CORNUS arborea, involucro rmiimo: foliolis ob-
vafe cordatis. Hort. Hijf. 38. Hort. ttpf. 29, Roy,

249. Gron. virg, IJ.

Cotulls mas virgin Sana, flolfcialis in corymbo digeftis a
pcrianthio tut rape tain albu ndiatim drtctis. 1 ’luk.oba,

I IQ, Cateib. cur. 17, t. 27.

Hebhat in Virginia, i

The entry for Cornus florida in Species
Plantarum, consisting of two polynomial
names, references to earlier publications
using those polynomials, and the marginal
note, “florida,” which, in combination with
the genus name, forms the binomial for the
2018 VN PS Wildflower of the Year.

6

Sempervirens, , Spring 2018

John Clayton. Flowering Dogwood
appears on page 17.

The entry in Species Plantarum
includes a second polynomial for
Cornus florida: Cornus mas virgin-
iana, flosculis in corymbo digestis a
periantbio tetrapetalo albo radiatim
cinctis. That this phrase name is
listed second indicates that Linnaeus
considered it synonymous with (and
secondary to) the first. This synonym
is translated as follows: “Cornelian
dogwood from Virginia, small flowers
arranged in corymbs surrounded by
a perianth of four radiating white
petals.” Cornus mas , the Cornelian
Cherry, is an edible-fruited Dogwood
native to Europe and southwest Asia;
like Cornus florida it has small yellow
flower clusters subtended by four
bracts, but in the European plant the
bracts are much smaller and yellow,
and the flowers are not as tightly
crowded together. In essence, this
second polynomial describes Flower¬
ing Dogwood as a Virginian version
of Cornelian Cherry. (Of course, we
now know that the bracts are not
technically floral organs, so reference
to them as perianth is, morphologi¬
cally, incorrect). As with the first poly¬
nomial, what follows are references to
books that use this phrase name:

• Pluk. aim. 120. Almagestum botani-
cum , published by Leonard Plukenet
in 1696. Plukenet was royal professor
of botany and gardener to Queen
Mary of England. Botanically, he is
best known for his lavishly illustrated
books of exotic plants. His first three
volumes were published under the ti¬
tle Phytographia. The fourth volume,
which included Cornus florida in
plate 120, was originally titled Alma¬
gestum botanicum. Similar volumes
with other titles followed, but all were
republished in 1720 under the origi¬
nal name, Phytographia. Plukenet’s
Almagestum botanicum probably
contains the earliest published refer-

Two flower clusters of the European
Cornus mas, Cornelian Cherry. Notice the
four small bracts derived from winter bud
scales and the relatively loose aggregation
of small individual flowers. Generic
similarity between Cornus mas and Cornus
florida was readily apparent to European
botanists of the 18th century.

ence to Flowering Dogwood in the
botanical literature.

• Catesb. car. 27. t. 27. Natural
History of Carolina, Florida, and the
Bahama Islands, published by Mark
Catesby; Cornus florida appears in
plate 27 (with a Mockingbird) of
volume 1, published in 1730.

The first portion of the last line of
the Species Plantarum entry, Hab¬
itat in Virginia, is self-explanatory.
Following, there is a cryptic symbol.
That symbol, widely used in medieval
alchemy for the element lead, was
also associated with the planet Sat¬
urn; in Species Plantarum , Linnaeus
adopted it to indicate a woody plant.

Linnaeus was meticulous in his
use of polynomials and, excellent
scholar that he was, took great pains
to align the various polynomials used
by others during the preceding half
century His painstaking adherence to
polynomials was fully consistent with
that of his contemporaries as well as
his own, earlier, works. Polynomials
were, quite simply, the standard of the
day. But it must have been taxing to
keep some 6,000 cumbersome phrase
names and their equally complicat¬
ed synonyms straight. And we must
remember that ongoing 18th-century
European colonialism (or, if you pre¬

fer, imperialism) meant that scientific
exploration of global biodiversity was
poised to bring to light staggering
numbers of plants.

