As we send out our last newsletter of the year, I wanted to give thanks to all our membership for supporting Kentucky Native Plant Society over the years and to all of the new members who continue to give me hope for our growing organization. We have been able to accomplish a lot this year as an organization, from organizing several virtual meetings, hosting a few in person hikes as well as contributing to native plant documentation through our inaturalist projects and plant atlas and distribution efforts. Our grants program continues to fund important native plant research conducted by students at universities and has expanded to include rare plant restoration efforts. The ladyslipper continues to be a monthly resource to find the latest native plant news and our website is continually improving as we provide compile native plant resources such as native plant sales, nurseries, herbariums and general native plant information . Our last organized event of the year, the annual Kentucky Botanical Symposium, is next Wednesday, December 8th, 9am-11:30am EST, and I encourage everyone to join in and learn about some current native plant projects programs occurring across our state and also learn from nearby state partners on existing programs that we could network or model here in Kentucky. I hope that everyone has had time to see the beautiful fall colors and the first glimpse of the frost flowers here in Kentucky, I know my family has enjoyed the first frost flower finds! Please check our website for any updates, upcoming planned events, visit our gear shop for gifts for friends and family, and visit a nearby natural area to view all of our wonderful native plants as they transition into winter. One of my favorite winter native plant activities is moss and lichen hunting, native plant wreath making, and reviewing the bud and bark characters of our many native trees.
Have a great December and upcoming Holiday fellow native plant enthusiasts!
For the love of Kentucky Plants,
Tara Rose Littlefield
Littlefield Berry Family Enjoying the first frost flowers (from wingstem, Verbesena occidentalis) of the year in Anderson County, Kentucky,2021-11-06.
Xerohydric Prairie remnant, Russell County, Kentucky, Eastern Highland Rim. @T. Littlefield
Wednesday, December 8, 9AM-1130AM EST, virtual and free
“Coming Together to Discuss Current Botany Projects: Conservation and Collaboration in Kentucky and Beyond”
Kentucky Native Plant Society (KNPS) is hosting our annual botanical symposium on Wednesday, December 8th from 9AM-1130AM EST. For several years, KNPS has organized a botanical symposium in the fall/winter with a goal of bringing together professionals, community scientists, academics, researchers, gardeners and students in order to learn about what’s going on in the world of Kentucky Botany and beyond. Please join us!
To Kentucky Native Plant Society members and general native plant stakeholders! While the symposium agenda will highlight updates from Kentucky native plant society, the office of Kentucky Nature Preserves, and our main speakers from division of water, NRCS/Quail Forever/Southeastern Grasslands Initiative, and the Illinois plants of concern program, there will also be a section devoted to hearing about native plants projects from KNPS members and native plant stakeholders like YOU! If you would like to be included in this section, please send an email to Tara Littlefield @ tara.littlefield@ky.gov about the native plant project you are working on and you will be added to our stakeholder announcements section.
We are very excited to announce the agenda, featuring updates from botanists/ecologists from the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves on state listings, adding plants to the state wildlife action plan, adopting a rockhouse in the RRG, implemented plant conservation conservation horticulture projects, and current monitoring programs; updates from Kentucky Native Plant Society board members on upcoming meetings and projects; Chris Benda, the Illinois botanizer, will be talking about the rare plant monitoring program he leads in southern Illinois, Brittney Viers will discuss working with private landowners to restore remnant prairies, Joey Shaw will discuss the Tennessee-Kentucky Plant Atlas, and Brittany White will provide updates on the Wetland Assessments conducted by Kentucky Division of Water. Click on the PDF below for the agenda.
Kentucky Botanical Symposium 2021 Speakers and Facilitators :
Brittney Viers, QF/NRCS TN State Coordinator/Southeastern Grasslands Initiative Liaison will be discussing Remnant Grassland Restoration on Private Lands in Kentucky and Tennessee.
