Leading up to Wildflower Weekend will be our week long BotanyBlitz 2023, which will run from Saturday, April 8, through Saturday, April 15. This is the third year for our BotanyBlitz, which is an effort to document as many plant species as possible within Kentucky during the week preceding Wildflower Weekend 2023. The BotanyBlitz will be again hosted on the community science website iNaturalist, and participants will be using the iNaturalist mobile app (or website, if your preferred camera is not a smartphone!) to upload photos of budding and blooming plants they observe in local parks, state parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and nature preserves.
At the end of the week, we will have a map and totals by numbers, species, and by each person of all the great collections we found! Additionally, expert botanists and people with a keen identifying eye will be able to add comments to your specimens on why they agree or disagree with a certain identification, so we can learn better ways to ID plants in the future.
In 2022, BotanyBlitz was a great success. We had well over 100 observers who made over 4,400 observations of 536 species of plants.
Of course, you don’t need to wait till the BotanyBlitz to start making observations on iNaturalist, and wildflowers across Kentucky are already starting to show their stuff.
To kick off BotanyBlitz 2023 and Wildflower Week, on Saturday, April 8, we will host a series of First Day Hikes in parks and natural areas across the Commonwealth. These easy nature walks will be led by local botanizers who know the native plant species that will be encountered in each area. As the First Day hikes are meant to start the BotanyBlitz project, we are hoping that folks who plan to participate will sign up for an iNaturalist account (if they don’t already have one) and join the BotanyBlitz 2023 project.
Please fill out the form at the bottom of this page if you are going to participate in one of the First Day hikes. If you have any questions email us at WildflowerWeekend2023@knps.org.
List of First Day Hikes
10:00 AM EDT Pine Creek Barrens Nature Preserve, Shepherdsville KY: 1.5 miles, easy loop trail. Join Kentucky Native Plant society member Alan Abbott on a spring barrens walk through the preserve, just a short drive from Louisville, KY. Meet and park in the Pine Creek Barrens parking area (1264 Pine Creek Trail, Shepherdsville, KY 40165).
10:00 AM EDT St. Anne Woods and Wetlands, Melbourne KY: 0.7 miles, easy walk, loop trail. Join Northern Kentucky University professor, Dr. Maggie Whitson, on this walk through the wetlands and floodplain of the Ohio River. Trails may be muddy, so choose footwear accordingly. Park and meet at the St. Anne Convent visitor parking lot (off Mary Ingles Hwy, Melbourne, KY 41059).
12:00 PM CDT Woodland Walk Trail & Honker Lake Trail, Land Between the Lakes (LBL) National Recreation Area, Eddyville KY: 2.5 miles, easy walk, loop trail. Walk with Murray State graduate student Gage Barnes along the Woodland Walk Trail & part of Honker Lake Trail and see a diversity of woodland plant species. Meet and park at the Woodlands Nature Station parking lot (3146 Silver Trail Road, Cadiz, KY 42211).
10:00 AM CDT River Styx Spring Trail & Dixon Cave Trail, Mammoth Cave National Park, Park City KY: moderate hike that descends 300 ft in elevation, then ascends again. Learn with Mammoth Cave naturalists Steve Kistler, Janet Kistler, and Carol Friedman on these trails with a wide variety of spring wildflowers and impressive rock formations. Park and meet at the flagpole at the Mammoth Cave Visitors Center (1 Mammoth Cave Pkwy, Mammoth Cave, KY 42259).
10:00 AM CDT Metropolis Lake SNP, McCracken Co, KY: 1 mile, easy to moderate walk, some off trail. Join Kentucky Native Plant Society President, Jeff Nelson & KNPS Member and Nature Preserves Monitor, Bob Dunlap, on this walk through the bald cypress-tupelo swamp forest on the floodplains of Metropolis Lake SNP. In addition to the trees we should see several species of spring ephemerals in flower. If we are lucky we will also see the rare (in KY) Carolina silverbells tree (Halesia carolina) in flower. Parts of the walk may be muddy, so choose footwear accordingly. Meet at the Metropolis Lake parking area (Stafford Rd, McCracken Co., KY)
First Day Hike Registration Form
Please complete the form below if you are going to participate in one of the First Day hikes.
