What's in Bloom
Coral Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens blooms in the face of drought.
As the beautiful blue blooms of spring fade, but before the summer rains bring out the blossoms, Coral Honeysuckle begins to call the hummingbirds in throughout Hernando County. In the wild, look for the bright red trumpets in hammocks and thickets, at the edge of wooded areas. Fortunately, the landscaping value of this mostly evergreen vine is being realized; you now see it in highway medians.
Coral honeysuckle blooms throughout spring and summer, in full sun to part shade. It is hardy; although it likes average moisture, it is drought resistant, as it is proving this Spring! The vines will climb trees and fences; however it forms clumps or serves as a ground cover when there is no structure to climb. The plant can be pruned to control. Do note that it is dormant in fall and winter, and revives in spring.
While in bloom, Coral honeysuckle is a favorite of hummingbirds, bees and butterflies.
If you missed the Blue Flowers of Spring in real life, see what you missed- download this popular overview.
Miss last month's news? You can scan history from our archives.
Upcoming Programs
May 4
Excellent Fieldtrips
Paul Eisenbrown
June 1
Sandhills
Mary Barnwell
July 13
Garden Party!
Conservation Corner
Economic Value of Conservation Lands
The Nature Conservancy just released a striking publication with striking content. This document is full of facts to use in advocacy or in everyday discussion of the economy. Thanks to TNC for pulling this together for us all. Please note: This is a very large file: 3.5Megs.
Keep Up with What They're Up To in Tallahassee
– Cindy Liberton
You may be tired of hearing it, but it bears repeating: "Thank you, Governor Crist." His stance on retaining funds for conservation lands and their management has been welcome. Unfortunately though, during this legislative session, it seems that suggestions to put aside environmental oversight in the name of economic stimulus are everywhere you look. For a clear example, see the St. Pete Times article on disbanding of the Dept. of Community Affairs. Audubon Action Alerts can also keep you up-to-date, and we also encourage you to check for regular updates at the Florida Forever Coalition website. If we had to choose one place to win, this is probably it. FNPS will sent out Action Alerts to members who have requested this service.
It is time to be informed, and cautious. When you write your elected officials, be sure to be factual, polite, and respectful to all parties. We all have the right to write anything we want as individuals–It's America, afterall. However, if you wish to speak or write on behalf of the Hernando Chapter of FNPS, the content must be be vetted by the Hernando Chapter President and Board, for lots of good reasons. Just write the Board at hcfnps@gmail.com.
Sabal minor E-news
Are you getting your Sabal minor on-line? If not, the Society may not have your correct e-mail address. Please send it to info@fnps.org to keep up with all the FNPS organizational news. You can also get the Sabal minor on-line, in pdf and expanded web page format.
Give a gift that keeps on giving by purchasing a FNPS gift membership for only $25.00. For a membership form, visit http://www.fnps.org
Monthly Meeting & Program
Herbariums: Collecting for Research
Herbariums safeguard plant material samples to document geographical occurrence and provide species reference.
In herbarium conditions, specially prepared plant samples can last for hundreds of years.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden anatomy of a herbarium specimen:
• Plant specimen with both leaf surfaces showing; specimens with flowers and/or fruits are of greatest value for identification purposes
• Stamp identifies the institution; accession number is used to track inventory
• Fragment packet to collect loose material
• Label with collection information: where collected, by whom, when, habitat, field description, plant name
• Bar code number links label data and image together in a searchable database on the web: the Virtual Herbarium
Dana Griffin, III, Botanist
Monday April 6, 2009
Dana Griffin spent much of the past 50 year working in herbaria in federal, state and private institutions, and can provide much insight into the critical role these depositories play, as well as the considerable investment required to maintain them.
An herbarium is a collection of plant samples preserved for long-term study. According to the Florida Museum in Gainesville, these materials may include pressed and mounted plants, seeds, wood sections, pollen, microscope slides, frozen DNA extractions, and fluid-preserved flowers or fruits; all are generally referred to as herbarium specimens.
Worldwide there are over 300 million specimens preserved for research in herbaria. In addition to supporting research regarding plant characteristics and distribution, herbaria also support environmental regulation. Collections help identify plants in an area in order to define the habitat and designate an environmentally and legally appropriate use for the site. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, which studies endangered species and their reintroduction in South Florida, stresses, "Restoring the local environment requires immediate and accurate documentation of the present condition of plant biodiversity throughout the region." Read more...
Monthly meetings and programs of the Hernando Chapter are held on the first Monday of the month, and are open to the public, free of charge. Meetings are held at the Hernando County Cooperative Extension Office – 19490 Oliver Street (next to the County Fairgrounds) in Brooksville. We gather for delicious food and fellowship at 6:30pm, meeting and program starts at 7:00pm. For more information about this program or the Florida Native Plant Society, contact the Hernando Chapter Board at hcfnps@gmail.com.
Chapter News & Resources
FNPS On-line Membership Opens
You can now join, renew, donate or give give memberships on at http://www.fnps.org. You'll see big friendly buttons on the upper left of the Society's homepage.
29th Annual Florida Native Plant Society Conference
April 3 Deadline for Early Registration!
May 21-24, 2009
West Palm Beach, Florida
Hosted by the Palm Beach County & Cocoplum Chapters
The purpose of the Florida Native Plant Society’s Annual Conference is to provide educational programs to Society members and the general public about the preservation, conservation and restoration of Florida native plants and their associated plant communities. Participants explore how installing native landscapes in urban areas and conserving natural areas across the state enhance our lives and protect this rare and unique place, Florida. Content will be of interest to homeowners, gardeners, landscapers, nature lovers, teachers, students, environmental consultants, researchers and community planners.
