From kathy at fred.net Mon May 1 04:11:21 2017 From: kathy at fred.net (Kathy Bilton) Date: Mon, 1 May 2017 07:11:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [BSW] Reminder: Tomorrow - Tuesday, May 2 + Plant Press Message-ID: The mext BSW meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday, May 2 at 7pm. Details below other announcements. ---------------------------------------------------- The latest Plant Press is online here: http://nmnh.typepad.com/files/vol20no2.pdf ---------------------------------------------------- The 15th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium is coming up on May 19. "Exploring the Natural World: Plants, People and Places" http://botany.si.edu/sbs/ ------------------------------------------------------ Summer seminars at Eahle Hill: https://eaglehill.us/programs/nhs/nhs-calendar.shtml ------------------------------------------------------ Next meeting: May 2 at 7 P.M. Speaker: A.J. Harris Topic: ?Collecting Billia Peyr. in Costa Rica: A quest to understand the species boundaries and evolutionary history in two(-ish) remarkably diverse species." Location: VZ Conference Room (WG 33) Ground Floor of the West Wing, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 10th St. and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Please email Erika Gardner - gardnere at si.edu - to arrange for a pass to get to the meeting room. Pre-meeting dinner: 5:30 P.M. at the Elephant & Castle Pub and Restaurant, 1201 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington. Phone 202-347-7707. The restaurant is diagonally across from the Old Post Office Pavilion at 12th and Pennsylvania, a few blocks from the Museum, with Federal Triangle the nearest Metro station, and Metro Center also nearby. From kathy at fred.net Tue May 9 16:24:52 2017 From: kathy at fred.net (Kathy Bilton) Date: Tue, 9 May 2017 19:24:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [BSW] 2 talks and a walk coming up this week Message-ID: Forest Communities and Geology of Washington and Vicinity Wednesday, May 10, 2017 ? 7:30 pm Huntley Meadows Visitor Center 3701 Lockheed Boulevard, Alexandria, VA 22306 703-768-2525 Join the Friends of Dyke Marsh on May 10, 7:30 p.m. at our quarterly meeting at Huntley Meadows Park to hear about natural communities. Much of the greater Washington, D.C., region comprises the physiographic provinces called the Piedmont, Fall Zone and Coastal Plain, perhaps the most geologically and floristically diverse area in the eastern U.S. The underlying geology and soils give rise to a diversity of natural communities. Rod Simmons will give a presentation on the geology and the common forest communities in and around the nation's capital, including less well-known ones like diabase and siltstone flatwoods of the Triassic Basin, serpentine barrens, D.C. area pine barrens, magnolia bogs, small stream forests, shell-marl ravine forests and associated communities. He will also explore coastal bottomland communities and nontidal wetlands, which collectively give rise to freshwater tidal wetlands such as Dyke Marsh. The program is cosponsored by the Friends of Huntley Meadows Park, the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust, the Friends of Little Hunting Creek, the Four Mile Run Conservatory Foundation, and the Friends of Mason Neck State Park. If you use a GPS device to find the park, do not use the park?s name. Enter the park?s address, 3701 Lockheed Boulevard, Alexandria, VA 22306, ph. 703-768-2525. ----------------------------------- The Potowmack Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society invites you to: The Humane Gardener: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife - Talk by Nancy Lawson Thursday, May 11, 7:30 to 9:00 pm Green Spring Gardens 4603 Green Spring Road Alexandria, VA VNPS programs are free and open to the public. Traditional cultivation practices all too often ignore the needs and valuable contributions of our fellow species, exploiting myths and fears about the animals and plants living among us. Learn why rejecting this dominant paradigm is so important to a healthy environment and how partnering with nature through native plantings, gentle cultivation, and humane conflict resolution can bring new life and beauty to your own backyard. Nancy Lawson is the author of The Humane Gardener: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife, published in April 2017, by Princeton Architectural Press and already in second printing. After an early career in newspaper journalism, she has worked for over 15 years as an editor and publisher at The Humane Society of the United States, leading the creative teams behind the nation?s top print and digital animal advocacy magazines. A columnist for All Animals magazine, she is the founder of an outreach initiative dedicated to cultivating compassion for all creatures through environmentally sensitive landscaping methods. Lawson volunteers as a master naturalist and master gardener in Maryland. ------------------------------------------------------ Walk & Weed: Spring at Fraser Preserve Led by Margaret Chatham Saturday, May 13, 2017, 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm Fraser Preserve, 101 Springvale Road, Great Falls, VA 22066 Space is limited on walks, so please register at http://vnps20170513.eventbrite.com There?s always something interesting to see at Fraser Preserve. We may go off-trail to see some Twayblade orchids that may be blooming. Along the way, we can discuss trees, grasses, sedges, or wildflowers and ferns. In any case, we?ll pause on the way to pull up some Wavyleaf