Leading up to Wildflower Weekend 2025, at Carter Caves SRP, KNPS will be holding our 5th annual Botany Blitz 2025, which will run from Saturday, April 5th, through Sunday, April 13th. The spring Botany Blitz is a group effort to document as many plant species as possible within Kentucky during the week preceding Wildflower Weekend, and will again be hosted on the community science platform iNaturalist. Participants can use the iNaturalist mobile app in the field (or use the website if your preferred camera is not a smartphone!) to document their observations of Kentucky’s flora.
As in previous years, Botany Blitz 2025 will commence with a series of Kick Off Hikes held Saturday, April 5th and Sunday, April 6th, in parks and natural areas across the Commonwealth. These easygoing wildflower walks are led by local botanizers and naturalists who are familiar with the native flora that hikers will encounter. As the Kick Off Hikes are meant to start the Botany Blitz, 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 Botany Blitz 2025 project, although you do not need to be an iNaturalist user to enjoy these hikes.
Call for Kick Off Hike leaders: Although we have several Kick Off Hikes in the planning process, we are seeking more hike locations and hike leaders! If you would like to lead a Kick Off Hike in your area, please fill out and submit the form below. All hike details are up to you, the hike leader, to choose, however we have a few suggestions to guide you:
Before selecting a hike location, we recommend that you visit the official website for that location or contact the owning agency/organization to check if there are any rules or guidance regarding larger groups of hikers.
Please also consider the amount of parking at the site, the typical weekend visitation levels during peak wildflower season, and the maximum number of participants you want to set. You may want to avoid choosing locations with limited parking that can fill up quickly on weekend days.
We also recommend arranging for a friend to co-lead the hike with you. A co-lead can assist you in keeping your the group together on the trail, watch the clock to help you stay on schedule (wildflower walks are notorious for running long!), and help guide any hikers that need to leave early back to the trailhead.
If you have any questions or if you need to change any hike details after you’ve submitted this form, please email us at KYPlants@knps.org.
If you are willing to lead a KNPS Botany Blitz Kick Off Hike on April 5th or 6th, 2025, please submit the following information.
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 article, from 2009, is a look at some of the oldest trees in Kentucky. This article first appeared in Winter 2009, Vol. 24, No. 2. If you would like to see other past issues, visit the Lady Slipper Archives, where all issues from Vol. 1, February 1986 to Vol. 39, 2024, can be found.
Floracliff’s Old Trees: Acorns of Restoration for the Inner Bluegrass Region
By Neil Pederson, Eastern Kentucky University
“Woodie C. Guthtree”, Kentucky’s oldest known living tree at 398 years. Photo by Beverly James.
Old trees are windows into historical events. The science of tree-ring analysis takes advantage of a characteristic common to all trees: no matter how bad things get – an approaching fire, tornado, drought, etc. – trees must stay in place and absorb these abuses. Though each tree is an individual, environmental events like these impact all trees in a similar fashion: events that limit a tree’s ability to gain energy reduce the annual ring width. Scientists interpret patterns of ring widths within tree populations to reconstruct environmental history. To date, tree-ring scientists have successfully reconstructed drought history, Northern Hemisphere temperature, fire histories, insect outbreaks, etc. Tree-ring studies have also enriched human history. Scientists have dated logs from ancient structures that, in turn, triggered revisions of human history. Similarly, tree-ring evidence indicates that a severe drought likely contributed to the failure of The Lost Colony in Roanoke, NC and to the outbreak of a highly-contagious disease and subsequent crashes of the human population in ancient Mexico City. Just a few old trees in a small landscape can shed light into long-forgotten or unobserved events.
Floracliff Manager Beverly James cores “Old Twisty”
In late-summer ‘08, Beverly James, manager of Floracliff Nature Sanctuary, contacted me about sampling some trees in Floracliff to gain insight into the preserve’s ecological history. Having been in Floracliff previously, I was skeptical of coring its trees. It is so close to a major corridor (even pre-Daniel Boone), has a series of fields within the sanctuary, is dominated by a second-growth forest being overrun by bush honeysuckle and lies in the vicinity of the oldest European settlements in Kentucky. How and why could old trees survive these conditions? I feared that the coring of any trees here would reveal little beyond the fact that Floracliff was a young forest heavily cut within the last 100 years.
