Arizona Native Plant Society - Flagstaff Chapter

Spring Program 2012

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 Tina Ayers: Unconfounding the workings of SEINet
Tina Ayers, Associate Professor and Curator of the Deaver Herbarium, NAU, will hold a hands-on training session for those interested in learning the basics of the plant database SEINet, aka the Southwest Environmental Information Network. We will learn how to enter and extract data, make labels, how to create a species list for a site, and review about the many other tools in SEINet offers.(Note: this program is on the 4th Tuesday of March)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012 Michael Kearsley: Grand Canyon National Park Vegetation Mapping
Mike Kearsley, Vegetation Mapping Coordinator for Grand Canyon National Park, has sampled and mapped over 200 plant communities across 1.4 million acres of diverse habitats from Lake Mead to the Kaibab Plateau since 2007. Mike will talk about the many significant range extensions and relocated species that his team has found for Grand Canyon and Arizona during their surveys over the past fifteen years.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 Jeanne Trupiano & Geoffrey Gross: Coconino County Parks and Open Space
Jeanne Trupiano, Coconino County Parks and Recreation Department Planning and Acquisition Manager, and Geoffrey Gross, CCPR Projects Coordinator, will discuss the county’s program to assess natural areas and acquire lands for conservation around Flagstaff.

Field Trips
Saturday, April 21, 2012 Plant Walk at Homolovi State Park
Susan Holiday, volunteer botanist who is completing a floristic inventory of the park for Arizona State Parks, will be leading the walk. We will be looking at plants of the Navajoan Desert and nearby Little Colorado River. We will also be able to view the ruins and a graveyard dating from the early 1900's on site. A checklist will be available.

Saturday, May 19, 2012 Plant survey of Ft. Tuthill
AZNPS will conduct a survey for rare plants such as Flagstaff pennyroyal and Arizona leatherflower on State Trust land adjacent to Fort Tuthill County Park with Jeanne Trupiano and Geoffrey Gross (see talk on May 15 above). The lands nominated for inclusion in the County Park includes a dense stand of Ponderosa pine trees that has not been logged for nearly 100 years.
For further details click on above title for the AZ Native Plant Society web site or click more to finish this article.

Weed Warrior Activities

Fort Valley Weed Warriors Unite. Saturdays, April 21 (Earth Day Celebration), May 5, and June 9, from 9am until 1pm, followed by lunch courtesy of the Grand Canyon Trust.

For a second year, the AZNPS Flagstaff Chapter will join forces with the Grand Canyon Trust, Master Gardeners, and other local organizations to tackle the enormous weed problem along Fort Valley Road between the Fire Station, Trust's headquarters, Pioneer Museum and the Museum of Northern Arizona.
Invasive plant species tend to be aggressive, to outcompete native plants for resources and space, and to decrease biodiversity. Diffuse Knapweed, Kochia, Bull Thistle (below), Cheatgrass and many other species are present throughout our project focus area. Together we can work to remove them and increase the chances for native grasses and flowers to flourish. There has already been major improvement at the Pioneer Museum, and native species are filling in among the native grasses. However, there is still more work to do. Details about these projects are on the Grand Canyon Trust's website. Please come out and join local weed warriors and plant enthusiasts for one or all three workdays of weed removal, exercise, and fun. Please contact Dorothy Lamm with questions or just register at the website. See you there.

There are other wonderful volunteer opportunities sponsored by the Grand Canyon Trust listed on this website also. They are in Northern Arizona and Utah, plus Grand Canyon National Park also announces its Vegetation Crew projects on the Trust website.

Looking Ahead – 2012 Native Plant Garden Contest

Plans for the 2012 Flagstaff Garden Competition and Self-Guided Public Tour will be available in April 2012.

Plant Atlas Project of AZ IN FLAGSTAFF

The Budding Botanist Herbarium Training Session held at the Northern Arizona University Deaver Herbarium was an incredible experience for all involved. Wendy Hodgson of the Desert Botanical Garden led an informative workshop on voucher specimen mounting techniques, while Keri Stiverson of the Museum of Northern Arizona introduced Budding Botanists to the data entry system and searchable online database SEINet utilized by many Southwest herbaria.
PAPAZ organizers encourage all AZNPS members to become involved in this statewide project. To organize a Budding Botanist program in your chapter please contact Keri Stiverson (keri.stiverson@hotmail.com) or phone at (928) 774-5211 x 216.

For more information, go to: http://www.gcvolunteers.org/trainings_botanists.html For the Budding Botanist's Schedule, click here.

Northern Arizona Native Plant Materials Program

The Arboretum at Flagstaff and the Museum of Northern Arizona will have many volunteer opportunities for AZNPS members to become involved in various aspects of the Northern Arizona Native Plant Materials Program at each institution. The Museum and The Arboretum will be working in conjunction with the Forest Service over the next several years to accomplish the main objectives of this FS funded project: to locally collect, process and store seed; to construct six 10 ft X 30 ft seed beds to cultivate and increase native forbs; to establish 5 acres as increaser field plots; to acquire equipment to collect and process native seeds; to provide training on seed collection, processing and storage; and to work cooperatively to develop local native species lists targeting early seral stage species that will become "restoration workhorses."

US Forest Service Volunteer Opportunities: During the winter months, the Coconino NF botanists could use help with plant identification, mounting specimens, and databasing our small FS herbarium. Please contact Debbie Crisp.

Northern Arizona Native Seed Alliance (NANSA)

In conjunction with the aforementioned Museum, Arboretum, and Forest Service effort, a new working group has formed to address the need for seeds for restoration projects. The Northern Arizona Native Seed Alliance (NANSA) meets bi-monthly. The group is comprised of more than 20 people from just as many national, state, educational, and non-profit organizations. NANSA was inspired by and is being modeled after a more regional group with a similar mission, the Colorado Plateau Native Plant Initiative (CPNPI). If you would like more information on NANSA, or would like to get involved, please contact Patty West (Patty.West@nau.edu) of the NAU Landsward Institute (formerly the Ecological Monitoring & Assessment Program).

Coconino National Forest Webpage
Find information on recent projects, native plants, noxious weeds and useful links to other websites. Visit their website to learn more.