September 2007 Vol. V No. 1

Directors & Officers

Ruth Loper, Director

Lynn Sherrod, Director

Clyde McKinney, President

Phone 903-967-3998

franclyde@peoplescom.net

Liz Soutendijk, VP Programs

Elizabeth Parks, Sec/Treasurer

Ron Loper, VP Field Trips

Marjorie Sherrod, VP Membership

Herb Jarrell, Newsletter Editor

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Editor’s Note: although we will not be entertaining a speaker for next Monday’s meeting, those who want to gather for an informal supper together before the meeting as we have in the past should plan to meet at 5:30 at the Hickory Bar-B-Que, 2333 Loop 323 E SE, 903-561-8881.

This newsletter initiates Tyler NPSOT’s new year, so Happy New Year!

As your new president, I can only succeed with help from all of you. Please let me know if something needs to be done that I do not appear to be aware of.

We can only succeed with help from all of you.

• Please let us know of opportunities for our chapter to contribute to the communities we serve.
• Please help with our projects.
• Please let us know of fund raising opportunities.
• Please help recruit members.
• Please write articles for our great newsletter.
• Please attend our meetings and field trips.
• Please tell us about field trip opportunities.
• Please tell us about a great native plant speaker you discovered.
• Please tell us how we can serve you and how we can make our chapter even better.
• Please attend the NPSOT annual meeting in October.
• Please renew your membership.
• Please plant native plants.

We have lost a great ally with the death of Lady Bird Johnson. Tyler NPSOT member Eileen Bartlett dedicated the August issue of the Wood County Master Gardener’s newsletter, which she edits to Lady Bird. She pointed out Lady Bird’s accomplishments in promoting wildflowers and quoted Lady Bird’s words as shown on the website http://www.wildflower.org/ where you can also find a brief biography and other information on Lady Bird and her legacy. Thanks to Eileen for the idea. The following is borrowed from the website.

Clyde McKinney

In Her Own Words

“My heart found its home long ago in the beauty, mystery, order and disorder of the flowering earth.”

“My special cause, the one that alerts my interest and quickens the pace of my life, is to preserve the wildflowers and native plants that define the regions of our land-to encourage and promote their use in appropriate areas and thus help pass on to generation in waiting the quiet jobs and satisfactions I have known since my childhood.”

“Some may wonder why I chose wildflowers when there are hunger and unemployment and the big bomb in the world. Well, I, for one, think we will survive, and I hope that along the way we can keep alive our experience with the flowering earth. For the bounty of nature is also one of the deep needs of man.”

“I have always been a natural tourist. Lyndon used to say I kept 'one foot in the middle of the big road'. Wherever I go in America, I like it when the land speaks its own language in its own regional accent.”

“Though the word beautification makes the concept sound merely cosmetic, it involves much more: clean water, clean air, clean roadsides, safe waste disposal and preservation of valued old landmarks as well as great parks and wilderness areas. To me…beautification means our total concern for the physical and human quality we pass on to our children and the future.”

“The environment is where we all meet; where all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become.”

“As I look back across a span of more than seven decades, I'm grateful for the joy that nature has given me and for the lifetime of experiences that led me to believe that I might repay a part of the debt I've incurred for beauty enjoyed.”

“Wildflower landscapes can help us save water. Wildflowers also can save time and maintenance money. They may even bring money to cities and states. Wildflower trails and flower festivals improve local pride and bring in tourists. But, as I've said, we need to know much more about how and when and where to plant them to get reliable, predictable, consistent results. We need that knowledge if we are to preserve wildflowers and to choose them as complements to traditional manicured landscaping.”

“When I was a little girl, I grew up listening to the wind in the pine trees of the East Texas woods.”

Lady Bird Johnson, 1912-2007.

SEPTEMBER PROGRAM

In lieu of a speaker, we will be filling packets with wildflower seeds to sell at the Smith County Fall Conference/Bulb Sale/Garden Expo on Saturday, September 8^th from 11:30 AM to 3 PM. in Harvey Hall. The Conference itself runs from 8:30 to 11 AM in the Rose Garden Center. This is one of the main ways of raising money for our chapter—so participation in this project at our September meeting will be much appreciated and benefit all of us.

Liz Soutendijk

FIELD TRIP

The September Field Trip will be to Tyler State Park to identify trees/shrubs and other plants we might find. We will meet at the Park Office at 9:00 AM on Saturday, September 22, 2007. Unless you have a Texas State Parks Pass, or can hitch a ride with someone who does, there will be an entrance fee of (I think) $3.00 per person.