It is tempting to suppose that Lin¬
naeus realized that traditional poly¬
nomials were inadequate to the task
of providing unique and universally
accepted names for the profusion of
plants that grace this good Earth. But
we can only speculate, because we
have no explanation from Linnaeus
himself. What we do have is the fact
that Linnaeus did initiate binomial
names. Perplexingly, what he did
looks like an afterthought. Having
assembled the catalogue of polyno¬
mials for all the plants known to Eu¬
ropean botany at the time, he added
a single word, usually an adjective,
in the margin opposite the first (i.e.,
the preferred) polynomial for each
species included in Species Plantarum.
For Flowering Dogwood, this is the
word florida , aligned with “ Cornus
arborea, involucro maximo; foliolis
obverse cordatis.” Notice that florida ,
like all the species epithets initiated in
Species Plantarum , appears in slightly
smaller type than the bulk of the text.

We will probably never know
whether introducing binomial names
was truly an afterthought, or wheth¬
er it was part of Linnaeus’s plan all
along. Whatever his motivation, the
result was brilliant: binomial names
are much easier to remember and yet
are descriptive, albeit succinctly so!
Botanists never looked back; with the
publication of Species Plantarum and
its marginal, one-word, descriptive
insertions, binomial names became
firmly established. Zoology followed
suit five years later with the 10th edi¬
tion of Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae.
Plants, notably, were first, and our
Wildflower of the Year, Cornus flori¬
da , was in the first wave of binomial
names to be used in the study and
documentation of biodiversity. ♦♦♦

Sempervirens ; Spring 2018

7

Wavy leaf Basketgrass

Where Has It Been? Where Is

Article and photographs by Carrie Wu

"T"he spread of invasive species is
I one of today’s most serious global
environmental problems. Under¬
standing where an invading species
is distributed, and whether genetic
diversity might affect the likelihood of
an invasion’s gaining a strong foot¬
hold in the new environment is key
to predicting the spread of invaders
and possibly to developing effective
control programs.

Many invasions, however, often
aren’t detected until the species is
firmly established and may no longer
respond to eradication efforts. New
invasions also provide ideal opportu¬
nities for looking at population-level

Wavyleaf Basketgrass (left, top) is as adept
at spreading as it is at reproducing. It can
piggyback in a dog’s coat—and on our
own shoes and clothes.

processes relevant not only to inva¬
sive-species ecology, but also to how
species may migrate into new areas in
response to climate change.

First discovered in the Unit¬
ed States near Baltimore in 1996
(Peterson et al. 1999), Wavyleaf
Basketgrass (Oplismenus hirtellus
ssp. undulatifolius) is recognized as a
high-risk invasive species by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. This
shade-tolerant stoloniferous grass
forms dense carpets in the forest
understory that crowd out other
ground-layer species (Beauchamp et
al. 2013). Flowering spikelets with
long awns produce an extremely
sticky substance that allows seeds to
disperse readily by adhering to near¬
ly anything that brushes past, such
as passing hikers or animals.

Wavyleaf Basketgrass has spread
into more than 15 counties in Vir¬
ginia (EDDMapS 2018) following
an initial sighting near Swift Run in
Shenandoah National Park in 2005.

Its range continues to expand. In the
summer of 2017 the first populations
were detected in Pennsylvania and
West Virginia. For scientists studying
invasive species, this very recent and
well-documented invasion history
puts Wavyleaf Basketgrass in the
unique position of providing a rare
glimpse into the invasion dynamics of
a newly establishing invasive species.
From a practical perspective, this also
means that we are poised at a criti¬
cal juncture for early-stage invasive
species management with Wavyleaf

It Going?

Basketgrass, able to begin before it
can become a widespread invader of
the mid-Atlantic forests.