Grass (Oplismenus undulatifolius) -- no tools needed, but dress for the woods, bring insect repellent, water, and any snacks you need. Please clean your boots before and after to avoid transferring seeds. Margaret is a devoted Fraser Preserve Volunteer Visitation Committee Member who removes invasive barberry shrubs in winter and Wavyleaf Grass in summer and knows the preserve intimately. She is also editor of the VNPS Potowmack News newsletter, a volunteer at the VNPS propagation beds at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, a Arlington Regional Master Naturalist, and active member of VNPS? ?Grass Bunch?. Check for other VNPS events at http://vnps.org/potowmack/events/ From kathy at fred.net Thu May 18 17:08:53 2017 From: kathy at fred.net (Kathy Bilton) Date: Thu, 18 May 2017 20:08:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [BSW] June meeting + Saturday Arlington Bioblitz + More Message-ID: The next BSW meeting will be on Tuesday, June 6. Melanie Shori will be speaking about strange plants of Asia. ----------------------------------------------- >From Rod Simmons: The Arlington BioBlitz is Saturday, May 20. The sign up page is http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0b4fa8ab22a31-sign. There are still lots of openings on various teams to join! All are welcome. This should be a fun day amidst high quality natural areas, abundant native biodiversity, and fellow nature enthusiasts. (There?s even a separate team for tree surveys.) ------------------------- Periodical Cicadas are here! See the Capital Naturalist for more information: http://capitalnaturalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/periodical-cicadas-early-emergence.html?m=1. ------------------------- Another great local website is Bill?s Botanical Forays, focusing on the Patuxent Research Refuge Plant Inventory Project - at http://www.botanybill.info ------------------------- NATURAL COMMUNITIES OF VIRGINIA THIRD APPROXIMATION WEBSITE IS NOW ONLINE! http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/natural-communities/ A major update to The Natural Communities of Virginia web content is now complete and available through DCR?s website. The Natural Communities of Virginia: a Classification of Ecological Community Groups and Community Types (Third approximation, Version 3.0) is the latest in a series of successive versions of the natural community classification since the initial hard-copy publication in 2001. The new web site is more richly illustrated, with nearly 1500 captioned natural community photos added in gallery-style pages linked from the Ecological Group pages. Ecological Community Group range maps have been added and the classification itself has been updated and refined to reflect recent state-wide and range-wide analyses. Plant species compositional summary tables for each Community Type are available as downloadable MS Excel tables on each Ecological Community Group page. In addition to conceptual and nomenclatural changes to Ecological Groups and Community Types, refinements to the organization levels of the classification have been made that we hope will improve the user?s experience. In concert with the web content update, the Natural Heritage resource list, Natural Communities of Virginia: Ecological Groups and Community Types: a listing with conservation status ranks (PDF) has been updated to reflect recent classification changes. All changes since the 2013 version are listed in Appendix A. This downloadable document can function as a hardcopy list or an interactive digital document that links to further information about Virginia?s Natural Communities. http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/natural-communities/document/comlist04-17.pdf Natural Communities are central to the Division of Natural Heritage?s mission of documenting, protecting, and managing Virginia?s biodiversity. The Ecological Community Groups and Community types defined in this hierarchical classification developed by DCR-DNH Ecologists, provide ecosystem targets for inventory, mapping, research, monitoring, restoration, and conservation. From kathy at fred.net Sun May 28 07:25:08 2017 From: kathy at fred.net (Kathy Bilton) Date: Sun, 28 May 2017 10:25:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [BSW] September Tri-state Native Plant Societues Conference + Next BSW meeting Message-ID: Information is now avaiilable about the September 29 ? October 1 Tri-state Native Plant Conference at NCTC in Shepherdstown. Registration will begin on June 1. Registration for the Conference, "Nature Knows No Boundaries" opens on June 1. https://mdflora.org/event-2434880 or http://vnps.org/tri-state-native-plant-conference-2017/ =============================================================== Next meeting: June 6 at 7 P.M. Speaker: Dr. Melanie Shori, Nomenclatural Taxonomist, USDA Topic: "Hollies and friends: a closer look at flowers and fruits" Flier: http://botsoc.org/jun17.pdf Location: VZ Conference Room (WG 33) Ground Floor of the West Wing, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 10th St. and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Please email Erika Gardner at the address gardnere at si.edu to arrange for a pass to get to the meeting room. Pre-meeting dinner: 5:30 P.M. at the Elephant & Castle Pub and Restaurant, 1201 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington. Phone 202-347-7707. The restaurant is diagonally across from the Old Post Office Pavilion at 12th and Pennsylvania, a few blocks from the Museum, with Federal Triangle the nearest Metro station, and Metro Center also nearby. From