KNPS 2024 Fall Meeting at Bernheim Arboretum & Pine Creek Barrens

On Saturday, October 19, 2024, over 30 KNPS members and friends came together for a day of botanical education and exploration at the Bernheim Forest and Arboretum & Pine Creek Barrens Nature Preserve.

The day began in the the Sassafras Room, located in the Bernheim Arboretum Visitor Center, with updates from KNPS leadership on the Society’s activities in 2024 and plans for 2025. Following the updates the group enjoyed two talks. The first talk was Boo! Botany that goes Bump in the Night by KNPS Vice-president and Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves Botanist, Kendall McDonald. In a nod to the season, Kendall gave a fun and interesting presentation on poisonous, carnivorous, and parasitic plants found in Kentucky. Following Kendall, Tyson Gregory, KNPS member and Director of Programs for Trees Lexington, presented Ethical Seed Collection. His presentation was chock full of tips and information on collecting native plant seeds ethically and responsibly. You can download both of these presentations by clicking on the images below.

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From the Lady Slipper Archives: The Slender Lip Fern in Kentucky

The Lady Slipper newsletter of the Kentucky Native Plant Society has been published since the Society’s founding in 1986. We occasionally feature an article from a past issue. This year’s Fall Meeting will include a hike at Pine Creek Barrens Nature Preserve in Bullitt county. This article, from the fall of 2014, is about a rare species of fern, the slender lip fern, Myriopteris gracilis, found only in Kentucky in Bullitt county. The location of this fern is along Cedar Creek, in similar habitat to Pine Creek Barrens, and is about a mile away as the crow flies. This article first appeared in the fall of 2014, Vol. 29, No. 3. If you would like to see other past issues, visit the Lady Slipper Archives, where all issues from Vol. 1, No. 1, February 1986 to Vol. 39, 2024, can be found.

The Slender Lip Fern in Kentucky

by James Beck

A single low dolomite ledge near Cedar Creek in Bullitt County harbors one of the most unique plant populations in Kentucky. At a distance this might appear to be a population of the hairy lip fern, Myriopteris lanosa (Michx.) Grusz & Windham, a species known from >20 Kentucky counties. Most will probably know M. lanosa as Cheilanthes lanosa (Michx.) D.C. Eaton, a species recently transferred (along with most North and Central American species of Cheilanthes) to Myriopteris (Grusz and Windham 2013). However, closer inspection will reveal that these Bullitt Co. ferns have smaller, nearly beadlike ultimate segments that are densely hairy underneath, keying clearly to the slender lip fern, Myriopteris gracilis Fée (Cheilanthes feeii T. Moore), in either Jones (2005) or Cranfill (1980).

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A tribute to my friend Max Medley. May he rest in peace.

By Dwayne Estes

Max standing alone observing a remnant limestone savanna and glade along I-59 near Fort Payne, Alabama, June 2018. Photo courtesy of Dwayne Estes

We have lost one of the most gifted botanists of the past 100 years of the southeastern U.S.

I knew of Max many years before I met him. I heard of him from other professional botanists while I was just a graduate student. Some painted a picture of Max as a reclusive, unkempt, disheveled botanist who had been down-and-out for a long time and who had given up his large private collection of 17,000 plant specimens. I had seen his unpublished PhD dissertation which was well over 1,000 pages and multiple volumes and had always admired his work long before I met Max and became his friend.

But the Max I first met in July 2009 was hands-down one of the most brilliant and gifted botanists I’ve ever had the privilege to know. In spite of the very real challenges he faced, I was truly a fan of Max and I loved him, although I’m sad to say, I wasn’t there for him. Max, to those who know him, was a complicated man. But I wanted to share a few select stories from some of my remembrances of him.