With support from a 2016 Re¬
search Grant from the Virginia Native
Plant Society, my undergraduate
students and I have been working to
develop genetic tools with which to
analyze the genetic diversity among
Wavyleaf populations and examine
how the species is spreading across
the mid-Atlantic region. These nu¬
clear genetic markers, called micro¬
satellite markers, allow us to look
at a specific location in the DNA of
an individual. If the DNA sequence
is variable, or polymorphic, among
individuals, we can use that variation
to look for patterns of relatedness
among individual plants and across
populations. We then can use these
patterns to understand the main
pathways and mechanisms of ex¬
pansion in the invaded range. So far,
we have developed 16 microsatellite
markers for Wavyleaf Basketgrass.
The nitty-gritty details have been
published in the journal Applications
in Plant Sciences (Wu et al. 2018).

Our preliminary analyses with
these markers already show some
exiting results. We used these markers

A volunteer collects Wavyleaf Basketgrass
to establish a DNA trail.

Sempervirens, , Spring 2018

to compare the amount of genetic
variation found in 12 plants collected
from the supposed original invasion
site, at Maryland’s Patapsco Valley
State Park, to those found in 12 plants
from each of two other Wavyleaf
patches, one in Front Royal, Va.,
the other in Gunpowder State Park,
also in Maryland. These patches are
located about 200 km apart and in
opposite directions from Patapsco
Valley State Park.

Across the 16 microsatellite
markers, we found greater genetic
variation at the Patapsco site than in
either of the other two populations.
This is what we had hoped to find; if
the original Wavyleaf introduction to
the United States occurred at Patap¬
sco, then that site should contain all
the genetic variability in the intro¬
duced range. This pattern of lower
genetic variability in the newer sites
also suggests that new patches can be
established by a very small number of
colonists, so even a handful of unde¬
tected seeds on a dog’s collar could be
contributing to Wavyleaf’s spread.

We also looked at how the specific
genetic variants, or alleles, at each
microsatellite marker were distributed
across the three sites. At 8 of the 16
microsatellite markers we examined,
the population from Front Royal
contained alleles not found in the
Gunpowder State Park population
from Maryland, and vice versa. But,
all of the alleles found in these two
populations were present in the plants
from Patapsco Valley State Park. This
suggests that both of these secondary
populations could be traced back to
the Patapsco site but were founded
by different sets of dispersing seeds,
likely attached to different hikers. In
other words, seeds are continuing to
be spread from the original introduc¬
tion site.

So what’s next? We’re build¬
ing our range-wide collection with

The highly invasive Wavyleaf Basketgrass
forms dense carpets that crowd out other
species.

help from numerous stakeholders
and collaborators across the region.
This spring and summer, we will be
continuing to extract DNA from these
samples in preparation for large-scale
genetic analysis. With more popu¬
lations, we can look for patterns of
genetic similarity across the landscape
and track how populations might be
spreading. Is one population serving
as a source for all others, or is Wavy¬
leaf Basketgrass spreading along
landscape corridors (e.g., watersheds)
or anthropogenic corridors (e.g.,
recreational routes or roads) ? Are new
patches established by multiple indi¬
viduals and so able to overcome pos¬
sible negative consequences of genetic
bottlenecks, or are they primarily the
result of extensive clonal spread? Our
goal is for this information to help
stakeholders design control programs
that reduce the spread of Wavyleaf
from established populations and
monitor regions at high risk of inva¬
sion to prevent new infestations. Stay
tuned. ♦>

—Carrie Wu is an associate professor
of biology at the University of Rich¬

mond. This article is an update of her
work that is being completed with the
help of a 2016 VNPS Research Grant.

WORKS CITED

Beauchamp, YB., S.M. Koontz, C.

