Native Plant Society of Texas
Boerne Chapter
The Home of
Operation NICE!™
Natives Instead of Common Exotics
Web site: http://npsot.org/Boerne
NEWSLETTER
June 2011
Volume 11 Number 6
Monthly Meeting Tuesday June 7, 2011
Cibolo Nature Center at 140 City Park Road, Boerne TX
George Diggs will join us for the potluck (see information below) and will talk with us about Texas Ferns—Surprising Diversity. Texas has more species of native ferns and similar plants than any other state in the continental U.S. The wettest part of the state, East Texas, has numerous ferns, but the Hill Country also has many species and the far western part of the state, the dry Trans-Pecos, has even more – in fact, it has the most of any part of Texas. Some species are very rare, occurring in only one Texas county and nowhere else in the entire U.S. Others thrive in the most extreme conditions – in crevices on huge exposed granite outcrops, underwater on the bottoms of ponds or lakes, or inside the mouths of caves. One species is a tiny floating aquatic, often less than half an inch long, while another has leaves up to 13 feet in length. We will explore some of the rare and unusual species and the reasons why Texas is number one in species richness.
Professor Diggs has been a faculty member in the Biology Department of Austin College, Sherman, Texas, since 1981 and is a Research Associate at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. His research interests include the plants of Texas, the taxonomy of the Ericaceae (Blueberry Family), and the connection between evolution and human health. In his research, Professor Diggs has traveled to all seven continents. He is the lead author on two books, the Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas (1999) and Volume 1 of the Illustrated Flora of East Texas (2006), and has published numerous articles in scientific journals. He is currently co-authoring a book on the Ferns and Lycophytes of Texas and a book on the human health implications of evolution. He is active in Austin College’s Center for Environmental Studies.
Come to the meeting at 6:30 to socialize; program starts at 7 PM. Our meetings are open to the public.
President’s Message
We are moving right into that iffy part of the year. Is it going to be one of those unbearably hot years when we get into the triple digits in May or June or is it going to be one of those years when we don’t reach 100 degrees until the middle of August, when all our friends are in Ruidoso or Colorado, and we can feel smug about not making the long drive? I must tell you that I am very uneasy.
If you attended our May meeting you heard Mark Duff with the Texas Forest Service tell us that it was going to be bad if we didn’t get rain in the next 30 days. Last week I got almost an inch at my house but I don’t think that inch is what Mark was talking about. It’s hard to tell what’s going on with the oak trees, but most of the junipers look sick. Isn’t life strange? Wilt Shaw said that the management at Cordillera has gone from cussing the junipers to trying to save them.
We are spreading the windfall that we got in plants from Kip Kiphart’s demonstration butterfly garden at the Mostly Native Plant Sale. If you will recall we were the beneficiaries of about 46 plants that were used in the display. Eleven have been planted in a butterfly garden at Fabra Elementary School, twelve have been planted at the butterfly garden at the Cibolo Nature Center, and a group is going to be transferred to the butterfly gardens at the Geneva School when Scott Barthel finishes killing the Johnson grass. Scott may be still giving you updates on the Johnson grass next year when he is president.
But I can attest that killing Johnson grass is no pushover. Bill Ward asked me to help him kill Johnson grass and Bermuda grass at the Cibolo Nature Center. I am not sure why he asked me but I suspect that my wife told him that I managed to kill most of the plants I tried to grow here at the house. I think that Bill thought it was worth a shot to turn me loose on the Johnson grass at the CNC. You can see that my efforts at the CNC have resulted in 4 foot-tall Johnson grass instead of 6 foot-tall Johnson grass.
Thank goodness Betty Dunn has recruited a good group to help with the weeding, planting and watering of the remainder of the CNC demonstration garden. It is continuing to hold up well even in this drought. But you can never have too many volunteers when the rains fail to show up in the spring. Contact Betty if you can give her some help.
Some of you have asked about how much money we made on the plant sale and how does the organization spend its money. I reported some of that information in my May column but not in much detail. I have asked Carolyn Estes, our treasurer, to work on a form that will show you how much money we made, how much money we have and the programs and expenses for which we use the money. When we get that completed we will put it in the newsletter and on the website. We will also update it periodically throughout the year. Those were good questions and the board was glad to respond.
Because of a concern about what libraries ultimately do with the books that we donate, the board asked Veronica Hawk to make some inquiries with the responsible persons. Based upon the answers that she gets, we may make some adjustments to our custom of purchasing a book in honor of our speaker. Stay tuned.
I am looking forward to our next meeting on June 7th. Usually our June meeting is a social meeting with food and time to talk. But this year we are going to have a speaker, Dr. George Diggs, a professor in the Biology Department at Austin College in Sherman, is going to talk about ferns. Because of his schedule June was the only time that he could come to Boerne. I heard Dr. Diggs give a presentation at the 2010 NPSOT Symposium in Denton, and I know that you will find him to be a stimulating, knowledgeable and entertaining speaker. Come early, because we are going to spread the word to neighboring NPSOT chapters and we may have an overflow crowd.
