The KNPS Wildflower Weekend 2025 will be held at Carter Caves State Resort Park on Friday-Saturday, April 11th & 12th, 2025. The weekend has been a KNPS tradition for over 35 years, and has always been an education focused endeavor for professionals, students, families, and naturalists of all ages.
We have decided to try something new to foster a greater connection between KNPS and the state’s higher education community by hosting student poster sessions to highlight the botanical (or botanically adjacent) research happening in Kentucky.
Read about the poster session details and scholarship opportunities here:
Use the form below to submit your abstract and/or apply for a travel and lodging scholarship. Only 10 students will be selected for this year’s poster session.
[UPDATE: Submissions are no longer being accepted]
If you are an artist or graphic designer, we would love for you to consider entering the Wildflower Weekend 2025 Logo Design Contest. This is an open design contest to come up with a logo for Wildflower Weekend 2025 (April 11-13 at Carter Caves SRP). The logo will be used on t-shirts, hoodies, and coffee cups, as well as on all publicity about the event. The submitted designs will be presented to the KNPS membership for voting and the winner will be awarded $200 and be recognized on the KNPS website.
In June of 2022, a KNPS member posted the image on the right on the KNPS Facebook group page of a t-shirt she had found in a thrift store. Asking among several longtime members, it turns out that in the 1990s, and into the early 2000’s, KNPS produced t-shirts for each Wildflower Weekend. The KNPS Board decided to bring back this great tradition for Wildflower Weekend 2023.
The Board asked KNPS vice-president Kendall MacDonald to design a logo for the 2023 Wildflower Weekend. The beautiful image she created featured the yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum) with Cumberland Falls as the background. The image was used in all publicity for the event and was also featured on an adult t-shirt, a coffee mug, a kid’s t-shirt, and an adult hoodie that were available for sale in our KNPS Gear Shop.
The Lady Slipper newsletter of the Kentucky Native Plant Society has been published since the Society’s founding in 1986. We occasionally feature an article from a past issue. Wildflower Weekend 2025 will be at Carter Caves State Resort Park. Carter county is a hot spot of Violet (Viola) diversity in Kentucky, with 13 species of Viola found in the county. This article, from November 1992, is an in-depth look at the Violas of Kentucky. This article first appeared in Nov 1992, Vol. 7, No. 4. If you would like to see other past issues, visit the Lady Slipper Archives, where all issues from Vol. 1, No. 1, February 1986 to Vol. 39, 2024, can be found.
The Genus Viola (Violaceae) The Violets
by Landon McKinney, KSNPC
There are approximately 40 to 50 species of wild violets occurring throughout North America. Of these, twenty-two species and several varieties occur in Kentucky. Virtually every wildflower enthusiast knows a violet when he or she sees one. Beyond that, distinctions between the various species become quite confusing on occasion, even for the seasoned professional.
The day began in the the Sassafras Room, located in the Bernheim Arboretum Visitor Center, with updates from KNPS leadership on the Society’s activities in 2024 and plans for 2025. Following the updates the group enjoyed two talks. The first talk was Boo! Botany that goes Bump in the Night by KNPS Vice-president and Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves Botanist, Kendall McDonald. In a nod to the season, Kendall gave a fun and interesting presentation on poisonous, carnivorous, and parasitic plants found in Kentucky. Following Kendall, Tyson Gregory, KNPS member and Director of Programs for Trees Lexington, presented Ethical Seed Collection. His presentation was chock full of tips and information on collecting native plant seeds ethically and responsibly. You can download both of these presentations by clicking on the images below.
The Lady Slipper newsletter of the Kentucky Native Plant Society has been published since the Society’s founding in 1986. We occasionally feature an article from a past issue. This year’s Fall Meeting will include a hike at Pine Creek Barrens Nature Preserve in Bullitt county. This article, from the fall of 2014, is about a rare species of fern, the slender lip fern, Myriopteris gracilis, found only in Kentucky in Bullitt county. The location of this fern is along Cedar Creek, in similar habitat to Pine Creek Barrens, and is about a mile away as the crow flies. This article first appeared in the fall of 2014, Vol. 29, No. 3. If you would like to see other past issues, visit the Lady Slipper Archives, where all issues from Vol. 1, No. 1, February 1986 to Vol. 39, 2024, can be found.
The Slender Lip Fern in Kentucky
by James Beck
A single low dolomite ledge near Cedar Creek in Bullitt County harbors one of the most unique plant populations in Kentucky. At a distance this might appear to be a population of the hairy lip fern, Myriopteris lanosa (Michx.) Grusz & Windham, a species known from >20 Kentucky counties. Most will probably know M. lanosa as Cheilanthes lanosa (Michx.) D.C. Eaton, a species recently transferred (along with most North and Central American species of Cheilanthes) to Myriopteris (Grusz and Windham 2013). However, closer inspection will reveal that these Bullitt Co. ferns have smaller, nearly beadlike ultimate segments that are densely hairy underneath, keying clearly to the slender lip fern, Myriopteris gracilis Fée (Cheilanthes feeii T. Moore), in either Jones (2005) or Cranfill (1980).
Max standing alone observing a remnant limestone savanna and glade along I-59 near Fort Payne, Alabama, June 2018. Photo courtesy of Dwayne Estes
We have lost one of the most gifted botanists of the past 100 years of the southeastern U.S.
I knew of Max many years before I met him. I heard of him from other professional botanists while I was just a graduate student. Some painted a picture of Max as a reclusive, unkempt, disheveled botanist who had been down-and-out for a long time and who had given up his large private collection of 17,000 plant specimens. I had seen his unpublished PhD dissertation which was well over 1,000 pages and multiple volumes and had always admired his work long before I met Max and became his friend.
But the Max I first met in July 2009 was hands-down one of the most brilliant and gifted botanists I’ve ever had the privilege to know. In spite of the very real challenges he faced, I was truly a fan of Max and I loved him, although I’m sad to say, I wasn’t there for him. Max, to those who know him, was a complicated man. But I wanted to share a few select stories from some of my remembrances of him.
When: Saturday, Oct. 19, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm EDT Where: The Sasafrass Room in the Bernheim Arboretum Visitor Center, Clermont, KY
Mark your calendars and plan to meet up with other KNPS members and friends as we head to the Bernheim Arboretum for the Society’s 2024 Fall Meeting, on Oct 19th. We will meet in the Bernheim Arboretum Visitor Center in the Sassafras Room. If you want to learn more about KNPS, meet other Kentucky native plant enthusiasts, and learn more about the native plants of Kentucky, then the KNPS Fall Meeting is for you!
