April 2009 Vol. VI No. 8

Directors & Officers

Ruth Loper, Director

Lynn Sherrod, Director

Clyde McKinney, President

franclyde@peoplescom.net

903-967-3998

Ron Loper, VP-Field Trips

Marjorie Sherrod, VP-Membership

Liz Soutendijk, VP-Programs

Elizabeth Parks, Sec/Treasurer

Herb Jarrell, Newsletter Editor

herbjarrell@letu.edu

903-986-2332

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Vice President Liz Soutendijk has lined up a great program for the April meeting you will not want to miss. Bring a friend to hear the program; it is one all will enjoy. We will treat the speakers to dinner as usual at Posados Mexican Café, at 2500 E. Fifth St. (903-597-2573) just west of loop 323 at 5:30, all visitors and members are urged to join us.

The winter did not seem as painful as I thought it would be and now spring is here, thankfully. What a great season. The Dogwoods are still in bloom as I write this, but blooms are falling. Leaves are popping out all over the place. Perhaps we will dodge the traditional Easter freeze. I have noticed a bunch of new wildflowers appearing with help from this week’s rains. On my walk/jog around the lake before the rain hit today, I found a new small yellow flower I am anxious to key when the rain stops long enough for me to get back to it. Besides the need for rain and the flowers it brings, a good thing about it is that I am driven indoors and have some time to write this.

We have operated all this time without bylaws and your elected officials have decided it is time to have bylaws to guide the chapter’s operations. We are striving to keep it as simple as possible. If I feel good about where we are with them at the time, I will bring a draft to the April meeting for all to see and comment on.

The nominating committee will present a slate of officers for next year at the April meeting and the election will be at the May meeting. See you all on April 6^th.

Clyde McKinney

NEW MEMBERS

No new members this month.

Marjorie Sherrod

MARCH PROGRAM

Botanizing and Birding Along the Rio Grande

by Isabel and Walt Davis

Hi all, this is our special joint meeting.  Authors Isabel and Walt Davis were so gracious to accept an invitation to present the program.  I met them at the Maybourn Conference on Nonfiction Writing last summer.  When I learned they were writing a book recording their experience about retracing the footsteps of early explorers, botanists, ornithologists, cartographers, paleontologists, archeologists, and naturalists, I was thrilled and thought, “Wow— I found a program for our group!”

 For our joint meeting with Audubon the program profiles two American naturalists, Harvard botanist Charles Wright and Cornell bird artist Louis Agassiz Fiertes.  Isabel and Walt describe the important work these two naturalists did under difficult circumstances, and revisit the landscape they explored to see how it has changed in the past century-and-a-half.  Piecing together stories, evocative descriptions and scientific discoveries through research and letters, Isabel and Walt take us into their experience.

They began this project to explore the entire 4000 mile boundary of the state of Texas after retiring from a career in science and historical museums (Walt) and public libraries (Isabel).  Texas A&M University Press will publish a book about their research and adventures in February 2010.

Come and enjoy the program. See you there.

Liz Soutendijk

FIELD TRIPS

We are planning a field trip to the Native Plant Center at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches during the Spring peak flowering time.  Since the date is not necessarily finalized, if anyone has dates we need to avoid, please let me know.  

Ron Loper

PONDERINGS

What’s In a Name?—Part IV

by Dr. Herb Jarrell

Hopefully last month’s article impressed you with how much Greek and Latin you already know! If you noticed any words for colors that you thought were overlooked in last month’s list, please let me know (herbjarrell@letu.edu). Now that crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum) is coming into full bloom, I thought of a few I missed—incarnatum and carneus, both meaning flesh-colored (carn = flesh) and carmesinus, meaning crimson. Now let’s try two dozen more terms you may run into more often than others:

English Latin Greek English Latin Greek

beautiful pulch/pulchell ------- northern septentrio bore/boreal

dwarf pumili nano ordinary vulgar -------

eastern orient ------- root radici/radix rhiza/rhizo

egg-shaped ovat ------- short brevi brachy

equal equi/pari iso curti -------

field campestr ------- small minut baeo

flower flora/flori antho/anthus parvi micro

fruit fructi/fructus carpo/carpus pusill pauro

heart cor/cordi cardi/cardia southern austr/austral -------

honey mel/melli melis/melito thorny spina/spini acantha/acantho

horned cornut cerato unequal ------- aniso

leaf foli/folium phyllo/phylum water aqua/aquat hydra/hydro

large grandi macro wax ceri/cera cero/cerus

magni mega/megalo western occident ------

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPCOMING EVENTS

Tuesday, April 7

Collecting, Pressing, and Mounting Plant Specimens

Tiana Franklin, Collections Manager,
BRIT Herbarium

Spring is a great time to get to know your wildflowers and start your own collection. Learn how to properly collect, press, and mount plants to create your own herbarium; to create a learning collection for students, gardeners, or naturalist groups; or to contribute to the collections of local herbaria. Dress comfortably and come prepared for hands-on learning. Course Fee: $45 ($38.25 for BRIT members)

Thursday, April 16: Henderson County Master Gardeners Spring Conference, Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (near Athens). This $20 event includes dinner at 6 PM, catered by Edom Bakery and Grill, and features Elvin McDonald as the keynote speaker.

A lifelong gardener, Elvin McDonald is an editor at large for “Better Homes and Gardens.” The recipient of the Chicago Horticultural Society's Hutchinson Medal for lifetime achievement, McDonald was also named to the Garden Writers Association Hall of Fame and has designed gardens for celebrities and public agencies across the country. He is the author, editor, photographer, or publisher of hundreds of gardening books, and his work has earned him the nickname “Dean of American Garden Editors.” McDonald lives in Des Moines, Iowa. His most recent book, Texas Public Gardens, was published in 2008, and includes a feature on the East Texas Arboretum and Botanical Garden.

For tickets, call Texas AgriLife Extension, 903-675-6130.

Contributions to the Newsletter

This newsletter is normally published monthly, September through May. Members are especially encouraged to submit articles for publication in this newsletter. Contributions will be considered on the basis of interest, suitability, and available space. Grammar and spelling corrections will be made at the discretion of the editor. Email your articles, announcements, etc. to the editor at herbjarrell@letu.edu.

Access our website for previous newsletters at www.npsot/Tyler/index.htm. If you have never attended one of our meetings, and you are interested in learning more about native plants and their habitats, we invite you to give us a visit. Our meetings are held at the Fairwood United Methodist Church in Tyler on the first Monday of each month, September through May. Fairwood United Methodist Church is located just east of the East Loop (Route 323) and south of Fifth Street (Highway 64) at 1712 Old Omen Road.

Please note: if you want to forward this newsletter to someone via snail-mail, simply fold a printed copy so that a blank side remains on the outside for addresses and postage, and then staple or tape the two sides and the bottom together.

Redoubt Volcano (~200 mi WSW of Anchorage) is at it again!

19 ash showers since Sunday night, April 22^nd and counting!

(Just type www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php into your web browser to monitor this historic event; it looks like a repeat of its behavoir in 1989-1990.)