|
|
|
|
Promoting the conservation, preservation, and restoration of the native plants and native plant communities of Broward County
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
November 2019 Events
"Conservation Needs and Solutions and Their Relevance for Broward County"
with George Gann
Wednesday, November 13, 7 p.m.
Secret Woods Nature Center
2701 W. State Rd. 84, Dania Beach, FL 33312
|
|
George Gann, Chief Conservation Strategist, Institute for Regional Conservation, will talk about broad conservation needs and solutions and their relevance for South Florida and Broward County. The Institute that he founded just celebrated its 35th anniversary. In spite of global conservation concerns, George understands and continues to work on the challenging urban conservation issues of Broward and South Florida.
George is coauthor of the recently published "International Principles & Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration, 2nd Edition", as part of his work with the global nonprofit, Society for Ecological Restoration (SER).
|
|
Field Trip hosted by the Dade Chapter:
Saturday Nov. 16, 2019
Goulds Pineland
9:30-noon.
Scout this Miami-Dade Environmentally Endangered Lands (EEL) Preserve for plants, butterflies, birds. You may have participated in the City Nature Challenge here last April.
Location: SW 120 Ave. at SW 224 St., Goulds 33170, east of US1. Look for our cars along 120 Ave. south of SW 224th St.
Difficulty: Moderate. This preserve has rugged, uneven terrain with no trails. You might like a walking stick.
Bring/wear: Water, sun protection, closed-toed shoes, and long pants for walking through saw palmettos on rocky ground, binoculars to look for butterflies and birds.
Lost? Call Patty (305-878-5705)
|
|
|
November Field Trip:
Lakeside Sand Pine Preserve
with Jimmy Lange
Saturday, November 23, 9:00 a.m. to noon-ish
Near 2950 NW 27th Avenue, Oakland Park, FL 33311
Note: Neither Google nor Apple maps will accurately locate the parking area using the address. The preserve is at the south end (a dead end) of NW 27th Ave, just south of Oakland Park Blvd. An accurate Google maps link is: Lakeside Sand Pine Preserve, 27th Ave, Oakland Park 33311. Via Apple maps use: 2950 NW 27th Ave, Oakland Park, FL 33311 (then continue on a block further south to the parking loop at the end).
Simple old-fashioned directions: From Interstate 95, exit onto Oakland Park Blvd westbound. Continue 1.4 miles to NW 27th Ave. and turn left (south). Continue about 2 blocks to the end of the avenue.
|
|
|
Lakeside Sand Pine Preserve (perhaps we can capture some of the botanical beauty in photographs during our visit)
|
|
Jimmy Lange will lead us to the interesting and rare plants of the Florida scrub on the 6-acre Lakeside Sand Pine Preserve. We suspect most of you have never heard of or visited this site. It epitomizes the small urban conservation site where nature, pre-development, still exists.
Jimmy Lange is Lead Botanist, South Florida Conservation Program, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. He is assigned to Broward County and working to identify and document our native plant species, especially those that never were documented. He has already discovered 30 such species, some quite rare. This research is essential to saving last remaining populations of rare, endangered, and endemic plants.
If you have never come on a field trip with us, come. Bring sun-protective clothing (hat, long-sleeved shirt and pants) and carry water. Easy walking will be on sidewalk and sand trails (we don't move fast because we are discovering plants). You may also want to look for butterflies, birds, or insects or just enjoy the peace and smells of wild Florida where you would not expect it. Some people enjoy bringing a camera or magnifier to see or capture the unusual and fascinating.
|
|
IN DECEMBER
Field Trip: Long Pine Key, Everglades National Park
with Steve Woodmansee
Saturday, December 14, 9:00 a.m. to noon-ish
Coe Visitor Center, Everglades National Park
40001 State Road 9336
Homestead, FL 33034
|
|
|
Long Pine Key Nature Trail, Everglades National Park
|
|
A walk with Steve Woodmansee (expert botanist and owner of ProNative Consulting) around the pinelands, prairies, and Mosier Hammock, north of the lake at Long Pine Key campground on December 14, 2019.
We will meet in the Coe Visitor Center parking lot (address and link above) to carpool to the Long Pine Key nature trail at 9 a.m. Vehicle fee without a National Park Pass is $30, but some people are likely to have a pass, so join a carpool for free entry or share the cost among passengers in the vehicle. Remember to bring your National Park Pass, if you have one. Call Steve 786-488-3101 or Richard 954-661-6289 if you need to, but be aware that cell phone reception may not be reliable (best to plan to arrive a little early).
