May 2008
Vol.
V No. 9
Ruth Loper, Director Lynn Sherrod, Director 903-967-3998 Ron Loper, VP-Field Trips Marjorie Sherrod, VP-Membership Liz Soutendijk, VP-Programs Elizabeth Parks, Sec/Treasurer 903-986-2332
Directors &
Officers
Clyde
Herb Jarrell, Newsletter Editor
***Note: contrary to what you may have seen in the
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Pre-meeting MunchBunch
Let’s
try something different for the last meeting of our fiscal year. We will meet for dinner at Dwayne’s Country Café (903-526-2800) located at 2202 E. 5th
(about a block farther west on
May Chapter Meeting Agenda
Chapter
officer/director elections will be conducted.
The nominating committee nominated the current officers/directors for
another term. Nominations from the floor
will be accepted.
April 19th
A new
East Texas chapter was approved for
A
strategic planning consultant has been hired to help us figure out where we are
and where we should be going in the future.
He will be working with a committee of members and should have a report
by the end of August.
The
McBrides will be leaving NPSOT at the end of the year. A search to hire a new state coordinator will
be initiated soon. The office hours for
the State Office in
A
library of native plant reference books has been established at the state
office—see npsot.org for the list of books.
Portions
of the website are now password protected and available only to chapter leaders
and state officers.
Total
NPSOT memberships are 51 higher than last year and now stand at 1,738.
Donations
are being solicited for the Kate Hillhouse scholarship fund. The plan is to obtain donations sufficient to
fund annual scholarships from the interest earned on the donated principal,
while leaving the principal intact.
Future proceeds from the silent auction at the state meeting will be
added to this fund.
The
Education Committee awarded two prizes to Science Fair projects. They were surprised to find projects dealing
with native plants existed this year without advertisement of our awards
program. If someone in our chapter would
like to work with the area schools to promote the NPSOT Science Fair awards,
let me know and I will see that you get the necessary information. It would be great if we could encourage area
student interest in native plant projects.
Who knows, we might encourage a future “Jason Singhurst” out there.
NPSOT
has small grants available for graduate students (up to $2,000) and
undergraduate students (up to $500) whose academic research is related to
The
Kroger Share Card Program has been discontinued. A new replacement program is in the
works. As far as I know, the closest
Kroger is in
The
2008 NPSOT State Conference will be held in
Clyde
NEW MEMBERS
Please
welcome our new member to the Tyler Chapter of the Native Plant Society of
Texas:
Billie
Wilder—Quitman
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
MAY PROGRAM
Plants of
the Big Thicket
by Peter Loos
For those of you who do not know
Peter, he is a botanist by love, a horticulturist by trade and a plant
taxonomist in his spare time. His
professional experiences in various fields of the horticulture industry as well
as his Masters degree from SFASU have greatly contributed to his extensive
knowledge of Gulf Coast Native Plants and related ecological issues as well as
his unyielding promotion of biodiversity throughout our environment. Peter has worked in the nursery and
landscaping trade in this area for more than 25 years. Currently his work focuses on wetland
mitigation and restoration. He is
presently serving on The Cullowhee Native Plant Gardening Conference Steering Committee
and the SFASU Mast Arboretum and Pineywoods Native Plant Center Advisory
Board. He has continued to maintain his
love of sharing native plants with others through various speaking engagements,
leading horticulture workshops, and assisting schools with the implementation
of various habitat/outdoor classroom projects, including the creation of a
Prairie/Bog Garden at the
Hope to see you all there.
Liz Soutendijk
FIELD TRIPS
No field trips are currently planned; please bring your
ideas for future field trips to this Monday’s chapter meeting.
Ron Loper
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPCOMING EVENTS
The May Chapter Meeting—May 5 in
The Lone Star Regional Native Plant
Conference—May 28-June 1, in
PONDERERINGS
How did
bluebonnets become [the] state flower?
By Janet Elliott
Forwarded by Jim &
Laquita Showen
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/main/5640669.html
Texans never tire of their
special rite of spring — spotting the first bluebonnets by the side of the
road. But most probably don't know the
furious battle that led to the sprightly wildflower being named the state
flower more than 100 years ago.
It was a duel of the sexes
with many male lawmakers favoring the hardy cactus or the business-friendly
cotton boll as best representative of the state. But the ladies — specifically the National
Society of Colonial Dames of
"The men being
gentlemen basically ceded to the wishes of the women and that is how the
'bluebonnet' became the state flower," said Flo Oxley, program coordinator
at the
But instead of ending the
debate, Oxley said the designation "essentially started a war."
Unbeknownst to the legislators, there was another known species of bluebonnet,
the showier Lupinus texensis. "It
[has] a much bigger, more robust flower which some folks thought better
exemplified the spirit of Texas and its people, as opposed to the subcarnosus, which [has] a very dainty
kind of flower," said Oxley.
On and off for the next 70
years, people pushed lawmakers to rename the state flower to L. texensis.
Finally in 1971, the politicians [made]
their compromises. "They solved the
problem by basically writing legislation that said those two species plus any
other that happened to show up in the future would come under the umbrella of
the state flower," Oxley said.
There are now five known
species. In addition to L. texensis,
which the Texas Department of Transportation scatters along state byways, there
are Big Bend/Chisos bluebonnet (L. Harvardii); annual lupine (L.
concinnus) and perennial bluebonnet (L. plattensis).
Oxley said the triumph of
the bluebonnet over the cactus flower and cotton boll has worked out well. "It should go down in history. It was very strategic, everybody was happy
[and] the ladies got what they wanted," she said. "Honestly, it is a very good symbol of
the
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
Please note: if you
want to forward this newsletter to someone via “snail” mail, simply fold a
printed copy in half so that a blank side remains on the outside for postage,
addressee and return addresses, then staple or tape the two sides and the
bottom together.
Photographs
of the Month
The “business end” of a sundew (Drosera sp.).
by photographer David Littschwager while on assignment
in
Teetering at the Edge of a Great Abyss!
The 355-foot drop of