CONSERVATION PRESERVATION RESTORATION EDUCATION

Texas Native PlantsBy Josephine Keeney

Cowpen Daisy, Verbesina encelioides, Asteraceae (Aster Family)

Outreach & Communications Guy By George McBride

This lovely but very common flower is many times overlooked by those looking for more sophisticated plants, but never mind, this plant blooms prolifically from April till frost, with the most brilliant yellow flowers that attract butterflies and insects to their soft buttery centers.

This is an annual that self seeds readily, so once you plant it you won’t need to plant it again, it can take the heat and drought and loves full sun.

It's native range covers a very large portion of North America and goes all the way to South America.

This plant is very important because it blooms prolifically without help and provides the abundant nectar that is so important to all our pollinators at a time when other plants are done for the year.

Cowpen Daisy deserves a prominent place in Texas native landscapes and Butterfly gardens.

Well hello there to all you fine Master Naturalist. I am veryproud of each of you who have helped me with my booththis year. Without your help it would be very hard for me.We do have a few more being set up at this time. You willhave plenty of notice for you to join me again. Even teachingat our booth and talking to you volunteers, I learn more fromyou all than you think. Each one of you has a certain topicthey are great at. Some do grasses, birds, trees, insects, flowers, etc. With everyone's knowledge I do learn more.Please check out the Bluestem news the last quarter of the yearbeginning in October. You will see my write up on CampJarvis (also featured here!) Thanks again for your Great help.George McBrideOutreach Committee ChairSpeakers Bureau

CONSERVATION PRESERVATION RESTORATION EDUCATION

Level I Native Plant Landscape Course held at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens.

Ann Knudson is the leader of the walk and Molly Hollar is a participant.

Photos courtesy of Carol Shinsky

Coastal Prairie Partnership, Native Prairies Association of Texas, and Cajun Prairie Habitat Preservation Society are teaming up to present the first Texas-Cajun Prairies Symposium in Lafayette. This event will unite prairie chapters from the Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and coastal Louisiana areas to learn, network, and socialize. The symposium will feature field trips to colorful Cajun Prairies, great presentations on biodiversity conservation and prairie education, and of course authentic Cajun food! So, save the date and join us in Lafayette! A chartered bus will leave Houston on September 24th for our Texas guests. Registration for this event begins on July 10, 2016!

https://houstonprairie.org/2016/06/29/tx-cajun-prairies-symposium-save-date/

(UPCOMING_EV

ENT)

Master Naturalist Daria McKelvey catches a moth!Our merry band explores Tahoka Lake Pasture.

The Sunday field day at Tahoka Lake Pasture provided a refreshing change of scene. This beautiful, unplowed 1600-acre pasture rises up from the western shore of Tahoka Lake and includes several distinct ecosystems. For many years it was home for the May family, and Mrs. Clyde May and her staff now manage it as an environmental education resource area. Several dozen of us enjoyed the ranch hospitality, starting with a hearty breakfast, and then broke off into groups to explore the flora and fauna. I joined in with the hikers, while others traveled by jeep out to the remote areas. The weather was clear, warm and quite breezy. That made butterfly and bee collecting difficult, which disappointed the entomologists. Those folks, by the way, casually carry a few plastic tubes of cyanide in their pockets to dispatch their catch. No worries, they say, it’s only deadly when wet. (Right!) All the participants, rookies and veterans, teachers and students, were in their element as we explored the big landscape, the tiny plants and critters, and everything in between. Much was learned and shared. We finished up in the early afternoon with a delicious barbecue lunch and happy conversation, and left freshly invigorated with a commitment to protect and perpetuate our pollinator communities!

Dr. Willa Finley displays her wildflower books and photographs.

Two dozen exhibitors were on hand to bolster and enliven the proceedings. There were ingenious and amusing cottage-industry products and plans for keeping honeybees and attracting butterflies. There were native plant and seed vendors, beautiful books and photos of wildflowers, and lots of experts and enthusiasts eager to share their wisdom. There was also a mind-boggling array of governmental agencies offering educational materials, guidelines and regulations, grants and subsidies—the real muscle behind the myriad initiatives for implementing diversity and sustainability in agricultural, commercial, residential and recreational settings.