“I’m originally from Northeast TX, which historically was the Blackland Prairie region. My parents and I moved to southern Indiana since my Mother is from there. I spent the rest of my childhood growing up on a row crop and cattle farm, but realized that natural history and ecology was my passion. While in college at Murray State University studying Wildlife Biology I started working for IN DNR Div. of Nature Preserves and fell in love with the glades and barrens of southcentral IN. I stayed at MSU to acquire a masters degree in Botany. Because of my native plant and natural communities knowledge, I became a quail biologist in KY and later in TN working with private landowners desiring to restore habitat and improve their quail and other upland wildlife populations. In 2019, I got the chance to have a strictly grasslands and quail focused position through a specialized Farm Bill grant in both KY and TN. I will always strive to merge private lands work with restoration practices in degraded remnant grasslands since they are in desperate need of our recognition, care, and attention”.
Brittney Viers, QF/NRCS TN State Coordinator/Southeastern Grasslands Initiative Liaison, in a grassland remnant.
Chris Benda, Botanist and former president of the Illinois Native Plant Society will be discussing Monitoring Rare Plants of Southern Illinois (Plants of Concern program).
Chris Benda is a botanist and past president of the Illinois Native Plant Society (2015-2016). Currently, he works as a Researcher at Southern Illinois University, where he coordinates the Plants of Concern Southern Illinois Program and teaches The Flora of Southern Illinois. Besides working at SIU, he conducts botanical fieldwork around the world, teaches a variety of classes at The Morton Arboretum and leads nature tours for Camp Ondessonk. He has research appointments with the University of Illinois and Argonne National Laboratory, and is an accomplished photographer and author of several publications about natural areas in Illinois. He is also known as Illinois Botanizer and can be reached by email at botanizer@gmail.com. Visit his website at https://illinoisbotanizer.com/
Chris Benda in a native grassland showing off a rare orchid in Illinois.
Brittany White, Division of Water Wetland Biologist, will be discussing Wetland Monitoring in Kentucky.
Brittany is a wetland biologist with the Kentucky Division of Water’s Wetlands Program. After spending several years working in wetlands across the southeast, she is happy to work in Kentucky searching for salamanders, admiring soil profiles, and of course, looking at plants. Although not in her job description, she also specializes in performing terrible nature-based parodies for her coworkers. When Brit is not at work, she enjoys meandering the woods with her best mutt Evelyn, hanging out with her two kiddos, and having far too many hobbies than is reasonable.
Brittany White, Division of Water Wetland Biologist
Dr. Joey Shaw, Associate Professor @ University of Tennessee, will be presenting on the Kentucky Tennessee Plant Atlas Project.
Tara Littlefield, Botanist and Plant Conservation Section Manager at the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves and President of the Kentucky Native Plant Society, will be co-facilitating the meeting and presenting updates on on a few priority plant projects from OKNP.
Tara Littlefield is the senior botanist and manager of the Plant Conservation Section at the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves. She serves on the board of the Kentucky Native Plant Society and coordinates the state’s plant conservation alliance activities-a public private partnership working on rare plant and community conservation. She grew up on the southern edge of the cedar creek glade complex in Hardin County, Kentucky and has had a fascination with the natural world since a small child. Tara has a B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Louisville and a M.S. in Forestry/Plant Ecology from the University of Kentucky. Much of her work involves rare species surveys, general floristic inventories, natural areas inventory, acquisition of natural areas, and rare plant/community restoration and recovery.
Tara Littlefield in her happy place along the river scour in the Big South Fork.
Vanessa Voelker, botanist at OKNP, will be discussing the adopt a rockshelter program and other volunteer opportunies.
Vanessa Voelker is a botanist with the Plant Conservation Section at the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves. Originally from central Illinois, Vanessa worked as a lab tech for the USDA before fleeing the lab for the woods, and honed her skills as a botany technician in Missouri and Indiana before coming to Kentucky in 2020. When she isn’t in the field, Vanessa is active on iNaturalist (@vvoelker) and is always happy to help with plant identification and offer pro-tips for differentiating between tricky species
Vanessa finding a heart shaped leaf in limestone barrens.
Kendall McDonald, OKNP botanist/lichenologist will be presenting on the forest biodiversity project and lichen assessments.