This year we are excited to reinstitute a great tradition from Wildflower Weekends in the past, t-shirts with a logo developed specifically for the event. After a poll of our members, we have selected the gorgeous American trout-lily (Erythronium americanum) for our native plant spotlight.
Many thanks to the artistic talents of KNPS member Kendall MacDonald (Kendall’s bio is below the items) for creating the gorgeous illustration for our 2023 Wildflower Weekend! This beautiful image is featured on an adult t-shirt, a coffee mug, a kid’s t-shirt, and an adult hoodie.
Even if you are not planning on attending Wildflower Weekend 2023, you can still purchase a shirt or coffee cup with this lovely image.
Wildflower Weekend 2023 Merchandise
All of these items are produced by the manufacturer at the time of the order. Neither KNPS nor the manufacturer maintains any inventory. Because of this returns or exchanges are not possible if you order a wrong size, color, or simply don’t like the product. Please carefully double check your order before placing it. We can make exchanges if the product arrives damaged in some way. If you have any questions or receive a damaged product, please contact us at WildflowerWeekend2023@knps.org.
Kendall McDonald, Wildflower Weekend Logo Designer
Short’s goldenrod (Solidago shortii) with Kendall McDonald
Kendall McDonald is an artist, botanist and lichenologist that grew up in Owen County, Kentucky. She developed a love for art and nature at a young age, and carried that with her into her education and career. After getting her bachelors degree in biology at Morehead State University, she started at the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves as a heritage botanist and lichenologist. For the last 5 years, she has been an active member of the Kentucky Native Plant Society as a member of planning committees and a co-editor for the Lady Slipper newsletter. Her passion for biodiversity permeates her art, as her collection mostly consists of paintings of Kentucky native species and landscapes. She combined her love of spring ephemerals and wonderful Kentucky landscapes to create the design for the t-shirt and stickers for Wildflower Weekend 2023! The design is a close up of the gorgeous native Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) over a background of Cumberland Falls.
April 8 – 16, First Day Hikes, BotanyBlitz, & Wildflower Weekend
Design by Kendall McDonald
In less than 2 months, the Kentucky Native Plant Society’s Wildflower Week 2023 will begin!
Join with other nature lovers, families, community scientists, amateur naturalists, and professional botanists, from across the Commonwealth, as we explore the beauty and diversity of Kentucky’s native plant communities in April.
We are excited to be making some big changes this year: while our friends at Natural Bridge SRP have hosted Wildflower Weekend for over 30 years, we want to give parks across the state the opportunity to show off their unique ecology and geology, as well as their spring flora. To accomplish this, we plan to alternate Wildflower Weekend locations between Natural Bridge SRP in even-numbered years, and other Kentucky parks in odd-numbered years. For Wildflower Weekend 2023 (April 14th-16th) we’re delighted to be meeting at beautiful Cumberland Falls SRP & the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area.
But our celebration isn’t just limited to Wildflower Weekend itself — continuing our new tradition, we will be holding a week-long BotanyBlitz (April 8-15) hosted on iNaturalist. To help us kick off the BotanyBlitz, we will host a number of BotanyBlitz First Day Hikes in natural areas across the Commonwealth. The First Day Hikes and the BotanyBlitz will be opportunities to broaden our spring wildflower scope to the entire state of Kentucky and allow us to highlight natural areas across the state!
Details are still being worked out, but we anticipate opening up registration to all of the events in early March. Kentucky Native Plant Society members will be given the first opportunity to register for the events, before they are opened up to the general public.
We have also created a page for Wildflower Week 2023, where the latest information will be posted as it is developed. Please visit and bookmark.
BotanyBlitz 2023
Leading up to Wildflower Weekend will be our third annual, week-long BotanyBlitz, which will run from Saturday, April 8, through Saturday, April 15, and will be hosted on the iNaturalist website. A BotanyBlitz is a community-science event that focuses on finding and identifying as many plant species as possible within a designated location and time period. To join in the fun, please log in or sign up for an iNaturalist account, then head to the BotanyBlitz project page and click “Join” in the top right corner.