kathy at fred.net Mon May 1 06:11:21 2017 From: kathy at fred.net (Kathy Bilton) Date: Mon, 1 May 2017 07:11:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [BSW] Reminder: Tomorrow - Tuesday, May 2 + Plant Press Message-ID: The mext BSW meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday, May 2 at 7pm. Details below other announcements. ---------------------------------------------------- The latest Plant Press is online here: http://nmnh.typepad.com/files/vol20no2.pdf ---------------------------------------------------- The 15th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium is coming up on May 19. "Exploring the Natural World: Plants, People and Places" http://botany.si.edu/sbs/ ------------------------------------------------------ Summer seminars at Eahle Hill: https://eaglehill.us/programs/nhs/nhs-calendar.shtml ------------------------------------------------------ Next meeting: May 2 at 7 P.M. Speaker: A.J. Harris Topic: ?Collecting Billia Peyr. in Costa Rica: A quest to understand the species boundaries and evolutionary history in two(-ish) remarkably diverse species." Location: VZ Conference Room (WG 33) Ground Floor of the West Wing, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 10th St. and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Please email Erika Gardner - gardnere at si.edu - to arrange for a pass to get to the meeting room. Pre-meeting dinner: 5:30 P.M. at the Elephant & Castle Pub and Restaurant, 1201 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington. Phone 202-347-7707. The restaurant is diagonally across from the Old Post Office Pavilion at 12th and Pennsylvania, a few blocks from the Museum, with Federal Triangle the nearest Metro station, and Metro Center also nearby. From kathy at fred.net Tue May 9 18:24:52 2017 From: kathy at fred.net (Kathy Bilton) Date: Tue, 9 May 2017 19:24:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [BSW] 2 talks and a walk coming up this week Message-ID: Forest Communities and Geology of Washington and Vicinity Wednesday, May 10, 2017 ? 7:30 pm Huntley Meadows Visitor Center 3701 Lockheed Boulevard, Alexandria, VA 22306 703-768-2525 Join the Friends of Dyke Marsh on May 10, 7:30 p.m. at our quarterly meeting at Huntley Meadows Park to hear about natural communities. Much of the greater Washington, D.C., region comprises the physiographic provinces called the Piedmont, Fall Zone and Coastal Plain, perhaps the most geologically and floristically diverse area in the eastern U.S. The underlying geology and soils give rise to a diversity of natural communities. Rod Simmons will give a presentation on the geology and the common forest communities in and around the nation's capital, including less well-known ones like diabase and siltstone flatwoods of the Triassic Basin, serpentine barrens, D.C. area pine barrens, magnolia bogs, small stream forests, shell-marl ravine forests and associated communities. He will also explore coastal bottomland communities and nontidal wetlands, which collectively give rise to freshwater tidal wetlands such as Dyke Marsh. The program is cosponsored by the Friends of Huntley Meadows Park, the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust, the Friends of Little Hunting Creek, the Four Mile Run Conservatory Foundation, and the Friends of Mason Neck State Park. If you use a GPS device to find the park, do not use the park?s name. Enter the park?s address, 3701 Lockheed Boulevard, Alexandria, VA 22306, ph. 703-768-2525. ----------------------------------- The Potowmack Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society invites you to: The Humane Gardener: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife - Talk by Nancy Lawson Thursday, May 11, 7:30 to 9:00 pm Green Spring Gardens 4603 Green Spring Road Alexandria, VA VNPS programs are free and open to the public. Traditional cultivation practices all too often ignore the needs and valuable contributions of our fellow species, exploiting myths and fears about the animals and plants living among us. Learn why rejecting this dominant paradigm is so important to a healthy environment and how partnering with nature through native plantings, gentle cultivation, and humane conflict resolution can bring new life and beauty to your own backyard. Nancy Lawson is the author of The Humane Gardener: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife, published in April 2017, by Princeton Architectural Press and already in second printing. After an early career in newspaper journalism, she has worked for over 15 years as an editor and publisher at The Humane Society of the United States, leading the creative teams behind the nation?s top print and digital animal advocacy magazines. A columnist for All Animals magazine, she is the founder of an outreach initiative dedicated to cultivating compassion for all creatures through environmentally sensitive landscaping methods. Lawson volunteers as a master naturalist and master gardener in Maryland. ------------------------------------------------------ Walk & Weed: Spring at Fraser Preserve Led by Margaret Chatham Saturday, May 13, 2017, 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm Fraser Preserve, 101 Springvale Road, Great Falls, VA 22066 Space is limited on walks, so please register at http://vnps20170513.eventbrite.com There?s always something interesting to see at Fraser Preserve. We may go off-trail to see some Twayblade orchids that may be blooming. Along the way, we can discuss trees, grasses, sedges, or wildflowers and ferns. In any case, we?ll pause on the way to pull up some Wavyleaf