Suss, C. Hawkins, K.L. Kyde, and
J.L. Schnase. 2013. An introduction
to Oplismenus undulatifolius (Ard.)
Roem. & Schult. (Wavyleaf Basket-
grass) , a recent invader in mid-Atlantic
forest understories. Journal of the
Torrey Botanical Society 140: 391M13.
EDDMapS. 2018 onward (continuously
updated). Early Detection & Distri¬
bution Mapping System website. Uni¬
versity of Georgia Center for Invasive
Species and Ecosystem Health, http://
www.eddmaps.org/.

Peterson, P.M., E.E. Terrell, E.C. Uebel,
C.A. Davis, H. Scholz, and R.J.

Soreng. 1999. Oplismenus hirtellus
subspecies undulatifolius, a new
record for North America. Castanea
64: 201-202.

Wu, C.A., A.D. Hakkenberg, and VB.
Beauchamp. 2018. Characterization
of polymorphic micro satellite loci
for invasive Wavyleaf Basketgrass,
Oplismenus undulatifolius (Poaceae).
Applications in Plant Sciences
6(1): el016.

VIRGINIA NATIVE
PLANT SOCIETY

Sempervirens (ISSN 1085-9632) is the
quarterly newsletter of the Virginia Native
Plant Society, Blandy Experimental Farm,

400 Blandy Farm Fane, Unit 2, Boyce, Va.
22620,540-837-1600, info@vnps.org. Nan¬
cy Vehrs, President; Nancy Sorrells, Editor;
Karen York, Office Manager. Original
material in Sempervirens may be reprinted
if credit is given to the Virginia Native
Plant Society, to Sempervirens, and to the
author of the material, if named. Readers
are invited to send letters, news items, and
queries for consideration. E-mail items to
Nancy Sorrells at lotswife@comcast.net.

Next submission deadline: June 1,2018

^ w

Sempervirens, Spring 2018

Winter Workshop Brings the Forest Home

By Marjorie Prochaska, Piedmont Chapter. Photos by Nancy Vehrs.

A full house greeted the speakers at the Society’s Winter Workshop.

he Virginia Native Plant Society’s
Winter Workshop is always a
delight, rescuing us from the last of
winter’s cold and making us more
eager than ever to get out into the
woods to see our beloved ephemer-
als. The workshop this year got us
thinking on a grander scale. This
time we focused on forests and the
trees of which they are composed.

We began with Virginia Tech’s “Dr.
Dendro” himself, John Seiler, who
lived up to his formidable teaching
skills by peppering his talk with a
10-question quiz. Piece of cake, I
thought, but then I tripped up on
a question by focusing totally on
photosynthesis, forgetting all about
respiration.

We were by then deep in to Vir¬
ginia’s forests, all 15.7 million acres
of them, distinguishing between
hardwoods, at a surprising 79 percent,
and softwoods, the acreage of which
is curiously decreasing. He reminded
us that Virginia’s diversity is due to
its five distinct physiographic zones,
covered by various mixes of forests.
He questioned why we persist in
referring to Virginia’s prevailing forest
type as oak—hickory, when there are
not that many hickories, in number or
in biomass. These forests ought really
to be called oak-poplar, because the

most dominant hardwood we are
finding in Virginia is the Tulip-tree or
Tulip-poplar ( Liriodendron tulipif-
era) . The total biomass of all Quercus
(oak) species is greater than that for
Tulip-tree, however.

He quizzed us about the world’s
tallest trees and segued into the cohe¬
sion-tension theory, which explains
water uptake into trees, by which,
when water evaporates out of the top
of a tree, another water molecule is
pulled up, and this creates tension
in the water column, which is held
together by hydrogen bonding. When
the fog rolls in on the West Coast,
however, the California redwood (Se¬
quoia sempervirens), which has been
known to reach a height of 379 feet,
can absorb water through its needles
and transport it downward through
the xylem. He assured us that trans¬
port in the xylem and phloem can
occur in either direction.

Virginia’s largest trees are growing
well, but vines especially are re¬
sponding to elevated levels of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere. Is there
any way to prepare for more Poison
Ivy ( Toxicodendron radicans ) and the
furiously invasive Japanese Honey¬
suckle ( Lonicera japonica ) ?

