Native Plant Society Monthly Meeting & Walk

Tuesday, June 17, 2014: Kirstin Olmon and Susan Lamb, “Nature’s Notebook”

Kirstin and Susan will introduce Nature’s Notebook, a national program in which amateur and professional naturalists track local phenology: the emergence and blooming of plants and the behavior of birds and other animals, including insects. The program engages individuals, educators, and community groups in learning about local plants and animals and contributing to science. These long-term observations of plants and animals generate data for scientific discovery and decision-making.

Kirstin Olmon is a botany research assistant at the Museum of Northern Arizona. She is the manager of the McDougall Herbarium and curator of the living roof atop the Easton Collect Center.  She is a recent graduate of the botany master’s program at Northern Arizona University and has worked as a field botanist for the Diablo Trust’s Integrated Monitoring for Sustainability Program and the Grand Canyon Trust. 

Susan Lamb is the local author of over two dozen books on natural history. She originally came to northern Arizona to serve as Desert View District naturalist at Grand Canyon National Park, where she acquired a lasting curiosity and affection for regional plant communities. Susan keeps a yearly almanac of over two hundred native plant species in the Flagstaff area.

Sunday, June 22: PAPAZ field trip to Picture Canyon Natural and Cultural Preserve

Susan Holiday will lead this field trip to Picture Canyon, named for the hundreds of pictographs and other archaeological remains that attest to at least a thousand years of settlement here by the Northern Sinagua. A modern urban-forest interface area, Picture Canyon is listed on the National Record of Historic Places. In response to efforts by a group of volunteers representing more than a dozen organizations, the City of Flagstaff recently purchased 480 acres of the Picture Canyon area for conservation. Plant lists developed by volunteers will be used by the Arizona Archaeological Society for tours, and by other groups such as Northern Arizona Audubon that use the Picture Canyon area. 

Meet at the upper parking by the Wildcat Treatment Plant on El Paso Road at 10am. The trip will last until 2pm. Bring lunches and water, and dress for some hiking. Directions:Drive northeast on Route 66 just past the Flagstaff Mall and turn right on Marketplace. Turn right on Test Drive, then left on old Route 66. Take the first left on El Paso Road.