Grass (Oplismenus undulatifolius) -- no tools needed, but dress for the woods, bring insect repellent, water, and any snacks you need. Please clean your boots before and after to avoid transferring seeds. Margaret is a devoted Fraser Preserve Volunteer Visitation Committee Member who removes invasive barberry shrubs in winter and Wavyleaf Grass in summer and knows the preserve intimately. She is also editor of the VNPS Potowmack News newsletter, a volunteer at the VNPS propagation beds at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, a Arlington Regional Master Naturalist, and active member of VNPS? ?Grass Bunch?. Check for other VNPS events at http://vnps.org/potowmack/events/ From kathy at fred.net Thu May 18 19:08:53 2017 From: kathy at fred.net (Kathy Bilton) Date: Thu, 18 May 2017 20:08:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [BSW] June meeting + Saturday Arlington Bioblitz + More Message-ID: The next BSW meeting will be on Tuesday, June 6. Melanie Shori will be speaking about strange plants of Asia. ----------------------------------------------- >From Rod Simmons: The Arlington BioBlitz is Saturday, May 20. The sign up page is http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0b4fa8ab22a31-sign. There are still lots of openings on various teams to join! All are welcome. This should be a fun day amidst high quality natural areas, abundant native biodiversity, and fellow nature enthusiasts. (There?s even a separate team for tree surveys.) ------------------------- Periodical Cicadas are here! See the Capital Naturalist for more information: http://capitalnaturalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/periodical-cicadas-early-emergence.html?m=1. ------------------------- Another great local website is Bill?s Botanical Forays, focusing on the Patuxent Research Refuge Plant Inventory Project - at http://www.botanybill.info ------------------------- NATURAL COMMUNITIES OF VIRGINIA THIRD APPROXIMATION WEBSITE IS NOW ONLINE! http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/natural-communities/ A major update to The Natural Communities of Virginia web content is now complete and available through DCR?s website. The Natural Communities of Virginia: a Classification of Ecological Community Groups and Community Types (Third approximation, Version 3.0) is the latest in a series of successive versions of the natural community classification since the initial hard-copy publication in 2001. The new web site is more richly illustrated, with nearly 1500 captioned natural community photos added in gallery-style pages linked from the Ecological Group pages. Ecological Community Group range maps have been added and the classification itself has been updated and refined to reflect recent state-wide and range-wide analyses. Plant species compositional summary tables for each Community Type are available as downloadable MS Excel tables on each Ecological Community Group page. In addition to conceptual and nomenclatural changes to Ecological Groups and Community Types, refinements to the organization levels of the classification have been made that we hope will improve the user?s experience. In concert with the web content update, the Natural Heritage resource list, Natural Communities of Virginia: Ecological Groups and Community Types: a listing with conservation status ranks (PDF) has been updated to reflect recent classification changes. All changes since the 2013 version are listed in Appendix A. This downloadable document can function as a hardcopy list or an interactive digital document that links to further information about Virginia?s Natural Communities. http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/natural-communities/document/comlist04-17.pdf Natural Communities are central to the Division of Natural Heritage?s mission of documenting, protecting, and managing Virginia?s biodiversity. The Ecological Community Groups and Community types defined in this hierarchical classification developed by DCR-DNH Ecologists, provide ecosystem targets for inventory, mapping, research, monitoring, restoration, and conservation. From kathy at fred.net Sun May 28 09:25:08 2017 From: kathy at fred.net (Kathy Bilton) Date: Sun, 28 May 2017 10:25:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [BSW] September Tri-state Native Plant Societues Conference + Next BSW meeting Message-ID: Information is now avaiilable about the September 29 ? October 1 Tri-state Native Plant Conference at NCTC in Shepherdstown. Registration will begin on June 1. Registration for the Conference, "Nature Knows No Boundaries" opens on June 1. https://mdflora.org/event-2434880 or http://vnps.org/tri-state-native-plant-conference-2017/ =============================================================== Next meeting: June 6 at 7 P.M. Speaker: Dr. Melanie Shori, Nomenclatural Taxonomist, USDA Topic: "Hollies and friends: a closer look at flowers and fruits" Flier: http://botsoc.org/jun17.pdf Location: VZ Conference Room (WG 33) Ground Floor of the West Wing, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 10th St. and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Please email Erika Gardner at the address gardnere at si.edu to arrange for a pass to get to the meeting room. Pre-meeting dinner: 5:30 P.M. at the Elephant & Castle Pub and Restaurant, 1201 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington. Phone 202-347-7707. The restaurant is diagonally across from the Old Post Office Pavilion at 12th and Pennsylvania, a few blocks from the Museum, with Federal Triangle the nearest Metro station, and Metro Center also nearby.