Monthly Meeting & Program
Lygodium Reaches Hernando County:
Can We Stop the March?

Rosalind Rowe, Central Florida Invasive Plants Coordinator,
The Nature Conservancy
Monday October 4, 2010

Lygodium microphyllum is an invasive exotic vine in Florida, native to Asia and Australia which is climbing into trees and shading out native vegetation in hundreds of acres in east-central Florida.

Be aware that this plant has now shown up in Hernando County. In early September, our speaker Rosalind Rowe, along with staff from the Division of Forestry and Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, wielded machete and herbicide-filled backpack to treat a three-acre infestation crossing between Janet Butterfield Brooks Preserve and an adjacent private property. This infestation had been discovered and reported by a Florida Natural Areas Inventory botanist. Through the Central Florida Lygodium Strategy (CFLS) program, Rosalind followed up on this report and then contacted the private property owner, where she explained the problem with this plant and received permission to come on the property to do the work.

Rosalind Rowe is the Central Florida Invasive Plants Coordinator and currently manages the Central Florida Lygodium Strategy. CFLS is a public-private partnership administered by The Nature Conservancy that makes it possible for private property owners to get assistance controlling Old World climbing fern. The over-arching goal of the program is to stop the northward migration of this fern across the state of Florida. To this end, the CFLS work to date has treated over 2200 acres, buffering over 25 different conservation areas. In addition to this treatment work, and the outreach and education needed to make it happen, CFLS serves as a model for public-private partnership efforts, gathering landscape-wide data to garner a picture of the plant’s advance and the means to stop it.

More Info On-line

View more information and pictures about Old World climbing fern, as contained in the Langeland/Burks book, Identification & Biology of Non-Native Plants in Florida's Natural Areas.

Refer the UF/IFAS Invasive Species Management Plans for Florida to learn more about Lygodium japonicum management.
Download a Recognition Card (PDF 1.35 MB)

Download the Florida Exotic Plant Pest Council's (FLEPPC) Lygodium Management Plan - Second Edition, 2006 (PDF 2.3 MB)
See the UF/IFAS Assessment, which lists plants according to their invasive status in Florida.

Read the EDIS publication Natural Area Weeds: Old World Climbing Fern (Lygodium microphyllum) by Kenneth A. Langeland and Jeffery Hutchinson.
View the brochure Old World Climbing Fern (Lygodium microphyllum) – Find it, Report it, Kill it! R. Rowe, Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council. 2009 (PDF 953 KB).

Monthly meetings and programs of the Hernando Chapter are held on the first Monday of the month, except when holidays occur. They are open to the public, free of charge. We meet at the American Legion Hall in downtown Brooksville across from the post office. 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.

About Rosalind Rowe

Rosalind has a B.S. degree is in Information Systems Management from the University of South Florida, and her true passion is conservation, particularly with respect to botany and native plants. She came to The Nature Conservancy from the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, where she worked on the living plants collection database and inventories, and also implemented the vegetation surveys the Gardens did for Sarasota County’s Environmentally Sensitive Lands Program. She currently retired as editor for the Florida Native Plant Society’s statewide newsletter, the Sabal minor. She has a work history that ranges from computer programming to education technical writer for a major software company, to grants writer and manager, bookkeeper, teacher and interpretive guide for an environmental education facility, gardener and artist. At her home in Sarasota, Rosalind has been gradually converting her ¾-acre lot to natives.

It's Almost Time to Plant Wildflowers

Did you know that late fall is the time to plant wildflower seeds? If you think about nature, this is when they drop, so it makes sense to drop your own.

Because of issues of provenance, is always best to "look local" for seeds. Try first at your closest native plant nursery, such as Rita Grant's or Hickory Hill...they may have extra seeds to sell or share. Ask your friends to share from their gardens. As for harvesting seed from public lands and roadways, a good rule of thumb is, "if you didn't grow it, it isn't yours." Although the quantity of seeds you take may not directly impact a robust plant population, in some cases over harvesting could be dire. Just use good educated judgment and do no harm.

So, when what you need is unavailable, or of insufficient quantity there is a logical seed source for many species. Whether you have a small project in mind or a hillside, you can get Florida-grown native seeds through the Florida Wildflowers Growers Cooperative. The Cooperative is part of the Florida Native Plant Partnership, which consists of FNPS, the Association of Florida Native Plant Nurseries, and the Florida Wildflower Foundation. Their new on-line seed store allows you to order on-line and support production of Florida native seeds. And you can get advice on how best to grow your wildflower meadow at http://www.floridawildflowers.com/pages/Planting-Information.html

Planning for the Future in Hernando: Amending the Comp Plan

by Cindy Liberton

As you may have heard,the County is beginning the process of reviewing and updating its Comprehensive Plan developed pursuant to the State of Florida’s Growth Management Act. The Comprehensive Plan guides the County’s growth and development decisions, and our Chapter will be speaking out for a future that preserves Florida’s native plant populations and all that depends on them.

The county’s Evaluation and Appraisal Report (EAR) process will include several months of public workshops and commenting opportunities. The next workshop, Economic Development and Sustainable Jobs, is scheduled for October 11, 2010 at the Hernando County Government Center, County Commission Chambers. To follow along on-line, see http://www.hernandocounty.us/plan/EAR/ and be sure to review the current (2005) land use planning map for our county. If you download the pdf, you can make it quite large to read the fine print. At our Oct 4 planning meeting, we will spend a bit of time discussing our Chapter’s vision for Hernando to help us craft recommendations for the county.

Within this context, it is interest to look at the "comprehensive plan elements" summary for 2011. For example, under Conservation we see:
The purpose of the Conservation Element is to provide for the conservation, use and protection of natural resources in the area.
The policies in the Conservation Element provide for:

• Protection, maintenance and identification of significant habitat areas, wetlands and unique vegetative communities (6.01A, 6.01B, 6.01C)
• Establishment of conservation areas and intergovernmental coordination (6.01D, 6.01E)
• Creation of natural green ways (6.01G)
• Protection of groundwater aquifer, lakes, rivers and estuaries (6.02)
• Water supply assessment, coordination and planning (6.03)
• Prevention of air quality degradation (6.04)
• Wetland conservation, use and protection (6.05)
• Preservation of access to lime rock deposits (6.06A)
• Conservation of prime agricultural soils and highly erodible lands (6.06B, 6.06C)
• Preservation of forests, tree cover and canopy roads (6.06D, 6.06E)
• Preservation of historical and archeological resources (6.07)
• Standards for development design compatibility with natural conditions (6.08)
• Proper management of hazardous materials (6.09)

This is an awesome list, and such good goals; maybe we can save our few remaining canopy roads before it is too late! Now, it may just be me (or a really tricky logic puzzle), but isn't there an item doesn't seem to belong here? Preserving access to limerock? Hmmmmm. Brooke Martin has volunteered to atte8nd public sessions to represent us. I'm sure she will be able to interpret whatever we don't understand, or perhaps understand too well.