Kendall McDonald is a KY native who researched lichens at Morehead State University. Since 2017, she has been a botanist and lichenologist with the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves. She is the lead on OKNP’s Forest Biodiversity Assessment Program and lichen monitoring
Kendall excited to find lungwort lichen, an old growth forest indicator.
Rachel Cook will be discussing the Kentucky Native Plant Suppliers database. Rachel Cook is a botany technician with the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves. Rachel is a Kentucky native, growing up on a farm in Perryville, Kentucky. She graduated from the University of Kentucky with a B.A. and a B.S. in Environmental Sciences, but botany was always her passion. As a botany technician, she helps on rare plant surveys and floristic inventories throughout the state. When not working, Rachel is tending to her house plant collection, hiking around Kentucky, or cuddling her cat.
Rachel and the state endangered small white ladyslipper.
Heidi Braunreiter will be presenting the KNPS updates and upcoming events. Heidi is a botanist and burn boss for the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves. She is originally from Wisconsin and has done botanical surveys across the eastern United States. Heidi received her B.S. in Biological Aspects of Conservation and a certificate in Environmental Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2011, she met Dr. Ronald Jones on a KNPS Wildflower Weekend hike and decided to pursue a graduate degree at Eastern Kentucky University. She received her M.S. in Biology at EKU and finished her master’s thesis on A Vascular Flora of Boyle County, Kentucky.
Tony Romano will be providing an update to the states roadside pollinator habitat project. Tony is a botanist with the Plant Conservation Section at the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves. He is the project coordinator for OKNP’s roadside pollinator habitat project. Originally from Illinois, Tony received a M.S. in Geography from Southern Illinois University. Tony spent several years working in land management and botany in Colorado before moving to Kentucky in 2019. When not botanizing he can be found climbing in the red river gorge and fly fishing on Elkhorn Creek.
Two of my favorite things are floating in the water and growing native plants–so building an organic swimming pool has been on my wish list for years. We finally finished the project just in time for this year’s swimming season and it is a delight!
We found a pond design that was the perfect fit for both growing native wetland plants and cooling off in the water. This pond combines a deep swimming zone (ours is 8’ deep) with an adjacent shallow planting zone.
Since our soil does not hold water, we used a liner beneath the entire area. The swimming zone is enclosed by a wooden box (ours is 10’x20’) that separates it from the planting zone. Outside of this box is the planting zone–3’ of sand and gravel that slopes towards the swimming area. The wooden box holds the substrate back from the deep area.
Our planting area surrounds the entire pool and varies in depth from 0-1.5’. Ideally you want equal areas for the planting zone and the swimming zone. A perforated pipe is beneath the sand and gravel, and a bubbler circulates water through the plant roots, into the pipe, and back to the pool. The plant roots work together with the substrate to keep the water clean and clear.
The pond is built above grade to prevent run-off from entering the pool (run-off carries nutrients from the soil into the pool and causes algae blooms). This means you have to wait for rainfall to fill the pond–luckily, we have a nearby spring we were able to use to fill the pond more quickly.
It is wonderful to finally have a wet area to plant species like soft rush, lizard’s tail, pickerelweed, rattlebox and blue flag Iris. Blue vervain, foxglove beardtongue, swamp hibiscus, fox sedge, blue lobelia and other species are thriving right at the edge of the pond where they are out of the standing water, but their roots are wet. The plants were put in the ground in May but are already doing their job to keep the water clear. (See the list of botanical names below.)
We are not the only ones enjoying the pool. Tadpoles immediately colonized the pool. It has been fun watching birds drinking from the shallow area and we have a red-eared slider who sometimes basks on a rock between swims.
Margaret Shea has a M.S. in ecology from Indiana University and has worked for a number of Kentucky Conservation organizations before starting Dropseed Native Plant Nursery 16 years ago. Margaret’s past employers include The Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission, The Kentucky Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, and Bernheim Forest.