For Desiree Narango’s presen¬
tation, I imagined myself as one of

the Carolina Chickadees (Poecile
carolinensis) she was studying for
her dissertation, attempting to raise
my clutch of eggs to maturity. First
I had to select a nest site, not insur¬
mountable, given the manicured but
well-planted suburban backyards she
was studying. The problem was, what
to feed these little guys? When they
all hatched, I needed 530—570 cater¬
pillars per day, or 6,000-9,000 for the
season! I found by far the most cater¬
pillars on native species, but folks still
don’t seem to understand. Nonna¬
tives can make up as much as 99
percent of the plants in suburbia. Still
I persisted, ranging over one square
kilometer if necessary. I could still
feed my family if no more than 30
percent of the trees and shrubs were
nonnative. Loved the oaks, which can
shelter more than 557 caterpillar spe¬
cies. My kin settled in nearby yards
with mostly invasives produced fewer
nestlings, and those that fledged
failed to thrive. The protein in cater¬
pillars is crucial to their development.
I learned by searching that, attractive
as they are, native herbs shelter fewer
caterpillars than do native trees and
shrubs. We mother birds avoided the
nearby forested areas—there might
have been a Cooper’s Hawk looking
for a meal there.

Ryan Klopf, Mountain Region
Steward with the Virginia Natural

Harry Glasgow engages in conversation with
workshop speaker Desiree Narango.

10

Sempervirens, Spring 2018

Heritage Program, brought us
back into the forest after lunch.

He defined an old-growth
forest as one that has never been
logged, one that can self-replace,
or one that contains very old
or very large trees. He went
through some of the forest types
found in Virginia, beginning
with the familiar Chestnut Oak
Dry Mesic we see in the George
Washington and Jefferson
national forests. Ryan manages
the Chestnut Ridge Natural Area Pre¬
serve in Giles County, which contains
eight different natural communities,
including old growth forests. These
are dominated by Northern Red Oak
(.Quercus rubra ) and Chestnut Oak
(.Quercus montana). Ecologists have

Lytton Musselman tells the Longleaf Pine story.

found 300- to 400-year-old individual
trees in these communities. Also in the
canopy are Cucumber-tree ( Magnolia
acuminata) and American Basswood
(Tilia americana var. americana). As a
Natural Area Preserve manager, Ryan
identifies and manages the threats,

relying on chemical application
for the invasives occurring along
the access road. He stressed the
importance of controlled burns
for removing young Red Maples,
which can outcompete young
oaks. Because the preserve is
privately owned, with little
protected land around it and a
brutal 50-percent slope, visiting
would be a challenge.

Instead, perhaps consider a
trip to the Blackwater Ecolog¬
ical Preserve in Isle of Wight County
to see a rare stand of Longleaf Pine
(.Pinus palustris). Lytton John Mus¬
selman, founder and manager of the
preserve west of Norfolk, tackled the
subject of controlled burns as well.

He stipulated cool fires for preserving
the Longleaf Pine. This pine once cov¬
ered 73 million acres, extending from
southeastern Virginia to central Flori-
da and, disjunctly, to East Texas. The
tree was overharvested in the quest
for wood and naval stores, natural
fires were suppressed, and domestic
hogs were sent to forage in the forests,
snapping up the sugar-rich seedlings.
The native stock was virtually wiped
out; nonnative stock was brought in
but did not thrive. Some two hun¬
dred mature Pinus palustris are now
preserved on 50 acres of the preserve.
There its seed germinate in winter on
bare soil.

The seedling stays small for three
to five years, the young needles forming
what appears as a grass-like clump; this
stage is indeed called the grass stage.
The many needles burn quickly in a
cool fire, and as the fire moves on, the
apical meristem can be preserved.