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2024 KNPS Fall Meeting, Oct 19, Bernheim Arboretum

When: Saturday, Oct. 19, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm EDT
Where: The Sasafrass Room in the Bernheim Arboretum Visitor Center, Clermont, KY

Mark your calendars and plan to meet up with other KNPS members and friends as we head to the Bernheim Arboretum for the Society’s 2024 Fall Meeting, on Oct 19th. We will meet in the Bernheim Arboretum Visitor Center in the Sassafras Room. If you want to learn more about KNPS, meet other Kentucky native plant enthusiasts, and learn more about the native plants of Kentucky, then the KNPS Fall Meeting is for you!

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2024 KNPS Fall Meeting at Bernheim Arboretum, October 19

Mark your calendars and plan to meet up with other KNPS members and friends as we head to the Bernheim Arboretum for the Society’s 2024 Fall Meeting, on Oct 19th. We will meet in the Bernheim Arboretum Visitor Center in the Sassafras Room. If you want to learn more about KNPS, meet other Kentucky native plant enthusiasts, and learn more about the native plants of Kentucky, then the KNPS Fall Meeting is for you!

We are still finalizing details of the Fall Meeting, but here is the schedule for the day (all times are Eastern Daylight Time).

  • Morning session: 10am, in the Sassafras Room in the Visitor Center at the Bernheim Arboretum 2075 Clermont Road, Clermont, KY
    • 10am – Welcome and KNPS Updates – KNPS Board
    • 10:45am – One or more talks on plants native to the area and the special plant communities they are part of.
  • 12noon – Lunch on your own. You can get lunch at Issac’s Cafe in the Visitor Center or bring your own lunch.
  • 1pm – 4:00pm – Afternoon Walks – We are still finalizing our walk schedules.

There is no fee to attend the meeting, but we are requesting that folks pre-register for the meeting using the form below.

If you have any questions, send an email to KYPlants@knps.org

Please use this form to indicate that you are currently planning to attend the Fall Meeting.

Letter to the Editors; 20 Aug 2024

By Julian Campbell

Conservation is a primary interest of KNPS, as stated in the mission statement and elsewhere, but what are its precise goals for “education, preservation, and protection of Kentucky’s native plants and ecological systems”? Are we just going to accept goals developed by government, or will we seek a more cooperative discussion? Without clear goals, how can we assess progress?

Natural Heritage Programs were developed for each state government about 50 years ago through partnerships with The Nature Conservancy. There is a need to revive this system through stronger grass-roots interactions, inviting all people committed to our native flora and fauna. There is now greater potential for more effective flow of new information through networks of observers. The NHP (as managed by Nature Preserves in Kentucky) was initially envisaged as an integrated system of databases, linking records at whole site level (prioritized lands and waters for conservation), habitat level (including degraded types for restoration), and species level (especially those rare natives deserving recovery). There was also an elaborate system for maintaining stewardship records, but never widely adopted. Priorities for action have become relatively clear at site and species levels in most of our 120 counties. However, the habitat level generally needs a lot more work to define types in an understandable manner, to design restoration of degraded types, and to keep track of progress.

KNPS could become the botanical glue that builds (or mends) the network we need in Kentucky. It is particularly important to seek more interaction among the few scattered professional botanists, restorationists and horticulturalists interested in promoting natives. There has not been enough bonding between such varied groups of ‘plants-people’ in the state. It is of course difficult for KNPS to work across the whole state, but we could start at more amenable regional or local scales.

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From the Lady Slipper Archives: Remnant Prairies at WKWMA

The Lady Slipper newsletter of the Kentucky Native Plant Society has been published since the Society’s founding in 1986. We occasionally feature an article from a past issue. This one, about remnant prairie ecosystems in western Kentucky, first appeared in the winter of 1995, Vol. 10, No. 4. If you would like to see other past issues, visit the Lady Slipper Archives, where all issues from Vol. 1, No. 1, February 1986 to Vol. 38, 2023, can be found.

Remnant Prairies at West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area

by Charlie Logsdon, West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area Supervisor [at the time of this article, 1995]

The history of the land and people that have inhabited the area of what is now West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area (WKWMA) would be suitable for a Michenor novel. West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area is about 6,700 acres in size and is located about 12 miles north west of Paducah . Long before European contact the area was frequented by mound builders, Chickasaws and other native Americans.

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