Commencing on Saturday, April 8, and continuing all week, we are encouraging everyone to visit parks and natural areas throughout the Commonwealth, to find and photograph native plants (with an emphasis on those in bloom) and upload them to iNat. If you’re not sure how to identify a plant you see, you can use iNat’s excellent mobile app to suggest identifications based on your photos, and iNat’s community of expert botanists and naturalists can add comments to your “digital specimens” to confirm or help correct the ID.
BotanyBlitz 2023 First Day Hikes
To kick off 2023’s BotanyBlitz, on Saturday, April 8 we will host a series of First Day Hikes in parks and natural areas across the Commonwealth. These easy nature walks will be led by local botanizers and iNat users who are familiar with the local native flora you’ll encounter. Don’t forget to make sure you’ve joined the BotanyBlitz iNat project before embarking on the hike! And if you’re new to iNaturalist, we recommend signing up for an account, then joining our BotanyBlitz project, and downloading the iNaturalist mobile app in advance of the hike to give yourself time to “test drive” the app. You can check out these video tutorials to get started!
Although the First Day Hikes are intended to give the BotanyBlitz a strong start, you do not need to be an iNat user to sign up for these hikes — all wildflower enthusiasts are welcome to join in!
Wildflower Weekend 2023
The culmination of Wildflower Week will be our 34th annual Wildflower Weekend, scheduled for April 14, 15, & 16. The weekend will offer wildflower hikes Friday afternoon and all day Saturday, led by some of the best botanists in the state. These hikes will explore the region’s rich natural heritage and resources in Cumberland State Resort Park and the Big South Fork Recreation Area. Friday evening there will be a campfire social gathering to meet your fellow native plant enthusiasts. On Saturday night we will have a KNPS member meeting (the general public is welcome), several botanically oriented talks, and a native plant raffle.
This event is open to the public and kid-friendly. Admission is $10 for adults, $3 for ages 13-17, and free for ages 12 & under.
In June of 2022, a KNPS member posted an image on the KNPS Facebook group page of an old Wildflower Weekend t-shirt she had found in a thrift store. Asking among several longtime members, it turns out that in the 1990s, and into the early 2000’s, KNPS produced t-shirts for each Wildflower Weekend. This was such a fun idea, we have decided to bring back this great tradition. We wanted the design to be similar to the 1991 shirt, with native plant species as the central element. We also wanted to use species that would likely be flowering (or showing attractive foliage) in mid-April, in the area around Cumberland Falls. We surveyed the KNPS membership to find out which wildflower the community wanted to see on a t-shirt, and the winning species was the lovely American Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum).
Many thanks to the artistic talents of KNPS member Kendall MacDonald for creating this gorgeous illustration for our 2023 Wildflower Weekend! This beautiful image will be featured on an adult t-shirt, a coffee mug, a kid’s t-shirt, and an adult hoodie and all will be available for sale on our KNPS Gear Shop when event registration begins in early March.
Kendall McDonald, Wildflower Weekend Logo Designer
Short’s goldenrod (Solidago shortii) with Kendall McDonald
Kendall McDonald is an artist, botanist and lichenologist that grew up in Owen County, Kentucky. She developed a love for art and nature at a young age, and carried that with her into her education and career. After getting her bachelors degree in biology at Morehead State University, she started at the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves as a heritage botanist and lichenologist. For the last 5 years, she has been an active member of the Kentucky Native Plant Society as a member of planning committees and a co-editor for the Lady Slipper newsletter. Her passion for biodiversity permeates her art, as her collection mostly consists of paintings of Kentucky native species and landscapes. She combined her love of spring ephemerals and wonderful Kentucky landscapes to create the design for the t-shirt and stickers for Wildflower Weekend 2023! The design is a close up of the gorgeous native Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) over a background of Cumberland Falls.
“Coming Together to Discuss Current Botany Projects, Conservation, and Collaboration in Kentucky and Beyond”
On Thursday, January 26, 2023, the Kentucky Native Plant Society and the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves held our third annual, virtual, Botanical Symposium. Close to 200 folks were able to attend online to hear and see several presentations about our native plants and plant communities. We know that there are many who would have liked to participate, but were not able to do so. Here are videos of all of the presentations.
