April 2008 Vol. V 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

***Note that the day & meeting place is different from the usual.*** The program will be in the church auditorium, which faces on Hudnall Drive (just north of E. Amherst Drive) and is behind the Education Building that you see on New Copeland.  Richard LeTourneau, Vice Chairman of the Texas Conservation Alliance, a statewide organization focused on protecting native ecosystems and wildlife, will give us a short update on the litigation involving the Neches River National Wildlife Refuge and a description of Tyler Audubon’s initiative to get the Neches designated as a National Scenic River. He will detail some of the specific plants, birds and other animals that would be protected by the refuge but threatened by the proposed reservoir on this river. Other interested groups or individuals are invited to attend this very informative program.

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Pre-meeting MunchBunch

Let’s meet again for supper at Posados Café at 5:30 PM prior to April’s Joint Meeting. Everyone is invited!  Posados Café is just a block or so west of Loop 323 at 2500 (on the north side) E Fifth St (903-597-2573).

The dogwoods were stunning this year around my area. The blooms will be mostly gone by the time we meet in April with the Audubon folks. Thankfully, they will be followed one after another by something else—some just spectacular, some not so, but worthy just the same. Take time to enjoy these gifts of nature as they are given. Give back by planting some blooming natives to enjoy over the years ahead. Happy flowering!

Clyde McKinney

NEW MEMBER

Please welcome our new member to the Tyler Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas!

Rex Rasberry—Whitehouse

It’s great to have you with us! If you haven’t come to one of our meetings or our field trips, you are missing out! Also, if you have recently joined our chapter and you’re not listed above, please forgive our oversight and let us know.

Marjorie Sherrod

APRIL PROGRAM

Protecting the Wild Neches

by Richard LeTourneau

LeTourneau will describe the beauty, recent history, and tourist value of the Neches River, especially the plants and animals of the Neches bottomlands, an exceptional wildlife habitat.  He will share an amazing success story in which local people generated more than 10,000 letters of support for protecting this habitat for the wildlife, resulting in federal approval of the Neches River National Wildlife Refuge.  Also, he will bring us up to date concerning the continuing threats to the Neches and the on-going efforts to protect it.

Biographical Background: A retired business owner from Longview with 25 years experience in the metal fabricating industry, Richard has served on a number of public boards, particularly regarding water issues. For 10 years he has been a member of the North East Texas Water Planning Group known as Region D. Serving in various capacities since its inception, he is currently Vice Chairman. He also serves on the Texas Wetlands Study Commission for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and is involved with the Caddo Lake Watershed Protection Initiative. Richard served on the Texas Water Conservation Implementation Task Force formed by the Texas Water Development Board to make recommendations to the Legislature. He was recently elected by the Region D Planning Group to a special study commission established by the Texas Legislature to study alternatives to the Marvin Nichols Reservoir.

An ardent conservationist and outdoors man, Richard volunteers much of his time to protect wildlife habitat. He worked with Texas Conservation Alliance to help establish the Neches River National Wildlife Refuge, prevent loss of old growth bottomland hardwood forest in the Old Sabine Bottoms Wildlife Management Area and the Little Sandy Refuge north of Tyler, and protect thousands of acres of prime forest and river habitat.

Liz Soutendijk

FIELD TRIPS

We have tentatively set a field trip for Ivy's Preserve on April 26^th.  This site and date will be finalized after the 15^th, so if anyone has other suggestions for times or places, please let me know at that time. Otherwise, watch for an email from Herb or call me the week of April 21^st for more details and any changes.

Ron Loper

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPCOMING EVENTS

Two Botanic Garden Master Plan Public Meetings. In addition to BRIT's scheduled move to a site adjacent to the garden in 2011, a master plan committee composed of the gardens' support constituencies has been at work for over a year. The results to date are ready to be put before the public for comment. James Toal, of Gideon Toal, updated the City Council on the progress of the Garden’s Master plan at their pre-council session on March 25^th. Gideon Toal is teamed with Andropogon Associates, nationally recognized garden planning specialists based in Philadelphia.