Later that fall, with permission from the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission and a great crew, including Dr. Ryan McEwan of University of Dayton, Ciara Lockstadt (a volunteer assistant at Floracliff), and Chris Boyer (undergrad at Eastern Kentucky University), the six of us cored 20 living chinkapin oaks. The first tree we cored came in at 372 years, the oldest documented tree in Kentucky—a record, it turns out, that did not last more than 30 minutes. Our second tree came in at 398 years and is now the oldest-documented tree in Kentucky. Named “Woodie C. Guthtree”, he now has his own “Facebook” page.
I teach a course on the ecology of old-growth forests. A reoccurring theme of the course is, “What is an old-growth forest?” As our society moves farther and farther away from the 1600s and fully appreciates the value of biological conservation, this question becomes pertinent. If the definition of an old-growth forest is simply a forest untouched by people of European descent, then there are no old-growth forests and little incentive to protect once, twice or thrice disturbed forests. However, if we define old-growth forests using the philosophy of Michael Pollan, who states that old-growth forests (or anything natural) will only persist because of human will, then it makes sense to allow the influence of humans into the old-growth forest definition. Making this allowance then allows for future creation and restoration of old-growth forests, a concept that the former definition makes impossible.
Floracliff’s old growth “epicenter” by Beverly James
To be clear, these old trees are cull trees in a second-growth forest – these trees were left behind by loggers because they were seen as “inferior”. They did not grow to be prime, sawboard-producing trees. Their value, in my mind, is great. Not only have they been witnessing changes in the environment since well before Daniel Boone stepped foot into Kentucky, they are an important link to the past in an area that has more legend right now than facts. Floracliff and its Original Individuals can be a core for the recovery of the Inner Bluegrass landscape. See, while these trees were not considered “superior” when the Floracliff was cut, they contain genetic structure that is directly tied to pre-European forests. There was likely a loss of genetic diversity with logging. Yet, the architecture of the Original Individuals, which is what allowed them to live through the pre-sanctuary era, was likely shaped by what they struggled against to survive – direct competition, rather than weak genes. Plants seem to carry multiple copies of their genes. And, if the new discipline/area of study epigentics is any indication, genes are dynamic; a tree’s DNA system might be more dynamic than previously thought. Hope might genetically spring anew from these old chinkapin oaks.
Neil Pederson with “Woodie”
As this chapter of environmental investigation closes, I look forward to the future of Floracliff and discoveries of the environmental history of the Inner Bluegrass Region. Floracliff is an emerald of the Inner Bluegrass; it can seed restoration of future old-growth forests while providing hope for the discovery of more forests with similar connections to ancient times. Floracliff will also be the lead forest in the reconstruction of regional environmental and human history. Its trees can help us answer questions such as, “What was the climate like during the settlement of Fort Boonesborough, Harrodsburg and Danville?” and “Were there any large-scale disturbances in the forests of the Inner Bluegrass region during the last 300 years?” The rare old trees of Floracliff will reveal important slivers of historical Fayette County ecology – slivers which will allow us to ponder and construct plans for a more sensible and hopeful future environment.
It’s that time of year, and you’re in luck if a gardener is on your gift list. If you’re the gardener, send a link to this article to all of you secret Santas!
Passionate gardeners are probably the easiest people to please. If you’re close, you might already know that they’re searching for a specific orchid or drooling over a new set of shiny loppers. On the other hand, if you’re not sure, we can help.
Close to the holidays, you can purchase traditional holiday plants most anywhere. Amaryllis, paperwhites, and holiday cacti will show up everywhere and they’re affordable. They’re not natives, and not all gardeners are keen on house plants; if they don’t have any, skip this suggestion.
Tools are personal, but a gardener can almost always use a new set of good hand pruners, a hori knife, or a good pruning saw. A gardener can never have too many pairs of gardening shears, and they come in all sizes. If your gardening friend tends to lose tools (I know I do), a tool apron might be high on their list. It should have lots of pockets in different widths and lengths to corral they’re favorite hand tools.
A vase or planter might be just the ticket. Like tools, a gardener can never have too many. For that reason, make sure it’s spectacular or unusual in some way. They probably have tons of normal vases and planters already.
As odd as it might sound, you might hook up with a local farmer and purchase compost to be delivered in early spring. Then, help your gardening friend spread it—helping is as important as the purchase.
If your gardener is a little older, consider a new gardening cart to replace their awkward wheelbarrow. Gorilla carts are durable, easy to handle, and they come in more than one size! An easy-to-handle, flexible, lightweight gardening hose of at least 100 feet would be great. I love my bench that provides comfort whether I’m kneeling or sitting, and the handles help me get up and down.