Rare plants are slowly reappearing.
Look for the tiny Pineland Scalypink
(Stipulicida setacea) on a summer visit.
There are a few additional acres of this
remarkable tree at the recently estab¬
lished South Quay Sand Hills Natural
Area Preserve in Suffolk. ❖

Duo to Manage VNP5 Web Presence

W elcome to our new web team
of Caitie Cyrus and Mark
Murphey. Caitie has been a mem¬
ber of the VNPS John Clayton and
Pocahontas chapters for the past
several years and has lived in Virginia
since 2013. She is an environmental
scientist in the private sector based in
Williamsburg and specializes in rare,
threatened, and endangered plant sur¬
veys. She received her M.S. degree in
biology from the College of William
and Mary, where her thesis focused
on conducting a floristic inventory of
the College Woods. While a student,
Caitie interned at the Virginia Natu¬
ral Heritage Program for a summer,
assisteing in field surveys for the Nat¬
ural Treasure Hunt, an effort funded
by the VNPS. Caitie will assist in
running the VNPS Lacebook page as
well as the VNPS website. In her spare
time, Caitie loves to hike, botanize,
and spend time with her husband.

Mark retired after many years in
the IT industry with Internet-related
companies. He worked as a manager

Caitie Cyrus and Mark Murphey

and a program and project adminis¬
trator for companies such as Network
Solutions, Web.com, and Neustar.
Mark also helped build membership
and fundraising systems for nonprofit
organizations such as Greenpeace,
People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals, and the Association of Re¬
tired Lederal Employees. He grew up
and went to college in Montana but
has called Virginia home since 1985.
He is a member of the Potowmack
Chapter. Mark is a board member
of his local homeowners association
and volunteers with a regional STEM
organization. He is grateful to his
wife, Donna, for introducing him to
the world of native plants. ♦♦♦

—Nancy Vehrs, Society President

Sempervirens, , Spring 2018

11

Pollinator Way Station
Established at Park and Ride

Article and photos by Marie Majarov, Piedmont Chapter

W aterloo is a small, unincorpo¬
rated village in Clarke County.
Located at the crossroads of John
Mosby and Lord Fairfax highways,
(U.S. Routes 17/50/340), it is a home
to a Virginia Department of Trans¬
portation’s park and ride area that en¬
courages D.C. commuters to carpool
and conserve gas. It also supports
commuters and conservation of a
different variety: native pollinators.

Situated on nine acres, seven of
them dedicated to green space, this
park and ride is truly multipurpose.
Bordered by farmland and hedge¬
rows, it is a great spot for bird¬
watching or walking a dog. On the
property’s eastern side is a tree-lined,
grassy stormwater “extended-deten¬
tion basin” that limits flooding and
erosion downstream; on the west is a
large, mowed grassy area for medical
helicopters that also provides habitat
for nesting Killdeer.

The park and ride’s newest feature
is a 15,900-square-foot pollinator plot
containing 5,400 pollinator-friendly
native plants. An exciting draw for
outdoor folks young and old, it is the
first of its kind in the Shenandoah
Valley and one of Virginia’s largest
public native-pollinator way stations.

It began as most big things do,
with a small group of committed
citizens. Loudoun Valley High School
environmental science teacher Liam
McGranaghan, a longtime Clarke
County resident, wanted to improve
pollinator habitat. He spurred the
formation of a committee composed
of representatives from the Virginia
Native Plant Society, the University of
Virginia’s Blandy Experimental Farm,
the Shenandoah Chapter of Virginia
Master Naturalists, the Piedmont
Environmental Council, and the
Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy, as
well as Clarke County’s natural re¬
source planner, to focus on conserving
and increasing native-pollinator hab¬
itat. Such projects are critical because
loss, fragmentation, and degradation
of habitat, development, farming that
uses genetically modified organisms,
climate change, pesticides, diseases,
and parasites are all having profound
impacts on native pollinators.