Dr. Sam Droege, US Geological Service, lectures on bees.

by Ray Conrow, CTMN Class of 2015TEXAS POLLINATOR POWWOWTEXAS POLLINATOR POWWOW

The 2016 Texas Pollinator PowWow, “a gathering of the people to listen to wise words,” was held on April 22-23 at Texas Tech in Lubbock and on April 24 at Tahoka Lake Pasture near Wilson, Texas. The critical role of pollination in agriculture, prairie and wildscape was the theme, and the decline of pollinating species was the main concern. The 160 conferees included professionals from academia and government, students of the biological sciences, farmers, ranchers, dedicated amateurs, volunteers and concerned citizens. They arrived from all over Texas, nearby states, and both coasts. There were sixteen lectures covering a range of conservation and environmental themes familiar to our Master Naturalist community. These were followed by evening breakout sessions on native bee identification and milkweed propagation in a small classroom and lab setting. Pollinators include honeybees, native bees, wasps, flies, bats, hummingbirds, butterflies and moths, just to name a few. Flowering plants depend on them for fertilization and provide nectar in return, a prime example of co-evolution that proved adaptable to many diverse habitats but also vulnerable to ruin by human intrusion. Several of the talks highlighted the dramatic migratory journey of the Monarch butterfly, which is increasingly imperiled by the disappearance of the needed milkweed habitat, as a prominent example of the ecological imbalances that need to be remedied effectively and soon. To give an idea of the breadth of viewpoints, here are some abridged titles and speaker affiliations: Collecting Milkweed Ecotypes for Monarchs (Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center); Bat Conservation on the High Plains (Texas Tech Biological Sciences); Planting Habitat on Farms (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service); How I Came to Love the Syrphid Fly (Lauren Simpson, JD, U. of Houston); and one I found rather curious: National Nuclear Security Pollinator Initiative (Pantex Plant)—where Nature’s harmony and nuclear weapons meet. The most memorable talk was aptlytitled “Pollinators, Plants, and People on the Edge of What’s Left” by Dr. Bob Pyle, an eminent lepidopterist and author who founded the Xerces Society 45 years ago.

.

CONSERVATION PRESERVATION RESTORATION EDUCATION

The spring of 2016 has been notorious because of the absence of Monarch butterflies. But about April 10th a few females must have had the same idea and decided to have an egg laying party at the home of Barbara Fleischman. She has a large Mexican Milkweed shrub and they laid so many eggs on it that it was covered with caterpillars. Barbara was worried that there would not be enough food for them, so she sent an SOS through Jan Miller for help. I responded and called Barbara and told her that we could help.

Frank and I went to her home and collected 36 beautiful caterpillars on April 16th , there were still some left on her milkweed that were left on their own to grow and take care of themselves and later pupate.The ones I took were raised in two clear plastic shoe boxes topped with netting. They were fed leaves from our Milkweed vines three times a day. They grew very fast, were healthy and started to pupate about a week later.

Three of them died in their attempt to pupate, but the rest pupated successfully and made gorgeous chrysalis. Two of the chrysalis turned very dark black and never did come out, so we assume they died in their attempt to eclose. All the other 31 eclosed just fine and were beautiful butterflies.

The chrysalis were shown at the Fielder House Plant Festival where everyone marveled at their beauty. Some people had never seen a Monarch chrysalis and they were amazed at the miracles of nature.

The butterflies were released in our home garden and the Fielder House Butterfly garden, where they went off happily to drink nectar and propagate.

Hopefully we have helped them increase their numbers by raising them away from the dangers of predators at their most vulnerable stage.

The Monarchs Grace us The Monarchs Grace us with their Presencewith their Presence

By Josephine Keeney

Barbara Fleischman and Josephine Kenney Caterpillars-36 collected

Monarch Chrysalis' The finished Miracle Monarch on Coneflower

CONSERVATION PRESERVATION RESTORATION EDUCATION

ost people are attracted to orchids. They seem to have some sort of magical aura. Maybe because they are beautiful, or maybe because they are so rare in nature. The Hexalectris nitida, commonly called Shining Cock's Comb, or Glass Mountain Crested Coral Root Orchid, fits both these criteria. The name of coral root is derived from the resemblance of the rhizomes to pieces of sea coral.

