Growing native plants from seeds or spores is not only satisfying and economical, but gives gardeners a source of difficult-to-obtain plants. The New England Wild Flower Society is offering for sale more than 150 varieties of wildflowers or ferns in their 1988 Seed List.
Quercus oglethorpensis Duncan has been found at three locations in the Bienville National Forest in Scott and Jasper counties, Mississippi (J.B. Wiseman & R.L. Jones 1254, 1258, 1275; Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, IBE, NCSC) during field work in 1985 and 1986.
Dr. Robert Kral (1982) first described this phyllodial-leaved Sagittaria from collections made along Little River near the G.E. Hill Bridge of AL 35. Earlier collections were made by Biltmore Herbarium collectors from Little River and by Roland Harper from Town Creek in DeKalb County.
On an April 9, 1986 field trip to the Congaree Swamp National Monument (CSNM) in Richland County, South Carolina, the senior author collected from the floodplain near Weston Lake a Carex that looked remarkably like Carex socialis Mohl. and Schweg., a species hitherto thought to be endemic to the lower Mississippi River Valley region of the Midwest. It became evident after closer observation that the specimen was Carex socialis; a determination was later confirmed by an authority on the species, John Schwegman. A survey of the literature, including Godfrey and Wooten (1979) and Radford et al (1968), and communication with botanists in natural heritage programs in the Southeast revealed an absence of records of this taxon. This makes the collection of Carex socialis the first record for the State of South Carolina, and more significantly, first for the Atlantic Coastal Plain region as well.
Two populations of the green pitcherplant Sarracenia oreophila (Kearney) Wherry are reported for the Blue Ridge Province of southwestern North Carolina in Clay County. The discovery of these populations resulted from contract work for the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program based on suspicions by Dennis (1980) that plants reported in 1941 from this area and tentatively identified as S. flava were probably the green pitcherplant. This discovery represents a new state record and brings the currently known number of populations of this federally endangered plant to around thirty (Dennis Jordan, pers. comm.).
The Southern Appalachian Botanical Club took in more than twice as much money in 1979 than it spent. This difference was because our printer had not increased our publication costs in several years. Two years later, the printer was charging us more than three times as much as in 1979. Our expenses then were much greater than our income, almost exclusively a result in the increased printing costs. Such a negative cash flow continued for several years until our accrued balance was nearly depleted. During the years of negative cash flow, the Club increased our dues, began controlling better the distribution of CASTANEA, instituted mandatory page charges, as well as other revenue generating policies. These policies slowly began to change the negative cash flow until the cash flow became positive.
Three Rhexia species, R. aristosa, R. parviflora and R. salicifolia, are candidates for listing as endangered or threatened by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. This current review of the rarity of Rhexia taxa was made through communication with botanists, literature review, and field and herbarium studies. R. parviflora is very rare while R. salicifolia and R. aristosa are restricted, yet more locally abundant.
Investigation of archival materials, interviews, and field survey for charcoal and fire scars indicates pine and oak scrub communities and fresh water wetlands on Cumberland Island National Seashore have burned multiple times since 1900. Fire rotations are 20 to 30 years and correlate to coastal drought cycles. Lightning is an important source of ignition indicating succession from scrub communities to forest may be inhibited by frequent natural fires.
Arenaria fontinalis (Short & Peter) Shinners (Caryophyllaceae) is endemic to wet limestone cliffs and ledges in north-central Kentucky and north-central Tennessee. Seeds are dispersed from mid-May to early July and germinate in September and October. Plants overwinter as semi-rosettes and flower and set seeds the following spring; thus, they behave as winter annuals. Seeds are dormant at maturity in spring, after-ripen during summer and are nondormant by autumn. Seeds after-ripened when alternately wetted and dried in an unheated greenhouse and in an incubator at 30/15°C and when kept continuously wet in incubators at 15/6, 20/10 and 30/15°C. Seeds did not after-ripen when stored dry at ambient laboratory conditions. The peak of germination for seeds sown on soil in the unheated greenhouse in the springs of 1981, 1982 and 1983 occurred the following autumn, when mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures were about 25 and 15°C, respectively. Germination of 1-3% of the seeds was delayed until the second autumn after sowing. Plants are day-neutral, and some of them will flower without vernalization. Plants kept in the unheated greenhouse during winter were much healthier and survived better than those kept in a heated greenhouse.
Many guidebooks to the Great Smoky Mountains are available—most of them informative to some degree; however, for the reader who prefers a personal, “down-home” account, albeit well-written and a pleasure to read, this is the book.