At 10AM and 5PM on Wednesday, April 16^th James Toal will be presenting the progress on our Master Plan in two public meetings in the Dorothea Leonhardt Lecture Hall of the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens, one of Fort Worth’s most beautiful landmarks. The City of Fort Worth, the Fort Worth Botanical Society, the Fort Worth Garden Club and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, and others have all been part of the initial master planning process. The planning effort will address Garden improvements and additions, improved pedestrian circulation, linkages to other Cultural District attractions, neighborhoods, future parking needs, signage and information in the Garden, and Garden gateways. We will be soliciting input from those in attendance.

Especially if you are a member of BRIT, we encourage you take the opportunity to learn more about the planning for our future neighbor. The Fort Worth Botanic Garden is located at 3220 Botanic Garden Blvd., Fort Worth, TX 76107. (817) 871-7686. For more information about the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, visit www.fwbg.org.

S. H. Sohmer, President and Executive Director
The Botanical Research Institute of Texas

For additional information, please contact Tonya Veasey @ 817-705-5544.

The Lone Star Regional Native Plant Conference—May 28-June 1, in Nacogdoches. Mark your calendars—they always have good speakers and good field trips.

PONDERERINGS

What is a Plant… Really?

by Herb Jarrell

We think of ourselves as plant people—those who, in some sense of the words, have a love affair with plants. So what is a plant… really? Let’s begin with the term itself: when we say we “plant” our feet, we imply the expectation that our feet will remain immobilized. Indeed, in our society one who oversees the operation and maintenance of “the physical plant” takes the official title stationary engineer! Thus, the term plant itself gives us two obvious ways in which plants are differentiated from all other forms of life.

First, most of these organisms are fixed in place, that is, they have none of the animal systems upon which mobility is based: no muscles, no nerves to coordinate muscle movements, no sensory organs to guide the innervations of the muscles, no circulatory system to sustain these systems, no digestive system to supply fuel for these systems, not even a respiratory system to supply the oxygen needed to burn the fuel and to flush out the toxic CO₂. Of course, plants do have some form of all of these systems at the cellular level, but we rarely get to see what their individual cells do. If we were to observe plant cells, we would see movement, indeed, for without movement there could be no growth (increase in a plant’s size). Therefore, plants are plants because very little outside of individual cells move and, even then, the organisms themselves still remain tethered to the GPS coordinates of their caudices, that is, that are planted in space, never to change of their own free will.

Second, and as a direct consequence of the first, most of these organisms are tethered to some form of solid earth, that is, to the land (and not always the dry land). Thus every technical circumscription of the Plant Kingdom has historically included all “land” plants. Whether aquatic or terrestrial, all organisms that are “land-based” as well as immobile have been called “plants”. However, in more recent decades, this inextricable association between the “plants” and their “lands” has slowly given way to a distinction between organisms that are “green” and those that are not. Think of it—the very nuances in our current socio-political connotations of “green” evokes thoughts of “reclamation”, “renewal”, “self-sustaining” and “environmentally efficacious”. Therefore, is it not so fitting that our “green” plants are those which are not only self-sufficient in themselves, but also sustain all other groups of organisms, including the plants that aren’t “green”? What is the fundamental difference between these two major types of plants? Well, only the green ones have the genes that allow them to synthesize photosynthetic pigments (which are often literally green!), unlike all other groups of organisms, “animal” or “vegetable”! All other forms of life which have at one time or another historically been included in the “plant” kingdom—almost all archea, almost all non-green bacteria, all non-green algae and all fungi—can live only by “digesting” (actually decomposing) one or more of the other groups of organisms, including, of course, the green plants. And, in so doing, they literally pollute the environment of all other groups as well, including that of their own!

In summary, then, these plants with which we are usually so often intrigued are required for the existence of all life—obviously their own, as well as that of almost all other forms. They are the green plants! As in the green Earth!

Long live our beloved green plants!!!

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.

Feature Photograph of the Month

Hercules (below, far right) was recently awarded the distinction of Worlds Biggest Dog by Guinness World Records. This 3-yr old (the dog, not the horse!) is an English Mastiff with a 38-inch neck and paws the size of grapefruits! At 282 pounds, His size was NOT induced by a bizarre diet. The owner insists, "I just fed him normal food and he grew" (and grew… and grew... and grew)!