For the reader, consider a number of gardening books: Growing and Propagating Wildflowers of the United States and Canada, by William Cullina; Gardening for the Birds, by Thomas G. Barnes; Kentucky’s Last Great Places by Thomas G. Barnes, Plant Life of Kentucky by Ronald L. Jones (this is for the studious gardener); Trees & Shrubs of Kentucky by Mary E. Wharton and Roger W. Barbour, Edible Wild Plants by John Kallas, PhD; Wildflowers and Ferns of Kentucky by Thomas G. Barnes and S. Wilson Francis; Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy; The Living Landscape by Rick Darke and Doug Tallamy; and many more.
A small pop-up greenhouse would be a certain winner, especially if you offer to help put it together! They come in a variety of sizes and prices. Make sure your friend has space for it before you make the purchase.
If you’re feeling especially generous, a potter’s table would be a huge surprise and a certain hit! Before you purchase anything, size up their surroundings: Do they really have room for one? If it needs to stay outside, purchase something durable, such as resin or stainless steel. They come in lots of sizes with different amenities, so you’ll have lots of choices.
Most gardeners love nature in general, so anything in that vein is a good bet. A membership to a nearby private garden or arboretum will be well-received. In our area, we have Yew Dell Gardens and the Waterfront Botanical Gardens, both in Louisville. The Arboretum in Lexington is public, so a membership isn’t necessary. However, if your gardening friend has everything already, you might consider a donation in their name.
A pretty water feature is always nice, especially if you help with (or pay for) installation. Garden art is iffy—it’s personal, but if you know the gardener well, you can probably pull it off.
If you still can’t decide, consider a gift card they can use to purchase a squirrel-proof bird feeder that really works, seed packets, tools, mulch, bulbs, nursery plants, and so on. Consider a gift card to a native nursery, such as Ironweed Native Plant Nursery in Columbia Kentucky or Dropseed Native Plant Nursery in Goshen (neither uses pesticides or sell plants treated with neonicotinoids.)
You might not have to spend any money at all. A hand-made coupon and a sincere promise to return in the spring and help your gardening friend put in a new bed, spread mulch, or just clean up the winter mess would be a gift from the heart that your gardening friend will never forget. I think I’m adding this one to my own list!
Finally, for the native-loving gardener who has everything, consider a KNPS membership or some branded gear. For information about memberships, read https://www.knps.org/membership/. You can browse the KNPS Gear Shop for KNPS branded gear. You can’t go wrong with either!
This article was originally published by the Franklin County Hort Newletter, but has been adapted for native plant lovers.
Paula Mullins and Susan Harkins are master gardeners with the Frankfort area group, Capital Area Master Gardeners. This group services Franklin, Anderson, and Woodford County.
If you are an artist or graphic designer, we would love for you to consider entering the Wildflower Weekend 2025 Logo Design Contest. This is an open design contest to come up with a logo for Wildflower Weekend 2025 (April 11-13 at Carter Caves SRP). The logo will be used on t-shirts, hoodies, and coffee cups, as well as on all publicity about the event. The submitted designs will be presented to the KNPS membership for voting and the winner will be awarded $200 and be recognized on the KNPS website.
In June of 2022, a KNPS member posted the image on the right on the KNPS Facebook group page of a 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. The KNPS Board decided to bring back this great tradition for Wildflower Weekend 2023.
The Board asked KNPS vice-president Kendall MacDonald to design a logo for the 2023 Wildflower Weekend. The beautiful image she created featured the yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum) with Cumberland Falls as the background. The image was used in all publicity for the event and was also featured on an adult t-shirt, a coffee mug, a kid’s t-shirt, and an adult hoodie that were available for sale in our KNPS Gear Shop.
For Wildflower Weekend 2024, the KNPS board decided to have a Wildflower Weekend 2024 Logo Design Contest. This was an open design contest to come up with a logo. We put out a call to artists and graphic designers who were members of the Kentucky Native Plant Society. We asked the designers to submit designs that incorporated either the great white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) or the stinking Benjamin, a.k.a. red trillium (T. erectum) or both. These charismatic species are commonly found decorating the floors of the rich forests in the Natural Bridge/Red River Gorge area. We were thrilled when we received eleven gorgeous designs. The submitted designs were then presented to the KNPS membership for voting. After two rounds of voting, KNPS members selected the design created by Rick Mullenix.
