December 2006 Vol. IV No. 4

Directors & Officers

Ruth Loper, Director

Lynn Sherrod, Director

Sonnia Hill, President

Phone 903-849-5357

Sonnia36@hotmail.com

Jim Showen, VP Programs

Elizabeth Parks, Secy/Treasurer

Liz Soutendijk, VP Field Trips

Herb Jarrell, VP Membership

Kay Fleming, Newsletter Editor

FROM THE PRESIDENT

While exploring internet sites about Texas flowers, I discovered the wonderful website http://www.catnapin.com/WildWeeds/PlantIndex.htm owned by Jo Cox. It contains flowers mostly from her area, Taylor County.  We began corresponding and I helped her identify some of her photos.  Later, I stopped by to see her on our way back from Big Bend and recently she and her husband came by to see us on their way to visit relatives in Lindale.

It was a beautiful sunny day, mid 60's, and a blue, blue sky.  She and I went out to explore.  We started out in the woods and she was taking photos of every tree in sight...probably because her ranch is hilly but with shrubs, rather than trees. 

The fall colors are vibrant this year.  The walnut trees are golden while the sumacs are a deep red. She loved the many beautiful fall colors of the sweetgum leaves.  She aimed her camera skyward when we were in the middle of some tall pines to capture the dramatic angle and accentuate the height. 

I had not realized that there were still quite a few things in bloom: Heterotheca subaxillaris, camphor daisy; Chrysopsis pilosa, soft golden-aster; Croptilon divaricatum, scratch daisy; Eupatorium capillifolium, dogfennel; Baccharis halimifolia, groundsel tree (there are many other common names); Aster patens, spreading aster (purple with clasping leaves); Solidago ludoviciana, willow goldenrod, etc.  We saw quite a few puff ball fungi full of yellow spores, some ferns and the lovely green rosettes of the flowers that will be coming up next year.

Her visit made me appreciate our wonderful flora even more and realize how fortunate we are to be able to go out in November and still see some flowers in bloom. Sonnia Hill

DECEMBER PROGRAM

The program for December will be our annual Christmas Party with the Tyler Chapter of the Audubon Society. This joint dinner will be held on Tuesday, December 12th from 6 PM to 9 PM in the Bradford Lodge at Camp Tyler. Members should bring their favorite dish to share with others and prepare to be judged for best food in several categories. Each person attending should bring $1.00 to pay the “camp usage fee” that Camp Tyler charges to cover insurance for our use of the building.

    If you have not been to Camp Tyler the following are directions:

· Take Hwy 110 off Loop 323 in Tyler to Whitehouse.  At the Main Street intersection, turn left (east) on Main St. (FM 346) and go to the first stoplight.  Turn left on FM 848 (also known as Bascom Road). About 3 miles down FM 848, turn right on CR 2127 (McElroy Rd) at the sign for Camp Tyler. Camp Tyler is about a mile up CR 2127 and on the left. Turn in to the left on Camp Tyler Rd.  It ends at the Bradford Lodge building where we will have our dinner and get-together.

· An alternate route is to take Spur 248 (also known as University Drive) east off Loop 323 (Spur 248 runs along the south side of UT Tyler). Travel past the university and turn right at the 4-way stop sign onto FM 848 (also known as Bascom Road). Travel about 5 or 6 miles and turn left on CR 2127 (McElroy Rd) at the sign for Camp Tyler. Again, Camp Tyler is about a mile up CR 2127 and on the left. Turn in on Camp Tyler Rd.

If you are coming from Tyler, the second set of directions may save a few miles.  If you are coming from the south or west, perhaps you would want to use the first directions.  Jim Showen

FIELD TRIPS

There is no field trip scheduled for December.  Have a happy and safe holiday! Liz Soutendijk

NEW MEMBERS

We want to welcome new members to the Tyler Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas. 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 are not listed below, let our Chapter President know. There’s always a possibility that our State office has failed to get the information to us on your membership.