Wood lily (Lilium philadelphicum), Laurel County, Kentucky. @Littlefield
By Tara Littlefield, Botanist and Plant Conservation Manager
The Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves and partners have been working on a project to protect, connect, and restore populations of the state endangered wood lily (Lilium phildelphicum), and its Pine Barrens and woodland habitat over the past decade in Kentucky. The wood lily, while globally secure and wide ranging, is state endangered in Kentucky despite once being more common. This charismatic plant of the Cumberland Plateau grassland and woodlands (barrens) has declined by over 90% in the past 40 years due to habitat loss, lack of fire, mowing, and herbivory. The wood lily, along with numerous other plants it grows with, make up critical pollinator habitat for species such as the monarch butterfly and native bees. We are working with partners to bring this plant and its habitat back from the brink of extinction by coordinating and implementing monitoring, management and restoration efforts. I am excited to announce that the wood lily has finally come full circle as a plant conservation alliance project from monitoring, collaboration, seed collection, site preparation and management, to now translocation back in managed pine barrens habitat in the Cumberland plateau!
A catalyst for the creation of the Kentucky Plant Conservation Alliance
The conservation efforts for the wood lily represents a shift in plant conservation direction in our state that has happened over the past decade. Funding and targeted conservation efforts have traditionally been focused on globally rare plants, plants that are listed under the Endangered Species Act and have specific federal funding tied to their recover efforts. Since I have worked at Kentucky Nature Preserves in 2005, the lack of staff and funding has always limited the number of projects and species we could reasonably work on outside of our federally listed plant program and state nature preserves site monitoring and management programs. Our efforts for federally listed plants were successful ,and we managed with limited monitoring on our state nature preserves and associated rare species that occurred on these lands. In addition to this work, we had identified so many other plant conservation needs for state listed species across the state that were falling through the cracks due to lack of staff, funding, time outreach and education. Our rare plant records were becoming historic, and the state listed rare plants that we were able to visit on private and public lands were rapidly declining or becoming extirpated since they were originally discovered in the 70s-90s due to various threats. The wood lily is one example of a species that was falling through the cracks.
How do you tackle issue of lack of staff, time and funding to accomplish larger missions beyond the feasible efforts of just a few dedicated staff? What was our approach to addressing these serious plant conservation issues? The key is partnerships and collaboration, and creating an outreach focus of spreading the mission into other organizations and individuals.
Wood lily Conservation History
The majority of the wood lily populations were discovered and documented in the 1970s and 1980s in over 10 counties scattered in the Cumberland plateau region. They were primarily found in powerlines and roadsides and nearby pine oak woodlands and barrens. Over the years, due to habitat loss, lack of fire, summer mowing, and herbivory the populations dwindled down to just a handful of populations. I worked on a project from 2011-2013 updating roadside rare plant populations in the Cumberland plateau region on and near the Daniel Boone National Forest and collected this data. It was alarming. If trends did not change, if threats were not mitigated, we may lose one of our beautiful native lily’s, among many other rare species and habitat, from our state in the near future. With some outreach, new partnerships were formed with KYTC transportation staff and roadside maintenance crews to alter mowing and other management of the rare plant populations. We partnered with David Taylor with the Daniel Boone National Forest and Jim Scheff and Tina Johnson of Kentucky Heartwood on additional monitoring and seed collection efforts. After a failed attempt at seed collection in 2016 due to extreme herbivory, we caged 27 plants scattered in the southern Cumberland plateau region to ensure seed collection in the fall. We knew it was important to propagate and seedbank these plants as soon as possible in order to transplant future plants into suitable habitat in the future. We needed to increase the number of viable populations and make up for some of of the many lost populations over the years.
Jim Scheff of Kentucky Heartwood and Kendall McDonald of OKNP cage wood lily’s to prevent herbivory to ensure seed collection, June 2017. @ T. Littlefield
Seed was successfully collected in 2017 by OKNP, Heartwood, and KNPS volunteers and a new project with Margaret Shea of Dropseed Nursery began. Margaret is a amazing native plant horticulturalist with a rare plant conservation background. Her success at propagating the seeds, growing and safeguarding the plants until we are able to transplant into recipient pine barrens sites is crucial to the restoration and transplantation process.