Bring a sack lunch and drink. We will then go to the "planting site" in caravan. (Well, Audubon uses the phrase "birding site"!) No long hiking on this one - we can almost do the whole thing on pavement. Of course, there is a trail for the more adventurous.

Also bring your keys, and we will practice keying out the various trees and shrubs. I will have a few maps of the area at our 9/3 meeting.

P.S. The Longview folks and other guests are, of course, welcome to come along and share the fun!

Ron Loper

NEW MEMBERS

Welcome our new members to the Tyler Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas!

Cindy Harrington, Tyler Mary Kay Mickel, Winnsboro

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

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND EVENTS

The Smith County Master Gardeners’ Fall Conference/Bulb Sale/Garden Expo will be held on Saturday, September 8^th in the Rose Garden Center from 8:30 to 11 AM and in Harvey Hall from 11:30 AM to 3 PM.

PONDERINGS

Ferdinand Lindheimer

by Ruth Loper

Last June, Ron and I visited Ferdinand Lindheimer’s house on Comal Street in New Braunfels. It’s a small house, built about 1852, replacing a log house built several years earlier. It has a big shady back yard going all the way down to the Comal River. Next to the house is a mass of flower beds with paths running through them. The beds are managed by the Comal County Master Gardeners, and there is a grape arbor at the back. In front of the house is a large, single-trunk crepe myrtle tree. Crepe myrtles were brought to the United States from China in 1747, so I guess some plants had made it to Texas in a hundred years.

Many of the flowers in the garden were labeled, including several named for Lindheimer—Gaura lindheimeri, Monarda lindheimeri, Castilleja purpurea var. lindheimeri. There are almost 50 species and subspecies and a monotypic genus bearing his name. Its only species is Lindhermera texana, the pretty little daisy with five ray flowers. [Notice, whereas the specific epithet—lindheimeri—can be used repeatedly (as long as the genus name is different) the genus name—Lindhermera—can be used only once!]

Now, let me tell you about Lindheimer, and why he is remembered as the “Father of Texas Botany”. He was the first permanent-resident plant collector in Texas. He was born on May 21, 1802 in Frankfurt, Germany. He attended the University at Bonn, studying Greek and Latin literature and math. Throughout his life, he enjoyed using classical quotations. He taught school for a time, and then made his way to America in 1834 to join friends that were already here. In the U.S. and Mexico, he lived in German settlements and spoke German.

Lindheimer enlisted in the Army of Texas while in New Orleans—one day after the Battle of San Jacinto (April 19, 1836), arriving in Texas on May 18. He remained in the Army until the end of 1837. There were still skirmishes to participate in, but he was given time off to collect plants.

In 1839, he made a trip to St. Louis to study botany with George Englemann, an old friend of his from Germany. Englemann spent years searching for plants all over the country and eventually established the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It was Englemann that served as Lindheimer’s connection to botanical circles around the world.

Lindheimer collected plants, which he mounted and packed in crates, often 30 specimens per species, not only for Englemann, but also for Professor Asa Gray of Harvard, and others. In 1843, they paid him $8 per hundred specimens. He also sent seeds, roots and live plants. Gray mentions in a letter that he was raising Gaura lindheimeri cuttings to be exhibited at the Horticultural Society’s rooms in Boston in 1844.

For one collecting trip, when he was short of money, he wrote Englemann that he only went on a journey that did not require money for a ferry crossing. “I took along a little corn for my horse and a little cornmeal, 2 lbs. of bacon, 1 lb. of coffee, 1 lb. of sugar, and 1 pt. of whiskey for me”. However, another time he had purchased a good rifle, trousers and leather for a pair of boots, and was asking for money to pay for those and for him to pay a cobbler, tailor, gunsmith, cabinetmaker and laundress.

Lindheimer used volume 1 of Gray’s Flora of North America to help in his identifications. Of course, he discovered several hundred new plants, and collected over 80,000 specimens. They are housed in institutions all over the world, including BRIT (Botanical Research Institute of Texas) where some of our chapter’s members have seen HIS specimen of Smallanthus uvedalia.

In 1846, Lindheimer settled in New Braunfels and married Eleanor Reinartz, a recent German immigrant. Along with her household duties, she helped him with the preparation and drying of the many plants he was still collecting. They had three sons and two daughters. He became editor and publisher of the New Braunfels Zeitung newspaper, also conducted a private school for gifted children, served as superintendent of public instruction for Comal County and was the first Justice of the Peace. He died in 1879, at the age of 78.

Contributions to the 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.

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 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 5th Street (Highway 64) at 1712 Old Omen Road, east of Loop 323.

NPSOT, Tyler Chapter

c/o: Herb & Peggy Jarrell

PO Box 2945

Kilgore, TX 75663-2945