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND EVENTS

The Natural Area Preservation Association (NAPA) has invited us to their Annual Meeting and visit to Ivy’s Wildlife Refuge December 9, 2006. The meeting is at 1:00 PM at the First Methodist Church on Hwy 294 in Elkhart. Immediately after the meeting, they will caravan to Ivy’s Wildlife Preserve for a tour. For more information or to get directions, call NAPA at 512-804-1981 or Email at napa@texas.net David Bezanson

PONDERINGS

The Burning Bean

By Kay Fleming

I was raised in San Antonio from the time I was about 8 years old until I left with my wife and kids to attend Texas A&M University. Our recent annual meeting of the Native Plant Society in San Antonio brought back many found memories. Things like the long bus trips downtown to the movies, visits to the San Antonio Zoo and Sunken Garden, and skinny dipping in the cold San Antonio River on a calm October day. It was a combination of these experiences that I had as a youth that eventually led me to become a wildlife biologist. I’ll never forget hearing a high pitched screech in my mother’s flower bed and discovering a humming bird in the grasp of a large praying mantis.

Botanically I was not very astute but I painfully remember the enormous goat head stickers that always seemed to find my bare feet and the remarkable burning beans that had the ability to stir things up. Both of these plant novelties are still doing well in the San Antonio area.

I now believe that the “Goat Head” stickers were from the exotic plant Tribulus terrestris which is an introduced species common throughout most of Texas but abundant in disturbed areas around San Antonio. I once was riding my bike to the dry cleaners with my dad’s Sunday clothes and stepped off bare-foot into a massive sticker bed. I had to lay the clothes that I was transporting over the ground to get out of the painful predicament. (It wasn’t until much later in life that I got to wondering if I had ruined my dad’s clothes.)

The burning beans were not as dramatic as “Goat Heads” but were mischievously painful. When neighborhood kids found the beans they would rub a hard red bean on the sidewalk and touch it to the bare skin of an unsuspecting playmate. The unbelievably hard bean and friction would make the bean hot enough to raise a blister (and often start a fight.)

The Burning Bean is the fruit of the Texas mountain-Laurel, Sophora secundiflora. It is commonly cultivated but is a native species that thrives on the rocky limestone slopes of the Texas Hill Country. On field trips presented during our Annual Meeting, the red fruit could be found under most of the mature Texas Mountain-laurels that we encountered. The tree is also commonly called mescalbean and frijolito.

As a member of the pea family, Fabaceae, its beautiful blossoms can mask the plant’s sinister side. The plant is poison to livestock and its violet-blue flowers and bright red seeds are toxic to humans. It is reported that one seed can be potent enough to kill a human due to its composition of cytosine and related quinolizidine alkaloids.

In Shinner and Mahler’s book “Flora of North Central Texas”, there was mention of a 1977 University of Michigan publication on the mescalbean by William Merrill titled, “An investigation of Ethnographic and Archaeological Specimens of Mescalbeans (Sophora secundiflora) in American Museums.” It appears that Native Americans in the Southwest possibly used the bean as a hallucinogen prior to the use of peyote. The common name “Mescalbean” was thought to have derived from the use of the ground up beans to “spice” up weak whiskey or mescal liquor. The concoction created a drink so potent that it could cause dizziness, disorientation and even death. The nature of the effects, intensity and duration probably depended on the number of beans consumed and the fool drinking it. Whether the beans caused hallucinogenic effects is doubtful but I have heard even cheap wine can produce some weird visions.

Native American medicine bags have been found at Archaeological sites in West Texas that contained the mescalbeans but whether the beans were used in healing or to bring luck can only be speculated.

Our tour guide at the Crownridge Canyon Natural Area showed us a pretty necklace made of Mescal-beans that she had purchased and a small necklace her husband had laboriously made for her. Her husband’s necklace was small because of the difficulty he had drilling holes in the beans. Even with an electric drill, he had trouble penetrating the dense seeds so they could be strung. It really makes you appreciate the handy work of the Native Americans who had no electric drills or steel bits. Most of the Archaeological samples of Native American mescalbean beads examined indicate they were perforated by means of a hot drill. While we could use a heated end of a straightened paper clip, early Native Americans probably used the heated end of a sharpened piece of hard wood. The wood was successively heated and applied to the bean until the seed was perforated.

Contributions to Newsletter

The newsletter is normally printed monthly, September through May. Members are encouraged to submit articles for publication in the 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 and announcements to the editor at kfleming@suddenlink.net or mail to Kay Fleming, 809 E. Clinton, Athens, TX 75751.

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. We have a good time! Our meetings are normally held at the Walter Fair United Methodist Church in Tyler on the first Monday of each month, September through May. Walter Fair United Methodist Church is located just off 5^th Street, (Highway 64) at 1712 Old Omen Road, East of Loop 323.

Tyler Chapter NPSOT

c/o: Kay Fleming, Editor

809 E. Clinton

Athens, TX 75751