It followed naturally to reach out
and include VDOT’s Staunton Dis¬
trict roadside manager, Scott Nye,
and VDOT’s Edinburg residency
office. Nye, interested in furthering
VDOT’s pollinator-habitat program,
proposed a large planting with the

committee organi¬
zations on VDOT
land at Waterloo.
The plan was that
land preparations

Society past president
Sally Anderson (right)
explains to a Master
Naturalist volunteer
how to distinguish
between valuable
native plants and
invasive weeds.

would be performed by VDOT and
that volunteers of participating
organizations would plant native
plant plugs purchased with Virginia
Wildflowers and Protect Pollinators
license plate funds. The project had
two overall goals, to educate the
public and to feed pollinators. The
committee organized two September
2016 plantings with a large contin¬
gent of volunteers.

Planting day dawned sunny and
clear. McGranaghan and some 50
of his environmental science stu¬
dents took part, along with scores of
volunteers from the
other groups. Adult
volunteers were
assigned as mentors
to small groups of
excited students.

Within just three
hours 2,500 plugs
had been efficiently
set in the ground.

A Monarch caterpillar munches on a
milkweed in the summer, top, and an adult
sips nectar from a goldenrod in the fall.

All were native perennial species,
one out of every three plants was a
milkweed, either Common ( Asclepias
syriaca) or Swamp (A. incarnata).
Other meadow species selected to
create a blooming period spanning
summer and fall and offering rich
nectar-containing blooms includ¬
ed Goldenrods ( Solidago spp.),

New York Aster ( Symphyotrichum
novi-belgii) , New York Ironweed
('Vernonia noveboracensis ), Common
Sneezeweed ( Helenium autumnale ),

12

Sempervirens, Spring 2018

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1 Pollinator
Habitat
-^Program

Beebalm ( Monarda fstulosa and M.
didyma ), Whorled Coreopsis ( Core¬
opsis verticillata) , and Smooth Oxeye
(.Heliopsis helianthoides var. helian-
thoides) , Blue Wild Indigo ( Baptisia
australis var. australis ), Mist-flower
(Conoclinium coelestinum) , Dense
Blazing Star (. Liatris spicata) , Foxglove
Beard-tongue ( Penstemon digitalis ),
and Short-toothed Mountain-mint
(Pycnanthemum muticum).

The community held its collective
breath as fall and then winter turned
into spring. The plants thrived. Every¬
one was well versed in the powerful

relationships between native plants
and native pollinators, but it was
magical to see Monarch caterpillars
on almost every milkweed, a plethora
of bees and their kin buzzing around
the mountain-mint, butterflies of all
kinds fluttering among the blooms,
and colors waving in the breeze.

Weeding became a Shenandoah
Master Naturalist project with VNPS
providing expertise in discriminating
between plants to pull (not necessari¬
ly easy in a new meadow garden) and
valuable natives, like Little Bluestem
(.Schizachyrium spp.), arising from
the seed bank. Once the overall plant¬
ing is fully established, more native
grasses will be added.

VDOT’s interpretive signs further
the education goals. It is anticipated
that teachers will use the plot as a field
trip destination to educate students
about pollinators and have them par¬
ticipate in citizen-science projects.

Building on success, an additional
2,900 native plants were added last
fall. To accommodate even more of
the pollinator community, spring
flowering natives were incorporated
to provide vital nectar sources for
bumblebee queens that must establish
new colonies in the early spring.

Saving pollinators is vital to our
survival. Waterloo’s park and ride
provides carefree pollinator-friendly
ideas for large or small, home or com¬
munity plantings that, as native plant
expert Doug Tallamy so eloquently
describes, together form a significant
frame-work, a beautiful patchwork of
habitat to offset debilitating losses. ❖
—Marie Majarov is a freelance pho¬
tojournalist. She and husband Milan,
both retired psychologists, live at the
edge of a beautiful old woodland in
Frederick County. Marie is a Virginia
Master Naturalist and served on the
organizing committee for this project.

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