Three-parted yellow violet (Viola tripartita)
Wildflower Weekend 2025 will be held at Carter Caves SRP in Carter County. The county is a hot spot of Viola diversity in Kentucky, with 13 species of Viola found in the county. One species of violet was selected to be the species around which the logo design will focus, the three-parted yellow violet (Viola tripartita). It is native to Eastern North America, being primarily found in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The species is rare throughout its range, especially so in Kentucky where it has only been reported from Carter County.
V. tripartitia‘s preferred habitat is rich, mesic forests over calcareous rocks. It is a small perennial herb that has yellow flowers in the spring. It is distinguished from other yellow violets native to the area by having leaves that are wider than long and which have a cuneate base. The leaves are typically three-lobed though unlobed leaves are not uncommon and lobed and unlobed leaves can occur on the same plant.
The focus and star of the design must be Viola tripartita. If desired the artist can also include any (or all) of the other 12 species of violet found in Carter County. The artistic rendering must be botanically accurate and any stylized representations will be rejected.
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. Wildflower Weekend 2025 will be at Carter Caves State Resort Park. Carter county is a hot spot of Violet (Viola) diversity in Kentucky, with 13 species of Viola found in the county. This article, from November 1992, is an in-depth look at the Violas of Kentucky. This article first appeared in Nov 1992, Vol. 7, 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. 39, 2024, can be found.
The Genus Viola (Violaceae) The Violets
by Landon McKinney, KSNPC
There are approximately 40 to 50 species of wild violets occurring throughout North America. Of these, twenty-two species and several varieties occur in Kentucky. Virtually every wildflower enthusiast knows a violet when he or she sees one. Beyond that, distinctions between the various species become quite confusing on occasion, even for the seasoned professional.
Amateur botanists and wildflower enthusiasts alike may assume that the classification of these pretty, little herbs is complete and that there is no question as to what constitutes a species and what does not. However, this belief could not be further from the truth. The violets are considered by many professional botanists to be one of the most difficult groups of plants to work with when producing a floristic treatment.
This problem is certainly not unique to the violets, as many other groups of plants are known to be problematic. We all have had difficulties in identifying a particular plant at one time or another. The wild fact is that the science of taxonomy (the classification of organisms into like groups) is not an absolute science.
Why are the violets so problematic? Well, there are several reasons. One reason is that many species exhibit a wide range of variability in their supposedly definitive characteristics. For example, you find a particular violet and proceed to identify it based on the manual or wildflower guide that you are using. After making a tentative identification, you notice that the description says that the leaves are pubescent (hairy) but as you look at your violet, you see no hairs. Could this be another species, maybe one that is not included in the manual that you are using? Possibly, but a likelier explanation is that you just happened upon a particular plant that is exhibiting an extreme end to a natural range of variation, and that sometimes, this particular individual has few or even no hairs on its leaves. Another reason is that most species, when in close proximity to each other, hybridize freely, and the hybrids produced may be quite fertile.
Now that I have muddied up the water so to speak, let me attempt to make the identification of violets as simple as humanly possible. First, the violets may be divided based on whether they are stemless or stemmed (see figures 3 and 4). The stemless violets have all petioled leaf blades appearing from the base of the plant. The stemmed violets have aerial stems from which petioled leaf blades appear (several species will also produce leaf blades rising from the plant’s base). Second, they may be further divided as to flower color and this gives us the following broad categories:
wild pansies
stemmed blue violets
stemless blue violets
stemmed yellow violets
stemless yellow violets
stemmed white violets
stemless white violets
The wild pansies consist of two species (Viola rafinesquii and Viola arvensis). They normally occur in yards or in cultivated fields. Their flowers are quite pansy-like except that they are much smaller. They are quite similar to the garden variety called Johnny-jump-up (Viola tricolor).
The stemmed blue violets consist of three species including the long-spurred violet (Viola rostrata), the american dog violet (Viola conspersa), and Walter’s violet (Viola walteri). While infrequent, the first two may be found in rich, mesic, wooded situations throughout the eastern portion of the state while Walter’s violet is considered rare and only known from Jessamine, Fayette, and Carter counties. This violet prefers a limestone substrate and, due to its low-growing or decumbent habit, it is easily overlooked.
