AZ Native Plant Society Happenings

Greetings, friends,  Here are four items for your consideration:   

1.  There will not be the usual monthly meeting at the Deaver Herbarium on Tuesday, September 18.  Instead, there will be a planning meeting at 7:00pm at the Campus Coffee Bean to brainstorm ideas for talks/walks/events/etc. for 2013.  If you are not able to come, please respond to this email with any thoughts/ideas/wishes/etc. that you may have for the chapter, and I will present them at the Campus Coffee Bean.    

2.  Also, please let me know if you would like to join the planning committee for the annual Garden Showcase by responding to this email.  I will be leaving the committee this year, and many hands are needed to make light work, as the old expression goes.  It's a fabulous event, and this year we raised $475 for the chapter.    

3.  Sunday, September 30, 2012  (Please note the date - one week later than the usual Sunday walk)

Moss Walk: Join Theresa Clark for a walk to fabulous Viet Springs off the Snowbowl Road to learn field identification of common genera and species of mosses in the Mixed Conifer forest on the San Francisco Peaks. Theresa Clark recently graduated with her Master's in biology at NAU and is a fascinating instructor. Her thesis focused on the flora and ecology of bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) in Grand Canyon National Park.  As usual, we will meet at the Credit Union on the corner of Butler and Beaver on Sunday morning at 10AM and carpool.  Bring a bag lunch, 1-2 L of water, a 10x -15x hand lens, and a permanent marker to write on collection baggies, which will be provided. Learning each taxon will be done as a group and elaborated with brief lessons about morphology and taxonomy on a dry-erase board. Lastly, Theresa will explain proper storage of moss collections (for later use in her moss workshop in 2013), which can be easily completed at home after specimens have fully dried. Bryologists don't travel very far or very quickly, so we won't expect to travel much more than 1 mile and the plan is to head home in the afternoon.  4.  Tuesday, October 16, 2012  (This is the last AZNPS talk of the 2012 season.)   Laura Moser, Botanist and Pesticide Coordinator with the Coconino National Forest, will explain the challenges of treating invasive plants such as salt cedar and giant reed along the Verde River. A field trip in the Verde Valley will later demonstrate some of the invasives and the restoration opportunities there. More details to follow.   Posted by Dorothy Lamm