Margaret Shea @ Dropseed Nursery @H. Braunreiter
At the same time, land managers at the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves, led by Josh Lillpop, began pine barrens restoration projects at on OKNP state nature preserves and natural areas in order to create more suitable pine barrens habiat for rare plants like the wood lily (Lilium phildelphicum), pine aster (Symphyotrichum concolor) and hairy snoutbean (Rhynchosia tomentosa). We partnered with staff at the Daniel Boone National Forest, including David Taylor, Claudia Cotton, Christy Wampler, and Jacob Royse who helped with population monitoring and connecting with existing pine barrens restoration efforts that could also provide future habitat for the wood lily. While our goal continued to be increasing networking with roadside and utility companies and staff on appropriate management practices for the existing rare pine barrens species, we also strived to create new populations within interior pine barrens restoration sites that are being managed with fire and mechanical removal of canopy, the pine barrens and savannah communities.
In the fall of 2021, 5 years after we began the project to protect the remaining populations and to propagate them for future introductions, the first transplantations finally began! A team from the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves and Kentucky Plant Conservation Alliance volunteers transplanted wood lily bulbs into new several sites in Powell, Pulaski and Rockcastle counties that are being managed and restored to the pine barrens woodland community.
The November 2021 wood lily bulb planting team consisted of Tara Littlefield, Heidi Braunreiter, Rachel Cook, Vanessa Voelker, Ryan Fortenberry, Lexi Schoenloab, Dale Bonk, Jim Scheff and Tina Johnson. We quickly realized that a great planting tool for these tiny wood lily bulbs were spoons, hence the spoons in some of the group photos. We planted over 500 bulbs across 5 sites with plans to expand on our plantings and sites next year. Monitoring plots were installed and data was collected. Our team will be measuring the success of these plantings over the course of the next year and networking with land managers on future scheduled burns at these sites. Fingers crossed our wood lilies survive and flourish! Stay tuned!
A variety of seeds grown and collected from native species, at just one of the regional mini-swaps in 2021. Photo: Louisville Central region swap host Deany Collard.
By Anne Milligan
When I was asked to write a summary of our Kentucky native plants and seeds swaps in Louisville, Kentucky, I was excited to share, but I also felt a bit of trepidation. How does one adequately describe a project that seems to have tapped a societal nerve, so to speak, and taken on a life of its own over the past few years? With three swaps under our belts, I want to share how this project began, and just a hint of how it is evolving, as more people come on board. I’m hopeful that our experience will help others establish swaps in their own communities.
2010
Stephen Brown and I moved to Louisville after having lived in the middle of the woods for three years in “employee housing” at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky. We loved the woods so much that we decided to look for a house surrounded by trees. We moved to a property abutting some woodland acreage and began our 12-year creation of a Kentucky native plants sanctuary.
2010-2019
That first decade involved a whole lot of physical labor on our part, creating a series of connected rain gardens flowing gradually downhill across our back, front and side yards. These gardens (plus some drier areas) are now populated with over 80 Kentucky native flowers, ferns, shrubs, and trees.
From the very beginning, we have carefully documented the project in photos and daily journal logs at Let the Earth Breathe, Inc. Please refer to our 2021 book Let the Earth Breathe for a more detailed narration of our home project, what we’ve learned so far, and some delightful surprises we encountered along the way.
2019
When we had established about 60 varieties of native species, we realized that we were running out of room to expand our “yarden” and decided to form a Facebook native seed swap group to share some of the abundance. We had a grand total of six people at our very first swap meeting in November of 2019. We were small but mighty though, because the Facebook group began to expand dramatically in a very short time after this swap.
2020
As you probably know, the Covid pandemic forced many people into quarantine, which catapulted many of us into home landscaping projects. Our annual swap was cancelled. We then divided the original group into five regional “socially distanced,” mini-swaps that covered most of the Louisville area. Besides our own swap in the southeast region of Louisville, four leaders stepped up to host their own regional swaps.
