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Representatives of the Native Plant Society of Texas met recently with Texas AgriLIFE Extension representatives to discuss a partnership under which the Society would undertake to clean up the site of the Benny J Simpson Native Plant Collection and provide oversight and funding for the collection in the future.
The collection occupies 6 to 10 acres at the Texas AgriLIFE Urban Solutions Center and includes more than 345 native trees and shrubs collected by Simpson, a founding member and former president of the Society and a horticulturist for 42 years with the Texas A&M Research and Extension Center in Dallas. The plants underwent trials to determine which would survive in the soils of the blackland prairie. The collection, which is not currently maintained, contains some one-of-a-kind species.
Allen Jones, Director of Development at the Center, said that work will begin in the spring of 2010 for an Urban Living Laboratory at the campus. The earth-moving required for that construction lends immediacy to finding a group willing to commit funds and people to the collection. Other non-profits have been contacted to take ownership of other parcels of the campus.
Texas AgriLIFE staff estimate that as much as $500,000 might be needed for development of the collection and that an endowment would be the best solution for on-going maintenance. The money would be expended on trails and on a structure for education at the site. In-kind donations for trails and structural materials could lower costs. Sources of grant money could be identified by AgriLIFE staff thus easing the burden on the Society to locate the funds.
Man-hours required for cleanup have not been estimated. Some of the plots are empty because the plants did not survive. Others have replicated species that may need to be moved or removed entirely. Some plots have rare species that definitely need to be identified and tagged for preservation.
President Gailon Hardin expects to present the proposal at the Annual Symposium in Wichita Falls. In the meantime November 7 has been set as a tentative date to begin cleanup.
Benny Simpson began working at the center in 1954 when it was the Texas Research Foundation, a private agricultural organization. In 1972 Texas A&M took over operation of the center. His chief responsibility was managing studies of cotton root rot, but the passion for native plants and the native landscape he had since his days as a boy on a ranch on the Rolling Plains began to take shape. On his own he began to collect native plants and find leftover plots at the Center to test how they would perform in conditions outside their normal range. At the time Texas A&M did not see the value in studying native plants, so he had to defend his work from being plowed under each season.
His research led to about a dozen formerly wild species of native plants being introduced into commercial production, including two desert willows, a mountain sage, and five varieties of cenizo or Texas Sage, including the popular ‘Green Cloud.’
Plants from his collection were donated to Heard Museum in McKinney and also to Texas Discovery Gardens in Fair Park.
Authors Sally Wasowski and Jill Nokes have both acknowledged the contributions and encouragement Simpson made to their work. He is the author of A Field Guide to Texas Trees, published in 1990 by Texas Monthly Press, and donated royalties from the book to the Society. He passed away in 1997.
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**ARCHIVED POST AUTHOR: Bill Hopkins