"The vegetation of Long Pine Key is dominated by pine rocklands, marl prairies and rockland hammocks, ecosystems that harbor a number of rare plant and animal species including federally-listed species and candidates, South Florida endemics, and tropical species at or near the northern limit of their ranges. Long Pine Key has long been recognized as one of the most important regions in southern Florida for vascular plant diversity and has been researched by a number of prominent botanists and naturalists including John Kunkel Small, Frank C. Craighead and George N. Avery," Rare Plant Monitoring and Restoration on Long Pine Key, Everglades National Park, George D. Gann, Kirsten N. Hines, Emilie V. Grahl and Steven W. Woodmansee, 2006.
|
|
Wildflowers have been the subject of poetry, likely since the origin of speech. The public instinctively appreciates their unique, sometimes delicate, and wondrous natural beauty. Wildflowers appear and disappear in wild places as ephemeral gifts. Even urban-raised folk with little experience of nature enjoy seeing and learning about local wildflowers. The wildflowers, along with butterflies and birds, are easy ambassadors to win support for saving urban natural areas and promoting wildlife-friendly native gardens. Grow wildflowers (even in pots) to help spur the public desire for nature in urban Broward.
|
|
Ruellia caroliniensis, Carolina Wild Petunia, is an ideal wildflower for the urban garden. It comes up here or there as it chooses, persisting without being aggressive. It is unlikely to stay in a formal border or confined flowerbed. Exploding seed pods help it disperse. Use that behavior to advantage, letting it be a wild flower in your landscape. The showy pink-to-blue flower stands above the foliage. Like many native species, this wildflower may take a year or two to settle in; just be patient. It is tolerance of light and moisture conditions, but we find this species especially useful for color in partial sun where few other wildflowers perform.
|
|
|
Carolina Wild Petunia is larval host for Common Buckeye, Junonia coenia, and Malachite, Siproeta stelenes, and a nectar plant.
|
|
Rueliia caroliniensis, Carolina Wild Petunia
Photo above: Alan Cressler
|
|
A moist, sunny location is needed to establish a patch of Coreopsis leavenworthii, Leavenworth's Tickseed or just Coreopsis. The genus, Coreopsis, is the Florida state wildflower and this species grows nearly statewide. It is almost a Florida endemic, evidently found outside the state in only a few locations in Georgia. In South Florida it may bloom throughout the year or peak and wain. The very dark disk flowers with orange stigma contrast handsomely with bright yellow ray flowers. It makes a desirable choice if you have a sunny, moist place for it. If not, grow it in a pot in the sun. Drip irrigation and a cheap weekly timer make container gardening easy for people who are busy or travel.
|
|
|
Expect these plants to die back a bit over time and become scraggly. You can manage this in a front yard or a more formal garden by cutting out the dead stems after the seed heads have dropped their seed. You can also cut live stems near the ground leaving several bud nodes for new growth.
Some people successfully "dead head" (remove the spent flowerheads), to encourage continued blooming, but you need to let them mature to seed to perpetrate or expand a patch. Leave enough open ground for the seeds to become seedlings and learn to recognize them to avoid weeding them out. Florida Wildflower Cooperative has photos of flower, seedlings, and whole plants.
You can just remove older plants from a happy patch of Coreopsis if seedlings reliably replace them. In the back yard a more relaxed approach may suit you. This wildflower needs regular moist-to-wet soils and is not very drought tolerant, so choose another wildflower if your sunny flowerbeds are too dry. It's something of a quintessential wildflower and short enough at 1-2 feet to work well in wetter urban places.
Photo above: Shirley Denton, below: Alan Cressler
|
|
We love Pityopsis graminifolia, Narrowleaf Silkgrass, for it silky silver-to-green leaves, 1-2-foot height, and bright yellow aster flowers. The silky foliage contrasts attractively with the greens of other species. (Photo left: Mark Hutchinson)
Try a sunny flowerbed of sand or limestone rock (or perhaps any soil) where the soil has average moisture. Although we see this wildflower in dry scrub, like many scrub species in the urban landscape, it is a mistake to think it will thrive without water. Beginning life in a super-nutrient, abundant-water nursery environment may have something to do with this.
|
|
|
Whatever the reason, fast-draining urban sandy soils need water from rain, run-off, high water table (lake or swale), leftovers from the neighbor's irrigation, or your own temporary irrigation to provide needed moisture, especially while getting plants established.
It is a drought tolerant species, so once well-established, it will withstand the ups and downs of irregular water better than most other wildflowers and is not difficult to grow. Craig Huegel writes that it will, "sucker and slowly spread throughout the planting bed ... and form colonies." Be patient and you may cultivate another long-term wildflower that will attract not just pollinators, but public attention. This wildflower will survive as a cut-flower, so you can also bring it to the table for show.
|
|
|
Pityopsis graminifolia, Narrowleaf Silkgrass
Photo: Alan Cressler
|
|
Global modeling of nature’s contributions to people
from AAAS Science journal, RoundUp, October 2019
Abstract: The magnitude and pace of global change demand rapid assessment of nature and its contributions to people. We present a fine-scale global modeling of current status and future scenarios for several contributions: water quality regulation, coastal risk reduction, and crop pollination. We find that where people’s needs for nature are now greatest, nature’s ability to meet those needs is declining. Up to 5 billion people face higher water pollution and insufficient pollination for nutrition under future scenarios of land use and climate change, particularly in Africa and South Asia. Hundreds of millions of people face heightened coastal risk across Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas. Continued loss of nature poses severe threats, yet these can be reduced 3- to 10-fold under a sustainable development scenario.
|
|
|
Speaker events are on 2nd Wednesdays at 7 p.m. at Secret Woods (except July & August).
Field Trips are usually on a following weekend but they vary,
so always check the Calendar and check again for last-minute trip updates.
Visit Coontie.org for a wealth of information about local plants.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|