Thursday, January 26, 2023, 9:00AM-11:30AM EST, Virtual & Free
“Coming together to discuss current botanical projects, conservation, and collaboration in Kentucky and beyond”
The Kentucky Native Plant Society (KNPS) and Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves (OKNP) is co-hosting the annual Kentucky Botanical Symposium onThursday, January 26th from 9:00AM-11:30AM EST. For several years, KNPS has organized a botanical symposium with a goal of bringing together professionals, community scientists, academics, researchers, gardeners, and students to learn about what is going on in the world of Kentucky botany and beyond. This year, speakers and facilitators include Tara Littlefield (OKNP/KYPCA) discussing the current state of Kentucky plant conservation, Jeff Nelson providing KNPS updates, Dr. Alan Weakley (NCBG) providing an update on the SE flora project, Justin Thomas (NatureCITE) providing an overview of management effects on grasslands in Missouri, Nour Salam (OKNP) discussing modernizing data collection for field botanists and land managers, and Dr. Bridgette Williams discussing conservation genetics and the recent Kentucky Glade Cress (Leavenworthia exigua var. leavenworthia) project.
We are accepting updates from our plant partners to be featured in the botanical stakeholders highlights portion of the meeting. You can submit a PowerPoint slide including information about news or events to be featured during the symposium break. If you want to update Kentucky’s botanical community about recent native plant related news, projects, or upcoming events, please contact us at BotanicalSymposium@knps.org to be added to the stakeholders update section.
Starting in 2021, the Kentucky Native Plant Society began formally recognizing individuals with the KNPS Conservation Award. Individuals are recognized for their outstanding contributions in advancing KNPS’s mission: to promote education about, appreciation for, and conservation of Kentucky’s native plants and native plant communities. If you know of someone deserving of this award, please send us an email to BotanicalSymposium@knps.org with the individual’s name (and contact info) and a description of what this person has done to qualify for this recognition.
Agenda
Welcome & General Symposium Rules Overview, Heidi Braunreiter, KNPS Vice-President
Kentucky Native Plant Society Updates, Jeff Nelson, KNPS President
State of Kentucky Plant Conservation, Tara Littlefield, OKNP State Botanist, Plant Conservation & Biological Assessment Branch Manager & KPCA Coordinator
Update on the Southeastern Flora Project, Dr. Alan Weakley, North Carolina Botanical Garden & Southeast Botanist
Modernizing Data Collection for Field Botany and Management, Nour Salam, OKNP Database Analyst
Break with stakeholder and upcoming events slideshow updates
Species Level Vegetation Monitoring – Letting the Trees, Forbs, Grasses, and Communities Speak for Themselves, Justin Thomas, NatureCITE Co-director
Advancing Plant Conservation with Genetic and Epigenetic Tools: A case study of the federally threatened “Kentucky glade cress,” Leavenworthia exigua var. laciniata, Dr. Bridgette Williams & Dr. Christie Edwards, Missouri Botanical Garden
Questions and Discussions Section, Moderator: Ted Brancheau, KNPS Board Member
Kentucky Botanical Symposium Speakers:
Kentucky Native Plant Society Updates, Jeff Nelson, KNPS President
Jeff Nelson has a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Jeff worked as the IT Director of the Paducah Independent School District for 15 years, retiring in 2008. A native of California, Jeff, his wife Liz, and his son Aaron, moved to McCracken Co., Kentucky, in 1987. After building their house on their 10 acres, the family has spent the last 30 years restoring the property from farmland to a native woodland. As a lifelong amateur naturalist, Jeff loves exploring Kentucky and learning about the rich diversity of the Commonwealth’s many ecosystems. He has been a member of the KNPS since the early 1990s and on the Board since 2017, and is the current KNPS president (2022-2024)
Jeff Nelson
State of Kentucky Plant Conservation, Tara Littlefield, OKNP State Botanist, Plant Conservation & Biological Assessment Branch Manager & KPCA Coordinator
Tara Littlefield is the state botanist and manager of the Plant Conservation and Biological Assessment Branch at the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves. She has over 17 years’ experience as a heritage biologist (botany and ecology) and natural area conservation leadership. She also coordinates the states Plant Conservation Alliance, a public private partnership working on rare plant and community conservation, and is the past president of the KNPS (2016-2022). Tara has a B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Louisville, M.S. in Forestry/Plant Ecology from the University of Kentucky and is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Kentucky in Forest/Natural Resource Conservation. Much of her work involves rare species surveys, general floristic inventories, natural areas inventory, biological research, acquisition/protection of natural areas, rare plant/community restoration and recovery, and biological/conservation program development and management.