The gorgeous waxy petals are pinkish brown with the middle lobe of the lip streaked in purple. It has 5-7 crests on the lip that look like a cocks's comb, hence that common name. The sepals, petals, and lip are less than one inch and borne on a reddish-purple stem rarely over 10 inches tall. Since it is self-pollinating, the flowers rarely fully open. It blooms June, July and August. It produces no nectar. Although its importance in the ecosystem is not fully understood, Native Americans put it to use in the treatment of fevers, bronchitis, coughs, and as blood purifier.

This unique plant exists only in the most untouched of places where the soil conditions and tree canopy are just right. It does not even require sunlight to grow. It is a nonphotosynthetic orchid obtaining its food from amycorrhizal fungi on which it is a parasite (some books say saprophyte) with an indirect parasitic or symbiotic relationship to its host oak tree. The undisturbed decaying leaf matter from the oak trees provides nutrients for the fungi. The rhizome of the orchid taps into the fungi for nutrients. The orchid extracts food and nutrients from the mycorrhizal fungus without providing any apparent benefits to the fungi. Thus the orchid requires no sunlight for growth and relies completely on the nutrients of the host fungi for food. This unique relationship and interdependency makes it impossible to transplant the orchid. All species of orchids require fungi for seedgermination and early development, but species vary widely in their dependence on fungi as they mature. The Coralroot needs the underlying fungi nutrients for it to survive.

It also requires the unique soils that lie in a thin layer covering the Austin Chalk uplands of Texas and New Mexico which is found in some of the most inhospitable terrain in the Southwest, including the remote desertcanyons of West Texas and Mexico, the dry tropical forests further south and in the case of the Great Trinity Forest, the dense cedar and juniper thickets of Oak Creek and lower White Rock Creek. It remains largely undetected due to its rarity, inconspicuous and unpredictable flowering habits, and because of its occurrence in the harshest of habitats.

Hexalectris nitida (Glass Mountain Crested Coralroot) is so rare that it is listed as an Endangered Species in the State of New Mexico. In Texas it is a little more common but up until the 1980s it was thought only to existfurther to the south and west of Dallas when some were discovered in the Trinity Forest Trails area. They have been reported in the LBJ Grasslands.At the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge on June 25, 2016, Bob O'Kennon discovered this one which was photographed by Troy Mullens.The Crested Coral Root Orchid takes an estimated ten to twenty years from seed germination to flowering adult. During the decade or two between germination and flowering there might be many individuals in an area that are simply unseen. Look at the photo of the leafless stemswithout the open flowers and see why they can be easily overlooked.It is a native plant worthy of the effort to look for and would be a joy to find. However, most of us will just have to enjoy its beauty vicariously in the photos of the lucky few who actually see one.SOURCES:Blog on Great Trinity Forest dallastrinitytrails.biologist.comLady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, wildflower.orgLiggis, J. and A. O., Wild Orchids of Texas UT Press 1999Shiner's & Mahler's Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas pages 1215-16

Hexalectris nitida, Crested Coral Root Orchid by Martha Mullens

M

Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge (www.fwnaturecenter.org)Native Grass ID WorkshopSaturday, September 249 a.m. - 1 p.m.Barcode: 66564

Would you like to learn how to more easily identify grasses even without seeds present? If so, join us for a half-day workshop where you will learn to identify 10 - 15 of the most common native grasses of north Texas. We'll learn the basics indoors and then head outdoors to look at the grasses in the prairie. This is the first in a series for the Prairie Seekers program, which is a collaboration between the Nature Center, Native Prairies Association of Texas, and Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Prairie Seekers is a prairie identification and assessment program whereby volunteers learn how to identify and map prairies for future conservation opportunities. This workshop qualifies for Advanced Training hours for Texas Master Naturalists.

(UPCOM

ING_EVE

NT)