The stemless blue violets are probably the best known while also being the most problematic of the violets. The common blue violet (Viola sororia) is highly adaptable to a variety of habitats and we have seen several forms that adapt very well to our lawns and gardens. One of the most striking of these is the confederate violet with its grayish-blue flowers. Other stemless blue violets include the tri-lobed blue violet (Viola palmata), the arrow-leaved violet (Viola sagittata var. saggitata), the ovate- leaved violet (Viola sagittata var. ovata), the marsh blue violet (Viola cucullata), the southern wood violet (Viola hirsutula), Eggleston’s violet (Viola septemloba var. egglestonii), the Missouri blue violet (Viola sororia var. missouriensis), and the ever popular birdsfoot violet (Viola pedata). There are numerous other names of species that may be found in various manuals; however, these are either not found in the state or are now considered as minor variations of one of the above species.
The stemmed yellow violets include one of our most common woodland species, the smooth yellow violet (Viola pubescens var. eriocarpa). One unique characteristic of the smooth yellow violet is the fact that, after flowering, the seed capsules are either woolly or glabrous (hairless). I have never seen this character mixed in any one population as each population appears to have plants of one kind or the other. Nor have I ever been able to figure out, based on other characteristics such as habitat, which capsule type any given population will have. Another stemmed yellow violet considered rare in Kentucky is Viola tripartita, a woodland species known only from several counties in the eastern portion of the state. One of our prettiest violets is the halberd- leaved yellow violet (Viola hastata). While not always the case, the often mottled appearance of the leaf blades adds to the striking appearance of this species. It, too, is confined to rich, wooded situations in the eastern portion of the state.
We have only one stemless yellow violet. The round-leaved yellow violet (Viola rotundifolia) is confined to the eastern portion of the state and is our earliest blooming species. Its thick, leathery, rotund leaves lay prostrate on the ground and may be found in rich, wooded situations.
The stemmed white violets consist of two species, the Canada violet (Viola canadensis) confined to rich, wooded situations in the eastern half of the state, and the white violet (Viola striata), one of our more common species which seems to prefer alluvial or floodplain forests throughout the state. Although white flowered, Viola striata is more closely related to the stemmed blue violets than it is to the Canada violet.
The stemless white violets consist of three easily distinguished species such as the lance-leaved violet (Viola lanceolata) and primrose-leaved violet (Viola primulifolia), both of which love bogs, marshes, and wet meadow situations. The sweet white violet (Viola blanda), loves cool, moist, wooded situations and is mainly confined to the eastern portion of the state.
While being somewhat brief, I hope I have provided a greater understanding and a deeper appreciation for these lovely little herbs. The violets have a long history of use by man, especially in Europe. They are widely grown as ornamentals and our wild violets are used in a variety of ways as food. The leaves may be eaten raw and make an excellent nutritional addition to any fresh garden salad. The flowers may be candied for another delightful treat. Overall, the violets are quite an interesting group of plants and well deserve our attention and appreciation. Come next spring, take a closer look at these little herbs, appreciate their color, intrigue yourself with their subtle differences, and just enjoy. By the way, if you would like to see more than half of the above species in one day, plan a trip to Natural Bridge State Park next spring and walk the Rock Garden and Hood’s Branch trails. While these trails provide one of the best overall spring floral displays in the state, they also provide the only place that I know to see this many species of violets in such a short period of time.
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.
After lunch, the group carpooled to Pine Creek Barrens Nature Preserve for a field trip. Pine Creek Barrens is considered one of the finest examples of limestone/dolomite barrens complex in Kentucky. This open woodland with a prairie-like ground cover hosts a diversity of native glade flora. Besides the glade, other natural communities at Pine Creek Barrens include the dry upland woods which surround the glade. On the southwest boundary, scenic Pine Creek flows through a beautiful mesic ravine forest lined with small limestone cliffs.
At least eight rare and endangered plant species have been identified at the nature preserve, including the globally threatened glade cress (Leavenworthia exigua var. Laciniata), which has adapted to grow in small depressions on the exposed bedrock. This plant is found only in select areas in Bullitt and Jefferson counties.
Because of the size of the group, we split into two groups and went in opposite directions on the loop trail. One group was led by Alan Abbott, KNPS Field Trip Coordinator, and the other group was led by Tyson Gregory. The weather was great and the lovely fall color was just starting to make an appearance. We enjoyed a diversity of native plants in the various habitats. We observed three species in bloom that are rare in Kentucky, prairie gentian (Gentiana puberulenta), Great Plains ladies-tresses (Spiranthes magnicamporum), and barrens silky aster (Symphyotrichum pratense). Kendall also showed the group a rare lichen, Dermatocarpon dolomiticum. This lichen doesn’t have an “official” common name but Kendall calls it “tumbleweed lichen” for its habit of lifting itself loose from the flat dolomite rock surfaces it grows on and spreading via flowing water and wind.