Register on-line today at http://www.fnps.org/pages/conference/
Jason LaRoche rarely misses a plant sale, and is looking for a few good plant enthusiasts to help out April 18.April Plant Sales
Hernando Chapter FNPS Spring Plant Sale – Chinsegut Birding and Wildlife Festival
Help support both Hernando Chapter and the Chinsegut Nature Center by joining us on April 18th for a festive day of nature activities. Jason LaRoche, our Chapter's VP for Events, would welcome help for our plant sale and public education booth, and will pass along the sign-up sheet at the April 6 Hernando Chapter meeting. If you miss the meeting, just send a note to hcfnps@gmail.com to let us know you'd like to help. It's a very good time, with very good people, it's outdoors, and you get to talk about native plants!
Sneak peek at the plants for sale:
| Arrow-wood (V. dentatum) False indigo (Amorpha fruticosa) Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) Redbud (Cercis canadensis) Walter's viburnum (Viburnum obovatum) Wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera) Elliott's aster (Aster elliottii) Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) Greeneyes (Berlandiera subacaulis) Blanket flower (Gaillardia) |
Scarlet hibiscus (Hibiscus coccineus) Horsemint (Monarda punctata) Butterfly weed (A. tuberosa) Fakahatchee (Tripsacum dactyloides) Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) Passion vine (Passiflora incarnata) Trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) Privet cassia (Senna ligustrina) Pap Paw (A. obovata) Sandhill coneflower (Rudbeckia mollis) |
Retail Plant Day at All Native Flora – April 4
Stock up on trees, shrubs, wildflowers, palms, cycads, grasses for your spring landscape projects! Below retail pricing and additional deep discounts will be available this day only. The plant sale will take place at the Wesley Chapel nursery at 33601 Kiefer Road from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm.
2009 Spring Native Plant Sale– Paynes Prairie Chapter FNPS
Paynes Prairie Chapter of Florida Native Plant Society will hold its Fall Native Plant Sale April 11, (8:30am-noon) 2009 at Morningside Nature Center, 3540 E. University Ave, Gainesville, FL.
The sale will offer native trees, shrubs, grasses and wildflowers that are suited to the north-central area of Florida. There are also vendors selling books, wildflower seed, and many educational booths. Stop by the FNPS information booth to say hello to fellow members and get a raffle ticket to win a large group of native plants.
Friday evening, April 10 from 4:30pm-6:30pm is a preview sale for FNPS members only (you can join at the sale!) and the sale is open to the public Saturday, April 11 from 8:30am-12:30pm.
For questions call Morningside Nature Center at 352-334-2170 or visit www.natureoperations.org
Herbariums of Florida
Herbaria are usually associated with universities, museums, or botanical gardens. The first is believed to have been established in 1570 in Bologna, Italy, by Luca Ghini. There are now around 4,000 herbaria in over 165 countries, and together these collections represent all of the known plant diversity on earth. A world catalog of public herbaria, Index Herbariorum, is published periodically by the International Association for Plant Taxonomy and provided on the web.
Here in Florida, there are herbaria of all sizes, from small county collections to the huge collections at UF, USF. and FSU which rank in the upper third of the world's herbaria in size.
The University of Florida Herbarium is the oldest (est. 1891) and most comprehensive herbarium in Florida with around 470,000 specimens. The collection includes specimens from every continent except Antarctica, but the geographic focus of the collection is circum-Caribbean and Neotropical (with an emphasis on Florida, the coastal plain of the southeastern U.S., Haiti, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Brazil). The USF Herbarium was established as a research and teaching collection in 1958, two years after the founding of the University of South Florida. With nearly 240,000 specimens, it is the second largest collection in Florida. Current research projects at the USF Institute for Systematic Botany include the Flora of Florida, Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants, monographic and systematic studies, and ethnobotanical studies. Florida State University's Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium is a museum-quality collection of 200,000 plant specimens. Most of these document the distribution and natural variation of the 2,400 species of flowering plants, ferns, conifers, and cycads found in northern Florida—one of North America's biodiversity hotspots.
The world's major botanical gardens have herbaria as part of their research facilities. Two institutions in Florida are host to significant collections, and participate in study of imperiled plant species.
Fairchild Tropical Garden Herbarium now incorporates the Florida Atlantic University herbarium as well as the Buswell collection from the University of Miami. With a total inventory of about 165,000 specimens, Fairchild is considered a medium-sized herbarium. Fairchild Herbarium focuses on the plants of Florida, the West Indies (Caribbean islands), and cultivated plants of the tropics, and serves as one of the premier institutions of the world for palm research. Fairchild provides on-line access to its collection at The Virtual Herbarium at http://www.virtualherbarium.org/ which currently holds 80,000 records that are searchable by family, genus, collector and other fields.
The Selby Gardens Herbarium comprises 94,000+ dried, pressed botanical specimens from around the world. The collection focus is on epiphytic plants ...principally Orchidaceae, Bromeliaceae, and Gesneriaceae, but many other plant families are represented. The Selby Gardens Type Specimen Collection is the largest of any herbarium in the SE United States (S of Missouri and New York), and available for viewing online.
Florida's official Regional Herbariums serve as reception points for plant materials, often distributing samples to local herbariums. These include:
- Herbarium, Fairchild Tropical Garden, 11935 Old Cutler Rd., Miami, FL 33156; phone: (305) 665-2844. http://www.virtualherbarium.org/
- Godfrey Herbarium, Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306; phone: (850) 644-6278. http://www.herbarium.bio.fsu.edu/
- Herbarium, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, P.O. Box 110575, Gainesville, FL 32611; phone: (352) 392-1767. http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/herbarium/
- Herbarium, Institute for Systematic Botany, Biology Department, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620; phone: (813) 974-2359. http://www.plantatlas.usf.edu/isb/herbarium.htm