See you at the meeting and don’t forget what you signed up to bring. In the meantime don’t let up on your rain dance.
Delmar Cain
Chapter Doings
June Potluck
Appetizers and Ice Cream
Bring your favorite appetizer or dessert (doesn’t have to be ice cream)
to the June meeting. (no heavy entrees, casseroles, etc.)
We have a guest speaker for the meeting and may have guests attending to hear our speaker.
To sign up contact Lynn Scoggins ()
Or call her at 210-698-9577.
Thanks,
Tommie Ashburn
Bigtooth Maples for Boerne
Suzanne Young invites you to see the new poster for the BTM program on our website at http://npsot.org/wp/boerne/files/2011/04/BTM_flyer_2011.pdf . She also reminds you that she is accepting applications for 2011, which are available on the website http://npsot.org/wp/boerne/maples-for-boerne .
Kendall County Native Plants in Perpetuity
In 2010, at the urging of Bill Ward, the Boerne Chapter of NPSOT sponsored an intern through the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) based in Fort Worth, Texas. This intern was tasked with sorting through an extensive collection of botanical specimens, seeking those that had been collected in Kendall County. Once the task was completed, we discovered Kendall County was represented by a whopping 162 specimens. We all knew most of our membership could find more species just looking out their front doors! The challenge was on. Two representatives from BRIT, Amanda Neill and Tiana Franklin, were invited to present a workshop to explain accepted collection and submission methods to aid our chapter in boosting Kendall County’s numbers.
In February, Delmar Cain began compiling generally accepted common names to complement the scientific names accessed through the BRIT website in an effort to make the Kendall County list a bit more familiar and easier to read. The resulting combined list is what is available to you today. We encourage everyone to peruse the list, note those specimens already collected and begin feverishly collecting in your own yards and beyond.
The packet of instructional material that BRIT provided during the workshop is available by emailing Emily Weiner at .
You can learn more about the fantastic work being done at the BRIT, as well as, explore the herbarium online at www.brit.org.
Emily Weiner
Operation Nice!
NICE! ™Plant of the Month
Virginia Creeper
(Parthenocissus quinquefolia)
Virginia creeper is a woody, deciduous vine that attaches to bark or rocks by discs on the end of tendrils. It has inconspicuous flowers followed by clusters of blue to bluish-black berries which are a food source during the winter for many birds including woodpeckers, warblers, vireos, flycatchers, finches, nuthatches and chickadees.
Virginia creeper is relatively fast growing and can be used as a climbing vine or a ground cover. It can take part shade to sun, is drought tolerant and tolerates most soil types. The leaves emerge red, turn green as they mature and turn brilliant red, purple, or maroon in early fall. They look a lot like poison ivy. An old children’s rhyme will help you remember whether the vine is friend or foe – leaves of three leave it be, leaves of five let it thrive.
Virginia creeper has many uses both humans and wildlife. As a ground cover it provides excellent erosion control, and is especially useful in shade and on slopes. Medicinally, the bark has been used as a tonic and expectorant, and with twigs made into cough syrup. The roots are used to treat diarrhea. It is a larval host for several species of sphinx moths. The leaves and stems are a food source for small mammals, and yes, deer, and provide perches and nesting locations for birds
A note of Warning: Virginia creeper berries are highly toxic to humans and may be fatal if eaten. Its sap can also cause skin irritation in some people (http://plants.usda.gov). The toxic substance in the berries is oxalic acid and in the sap and plant tissues it is raphides. “Raphides are needle-shaped crystals of calcium oxalate or calcium carbonate, found in more than 200 families of plants. Raphides seem to be a defense mechanism against plant predators, as they are likely to tear and harm the soft tissues of the throat or esophagus of a plant predator chewing on the plant's leaves.” (Source Wikipedia)
Summer Break
Enjoy the summer, pray and/or dance for rain, and look for a return of the newsletter in August.
Carolyn Walden, Editor
Happenings – the Calendar
June
NPSOT Events
June 7 (Tuesday) 7:00 PM – Chapter Potluck. We are also going to have a special guest speaker, George Diggs who will discuss Texas Ferns—Surprising Diversity.
September 6 (Tuesday) 7:00 PM – Lisa Lennon will talk about pollinators
To find out about activities and workshops with other organizations call or visit their websites:
Cibolo Nature Center (830.249.4616) http://www.cibolo.org/calendar
Master Naturalist:
San Antonio, Alamo Chapter www.alamomasternaturalist.org
Kerrville, Hill Country Chapter www.hillcountrymasternaturalist.org
Friends of Friedrich Wilderness Park (210.372.9124)
Medina River Natural Area Second Saturday Programs (210.624.2575)
For more information or to RSVP for any event please contact by telephone. Website: www.sanaturalareas.org
· Our meetings are free and open to the public. Join us the first Tuesday of the month, January-June and September-December, at 6:30 p.m. at the Cibolo Nature Center, Boerne, Texas.
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Boerne, Texas
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