A lot of seeds were exchanged by mail and porch pick-ups. Our primary inspiration for creating home native plants sanctuaries (or “yardens”) was, and still is, Dr. Douglas Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home. Another very helpful book for beginning native gardeners is Wildflowers and Ferns of Kentucky by the late Dr. Thomas Barnes.
2021
Unique seed display from a regional swap group.
On November 6, 2021, regional swaps took place again at the hosts’ homes. I think everyone will agree that the regional swaps are here to stay, because smaller communities are developing in local neighborhoods within these regional swaps. Together, many of us are gaining more courage to remove those tidy, but unsustainable, grassy lawns and replace them with landscaped native plants, shrubs, and trees.
A regional mini-swap meet in 2021.
November 27, 2021
Three weeks after the regional swaps, our annual “citywide” swap took place at the Louisville Nature Center. We held this citywide swap to further distribute the extra seeds, plants, and tree saplings that were left over from the regional swaps. As I posted in our Facebook groups after this citywide swap, “I have never seen such a marvelously biodiverse collection of native seeds, plants, and trees in my entire life.” The people were equally diverse by age, gender, culture, and even in the unique ways we packaged our seeds. Labeling the seed packages with name, bloom time, and year collected, was stressed as very important in the weeks preceding the swaps. Some of the species were even brought over the river from New Albany, Indiana. From 1:00-4:00 PM, a steady, but never overwhelming flow of people swapped native seeds and plants.
We organized the seeds by placing tables in a large semi-circle according to the bloom times of individual seeds and plants, beginning with early spring ephemerals, all the way around to late summer and fall. We had to add extra tables to handle the generosity and abundance.
All of the regional hosts were present to greet our visitors, many of whom were surprised that all of these seed packages, plants, native grasses, and trees were free. And yet that is part of the magic of what I feel will become an annual event. My vision is that our swaps will always, first and foremost, be neighborly and welcoming, without the trappings and competition of buying and selling.
I hope that, as you read this, you will consider forming your own swap group, and hold fast to a primary rule, which is to share only species native to your region. If you are a Facebook group administrator, please know that a successful swap group also requires that you keep people engaged throughout the year, sharing books, articles, and so on and that you clarify again and again that our pollinators depend on native species for their very survival, and thus, human survival on the planet.
Most of all, keep it fun. As Margaret Shea, of Dropseed Native Plants Nursery, once told us, “It’s fun to put things in the ground.” And it really is.
Citywide swap on Nov. 27, 2021. Photo: Deany Collard.
Final Notes
On a personal level, I am happy to say that these swaps have given many participants a much-needed social connection with people who care about our planet and love gardening. We need these connections, sometimes more than we need extra money or material goods. Making positive social connections around native-plant gardening keeps us well and helps strengthen our resolve to free ourselves of our addiction to non-native grassy lawn care and help restore our planet to its natural goodness.
Lastly, please consider donating to the non-profit foundation created by Anne Milligan and Stephen Brown called “Let the Earth Breathe, Inc.” to help fund other small native species projects around our area. You can do so by visiting Let the Earth Breathe, Inc..
Happy planting!
Anne Milligan is an artist, singer/musician, and landscape designer. She lives in Louisville, KY with her husband, author and historian Stephen A. Brown.
Lonicera sempervirens f. sulphurea, a yellow-flowered form of the red native honeysuckle
By Alicia Bosela, owner of Ironweed Native Plant Nursery
The native species of trumpet honeysuckle is a deciduous woody vine that typically grows to about 15 feet. It produces red tubular flowers with a yellow throat and is pollinated by hummingbirds and a variety of insects. Ornamental uses include trellises, fences and as a ground cover. Trumpet honeysuckle differs from native yellow honeysuckle (Lonicera flava) in that L. flava is not known to occur in Kentucky and has distinctly different shaped flowers.
