Volume 80 - Issue 2 (June 2015)

The Editorial Committee gratefully acknowledges and thanks the following people who reviewed manuscripts for Castanea during 2014. CASTANEA REVIEWERS FOR 2014 Scott Abella Matthew Albrecht Allan J. Bornstein J. Stephen Brewer Irwin M. Brodo Cameron Carlyle Susan C. Carr Stacy L. Clark Wayne K. Clatterbuck Carolyn Copenheaver Jenny Cruse Sanders Theresa Culley Margaret S. Devall Rivka Fidel Thomas Foti Alan R. Franck Alan Fryday Nicolas Garcia Frank S. Gilliam Matthew A. Gitzendanner Jeff Glitzenstein Joel M. Gramling Curtis J. Hansen Tracy S. Hawkins David J. Hicks Charles N. Horn J. Matthew Jones Brian R. Keener David Knochel Robert Lucking Brett A. McMillan Jon Mendelson J. Mincy Moffett Rebecca A. Montgomery Zack Murrell L. John Musselman John B. Nelson Howard S. Neufeld Erik T. Nilsen James Padgett William J. Platt Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio Johnny Randall Christopher S. Reid Donald G. Ruch Paul Schmaltzer Ken Smith William K. Smith Debra Stults Jimmy Triplett

Spiranthes praecox (Walter) S. Watson (Orchidaceae)— Stoddard County, Missouri: Otter Slough Conservation Area. Ditch along extension of Co. Rd 686. Between levee and edge of woods. Saturated to emergent wetland. Drier open margin of saturated ground near base of berm. Two stems observed. T24N R9E S8 SE4 SE4. 31 May 2000. A.E. Brant 4383 with Paul McKenzie and Janeen Laatch (MO). Significance While reviewing specimens for a systematic revision of Spiranthes Rich. by the first author, a specimen of Spiranthes vernalis Engelm. & A. Gray was determined to be Spiranthes praecox (Walter) S. Watson. This is the first record of S. praecox from Missouri, a species that is primarily found throughout the Coastal Plain from Long Island, New York, to peninsular Florida, and west to south central Arkansas (Clark Co.).

Since the early 1980s, Beavers’ Meadow in Barbour County, West Virginia, has been well known for large populations of the orchids Cleistes bifaria and Platanthera ciliaris. Seven taxa of special concern in West Virginia were present at that time: Andropogon glomeratus var. glomeratus, Athyrium filix-femina subsp. angustum, C. bifaria, Rhynchospora recognita, Sericocarpus linifolius, Scleria triglomerata, and Xyris torta. We present a description of the 7.4-ha meadow today, an inventory of its species, and some comparisons to the flora as it was reported 26 years ago. Collections were first made in June 2007; parallel transects approximately every 3–5 m were walked once each in May and June 2009, twice monthly in July through September 2009, and once each in May and June 2010. Additional specimens were collected in 2011, 2013, and 2014. We identified 320 vascular plant taxa in 192 genera and 67 families. The taxon list includes 31 county records

ABSTRACT We studied the habitat characteristics of Spiraea virginiana Britton (Virginia spiraea), a federally threatened riparian shrub, along eight rivers in western North Carolina. Comparisons between plots with and without S. virginiana revealed that S. virginiana plots were on steep, south-facing slopes and had a higher percentage of large substrate, lower herbaceous and vine cover, higher non–S. virginiana shrub density, lower tree influence, and higher visible sky than control plots. When relating these habitat attributes to the presence/absence of S. virginiana using conditional logistic regression, only substrate size and non–S. virginiana shrub density had significant effects on S. virginiana presence. Principal components analysis (PCA) of all plots (S. virginiana and control) found S. virginiana plots separating from controls that had higher vine and herb cover and lower non–S. virginiana shrub density and slope. Spiraea virginiana plots at the Cheoah River separated from other sites by having greater substrate size and