Tara Littlefield
Update on the Southeastern Flora Project, Dr. Alan Weakley, Plant Taxonomist, Community Ecologist, UNC herbarium director and professor
Alan Weakley is a plant taxonomist, community ecologist, and conservationist specializing in the Southeastern United States. He holds a B.A. from UNC-Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. from Duke University. He has worked as botanist and ecologist for the N.C. Natural Heritage Program, and as regional and chief ecologist for The Nature Conservancy and NatureServe. He is currently Director of the UNC Herbarium, a department of the N.C. Botanical Garden, and teaches as adjunct faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill and at the Highlands Biological Station. Alan is the author and coordinator of The Flora of the Southeastern United States is an open access, downloadable flora with over 10,000 species. See the article about this important research here: Flora of the Southeastern United States – 2020 Edition. He has also released an app, FloraQuest, co-developed with Michael Lee and Rudy Nash, covering the Southeastern United States flora. Alan focuses on systematics and biogeography of the Southeastern United States, community classification developing the U.S. National Vegetation Classification, and land management, conservation planning, and environmental policy involving the conservation of Southeastern United States ecosystems and species.
Dr. Alan Weakley
Modernizing Data Collection for Field Botany and Management, Nour Salam, OKNP Database Analyst
Nour Salam is a database analyst at the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves. She is passionate about using her SQL and GIS skills to guide data-driven conservation decisions. Nour earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the American University of Beirut and a master’s degree in marine biodiversity and conservation from the University of Pierre and Marie Curie, and got the opportunity to live in five different countries as part of that path. For the last 3 years, she has been focusing on managing Kentucky’s natural heritage database and making sure that staff botanists, zoologists, and land managers have the GIS tools they need to operate efficiently in the field. During her off time, she’s currently pursuing her mission to birdwatch in every Kentucky county, and to hike the state’s most beautiful preserves and trails.
Nour Salam
Species Level Vegetation Monitoring – Letting the Trees, Forbs, Grasses, and Communities Speak for Themselves, Justin Thomas, Co-Director of NatureCITE, Director of the Institute of Botanical Training
Justin Thomas is the co-founder and Science Director of NatureCITE and the co-founder and Director of the Institute of Botanical Training. He conducts ecological and taxonomic research, instructs plant identification workshops, and serves as a scientific advisor to several conservation organizations in the central and eastern United States.
Justin Thomas
Advancing Plant Conservation with Genetic and Epigenetic Tools: A case study of the federally threatened “Kentucky glade cress,” Leavenworthia exigua var. laciniata, Dr. Bridgette Williams & Dr. Christie Edwards, Missouri Botanical Garden
Brigette Williams is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Plant Conservation Genetics in the Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Her primary research interests focus on understanding how plants with limited or fixed genetic diversity, such as rare and endangered species, respond to and survive changing environmental conditions in order to better conserve and protect native plants. She uses a range of approaches, including field-based and greenhouse experiments, in combination with genetic tools to identify important variation that can promote rare plants’ capacity to adapt and survive, and to enable their conservation.
Many KNPS members and friends are passionate native plant gardeners and are always on the look out for sources of native plants and seeds. Beginning native plant gardeners also often are looking for help with landscape design and similar services. For several years the KNPS website has featured a listing of Native Plant Suppliers & Service Providers in our region who grow and sell native plants and who work with native plants in other ways. Service providers include landscape designers and installers, invasive species removal specialists, habitat restoration specialists, and other businesses that have a focus on native plants.
If you are a native plant related business or know of such as business, and would like to have that business featured, we invite you to fill out this form on our website: https://www.knps.org/native-plant-supplier-form/.