Lonicera sempervirens f. sulphurea; Photo Credit A FothergillLonicera sempervirens f. sulphurea , @ Tara Littlefield
While much of our wild flora is at risk from various human activity, the beautiful, red-flowered trumpet honeysuckle can still be found if one is doggedly persistent in searching. One such pursuer of native plants, Neville Crawford, located what was clearly a trumpet honeysuckle that was completely yellow and appeared to be growing in natural habitat within Mahr Park in Madisonville, Kentucky. John Swintosky, Senior Landscape Architect at Louisville Metro Public Works, discovered a yellow trumpet honeysuckle growing in Iroquois Park at least 15 years ago and confirmed its presence again in September 2021. This yellow form was reported in Iroquois Park in 1945 by P.A. Davies. Botanist Julian Campbell also encountered the yellow form in Boyle County, Kentucky.
Julian Campbell and Tara Littlefield under an arbor of the regular red trumpet honesuckle and the yellow variety that Julian collected from Boyle county, at Julian’s Botanical Garden in Lexington, Kentucky, May 2021. Photo by Christy Edwards.
Were these plants naturally occurring color variants of the red trumpet honeysuckle or an escape from cultivation? Britton and Brown’s Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States mentions the yellow form as early as 1913. The yellow form has been noted for sale in catalogues as early as 1938 and is likely “within the range of phenotypic plasticity for the species,” according to the New York Botanical Garden (personal communication). Therefore, this is almost certainly a natural yellow form of the typically red trumpet honeysuckle. How interesting!
Editor’s Note: You can see the yellow variety at Salato Native Wildlife Education in Frankfort, Kentucky at the headquarters of Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources in the backyard exhibit.
Alicia Bosela owns Ironweed Native Plant Nursery in Columbia Kentucky, a certified woman-owned business. Before opening her own nursery, she was the Assistant Director of Clay Hill Memorial Forest Environmental Education Center. You can contact her at www.ironweednursery.com.
2019 KNPS Membership Meeting and Seed & Plant Swap
Members are the lifeblood of all volunteer organizations and the Kentucky Native Plant Society is no exception. The Society depends on our members to accomplish our mission of “promoting education, preservation, and protection of native plants and natural communities in the Commonwealth“. Your dues and participation in KNPS’s activities are essential to this mission. We sincerely thank you for your support.
We currently have 471 members of KNPS. In 2021, we had 150 new members join the Society and 85 members renewed their membership. We also have 165 Life Members, 5 of whom became members in 2021.
KNPS Life Members Who Joined in 2021
Elizabeth Baldwin
Alan Chewning
Talitha Hunt
Pep Peppiatt
Michael Tain
There are many benefits of being a member of the Kentucky Native Plant Society. Education about Kentucky’s native plants is one of the Society’s primary missions. The Society fulfills this mission through a variety of learning opportunities. Each year, knowledgeable leaders take members on field trips conducted in all parts of the state. Members see special plants and visit unique and interesting natural areas. Field trips are typically limited to 10-20 participants and members are given the opportunity to sign up for these trips before they are opened to the general public. The Society also periodically conducts workshops and symposiums on native plant studies and native plant identification. Workshops are narrowly focused, with a single instructor. Symposiums generally cover a broad range of topics with multiple presenters. Again members are given the opportunity to register for these events before they are opened to the general public.
The preservation and conservation of Kentucky’s native plants and plant communities is another part of the Society’s mission. Through activities ranging from the propagation and restoration of rare native species through the organized removal of invasive species, KNPS members help to preserve and protect our native ecosystems.
We have two membership meetings a year that include programs with special speakers, presentations, and hikes. The spring Wildflower Weekend is generally at Natural Bridge State Resort Park and the Fall Membership Meeting is held at various sites around Kentucky.
In 2020 and 2021 most of our in-person activities were cancelled or curtailed due to the pandemic. The KNPS Board is working to make 2022 one of our most exciting and productive years yet. Planning is already taking place for an in-person, Wildflower Weekend on April 8, 9, & 10 at Natural Bridge SRP as well as field trips, workshops, and conservation projects. Watch the Lady Slipper for announcements of these activities.
If you have any questions about membership or if you would like to comment, or help out with KNPS activities, just shoot us an email at KYPlants@knps.org