ABSTRACT Length of time since agricultural abandonment, variations in topography and soil, and forest fragmentation associated with suburban development can influence dominant vegetation and foster exotic species invasion in a secondary successional forest. The Middle Patuxent Environmental Area (MPEA) in Maryland is a regrowth forest adjacent to suburban sprawl that was abandoned from agriculture at staggered rates. I surveyed vegetation throughout the MPEA to investigate how these interrelated factors have influenced species distribution and abundance. My predictions were that time since abandonment would explain the broader differences in forest succession, but that topography and an interface with suburbia would be the strongest determinants of smaller-scale species discrepancies within an area of similar abandonment history. I performed a hard noise clustering analysis using the R package vegclust to classify the MPEA into herbaceous, shrub, and tree communities each dominated by similar species. Tree communities differed distinctly in accordance with agricultural abandonment,

ABSTRACT In the beech-maple forest at Warren Woods State Park, the importance values of Fagus grandifolia and Acer saccharum have increased compared with their values from the 1829 Government Land Office survey of the same area—a small increase for F. grandifolia and a large increase for A. saccharum. For F. grandifolia the greatest increase between 1829 and 2014 was in basal area per tree, suggesting that numbers had not increased as much as size; while for A. saccharum the greatest increase was in all relative metrics, but not in basal per tree, indicating that abundance only had increased. From 1933 to the present, all size classes of F. grandifolia, except for the juvenile size class, decreased in density, while only the juvenile size class of A. saccharum decreased. Seedling densities for both species are highly variable from year to year, the highest densities occurring in years with deepest snow cover.

ABSTRACT Maryland shale barren (savanna) communities support rare, threatened, and endangered species, but biodiversity conservation sites are transitioning to pignut hickory woodland and forest as a result of fire exclusion. In Green Ridge State Forest, an exemplary community was studied for vegetation change after pignut hickory management and a prescribed burn. Portions of contiguous chestnut oak (Quercus montana) and streamside hardwood communities were also included. Prerestoration herbaceous layer characteristics were quantified in 2010 using transect plots before hickories were killed by herbicide. A prescribed burn was conducted in November 2011 followed by resampling in 2013. In the barren community, Carex pensylvanica remained the dominant herbaceous layer species, but codominant species changed. Ground cover increased from 63% to 76%, species richness from 48 to 52, and the Shannon-Wiener diversity index (H0) from 3.138 to 3.373. In the chestnut oak forest, the dominant herbaceous layer species changed, ground cover increased from 15%

Dr. Elsie Quarterman, known fondly to her students as EQ, passed away on 9 June 2014 at her home in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 103 years. She was born on 28 November 1910 in Valdosta, Georgia. Dr. Quarterman obtained her B.A. degree from Georgia State Women’s College (now Valdosta State University) in 1932, after which she taught English in the Georgia public schools for 11 years. She obtained her M.A. degree in botany from Duke University in 1941 and her Ph.D. from the same institution in 1949. Her Ph.D. advisor was the renowned plant ecologist, Professor Henry J. Oosting. EQ’s M.A. degree was on the distribution of Compositae in Lowndes County, Georgia, and her Ph.D. degree was on the plant communities of the cedar glades of middle Tennessee. She published papers from her dissertation in The Bryologist (1949), Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club (1950), and Ecology (1950).

It is a sad joy to provide a few thoughts about the life of John Fairey, who passed away on Sunday, 1 February 2015. (Note to the reader: There are a number of people named ‘‘John’’ in this brief statement, so pay attention.) John Edwards Fairey III, a beloved teacher, researcher, and friend of many, died at the Heartland of Columbia Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Columbia, South Carolina. He was a true gentleman and a voice of botany for South Carolina, touching many colleagues and students with his cheerful attitude and positive manner. He was born on 15 March 1940 in Orangeburg, South Carolina to Iva Lee and John E. Fairey, Jr., residents of Rowesville, South Carolina, a small town just south of the city of Orangeburg. It was here that John began a lifelong appreciation of nature, and especially plant life. The family farm in Rowesville was a