Prairie gentian (Gentiana puberulenta)
Great Plains ladies’ tresses, (Spiranthes magnicamporum)
Barrens silky aster (Symphyotrichum pretense)
tumbleweed lichen (Dermatocarpon dolomiticum)
Carefully exploring the fragile glade habitat
Pine Creek
Beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana)
American beech (Fagus grandifolia) and beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana)
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).
As the only known M. gracilis locality in the state, this small population would warrant considerable attention. Further investigation would reveal, however, that it is also one of three highly disjunct populations of this species in the eastern United States. The slender lip fern is widespread in the western and central U.S., common on calcareous rock outcrops from British Columbia south to northern Mexico, from southern California east to the Ozark Plateau and the upper Midwest’s “Driftless Zone” (Windham and Rabe 1993). The Bullitt Co. population, discovered by Clyde Reed in the early 1950s, represents a ca. 200 km disjunction from the nearest populations in southern Illinois (Reed 1952). The other two eastern disjunct populations are in southwestern Virgina (Wieboldt and Bentley 1982) and Durham Co., NC (Rothfels et al.
2012). These Kentucky, Virginia, and North Carolina populations add to what is already a remarkably large geographic range, a surprising level of geographic success considering that M. gracilis is exclusively asexual. The slender lip fern undergoes a modified meiosis that produces unreduced spores, which germinate and produce free-living unreduced gametophytes that then develop into adult sporophytes through mitosis. Because they bypass both recombination and the fusion of gametes, asexual species like M. gracilis are essentially genetically “frozen” line-ages, with minimal opportunity to create new genetic variation. Sex and recombination are traditionally thought of as necessary for maintaining the variation needed for adaptation, and asexual species are generally considered incapable of long-term evolutionary success. However, M. gracilis is one of a number of asexual species that occupy wider ranges than their sexual relatives. Although these big ranges could perhaps indicate success over shorter evolutionary time scales, they could simply be biogeographic illusions. As a polyploid (triploid), M. gracilis could have been derived from a sexual ancestor repeatedly over time. As a result, its broad dis-tribution could represent a single, successful lineage or a composite of several geographically smaller lineages formed at different times.
This research question is the focus of my graduate student David Wickell’s M.S. thesis at Wichita State University, and we have spent the 2013 and 2014 field seasons collecting M. gracilis across its wide range. That is what brought me to Cedar Creek this July – the chance to visit the disjunct Kentucky population and add it to our growing genetic dataset. On the long drive east from Wichita I prepared myself for disappointment, however. Although Reed noted that plants were “quite frequent” in his original publication, by 1980 Ray Cranfill noted only “three or four adult individuals.” These plants were presumably the ones observed and photographed by Richard Cassell and the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission’s Deborah White in 1994, although subsequent visits failed to relocate this population. On my visit I had the good fortune of working with KSNPC’s Tara Littlefield, and within 10 minutes she led me right to the plants! The population was healthy and sporulating but still quite small (nine adult individuals), and thorough searches of numerous nearby ledges failed to locate additional plants. Photos, geographic coordinates, and habitat notes were taken, along with a tiny amount of leaf material from one plant. DNA extracted from this material will be analyzed along with 94 samples from 20 states collected by myself, my student David, and several collaborators. From each plant we will obtain a kind of genomic “fingerprint,” and the relative genomic distinctiveness of each plant will allow us to determine how many lineages are found across M. gracilis‘ range. The logic is straightforward; individuals from the same lineage are asexual clones of one another and should be essentially genetically identical. On the other hand, individuals from different lineages should exhibit considerably higher levels of genomic distinctiveness. Data from our 95-individual dataset should clearly distinguish between the two alternatives discussed earlier: that of a single successful asexual lineage, or that of many restricted, less successful lineages. The status of the KY and VA (also visited in July) populations will be particular interest. Do these two populations represent the same asexual lineage, suggesting a sort of “stepping” stone colonization? Or do they belong to different lineages, suggesting that M. gracilis was once more widespread and diverse in eastern North America?
Whatever secrets M. gracilis holds, the opportunity to visit a truly unique piece of the Kentucky flora was one this native Kentuckian will remember. Special thanks go to the KSNPC for permission to conduct sampling, to Tara Littlefield (KSNPC) for showing me the site, and to Richard Cassell, Ray Cranfill, Ron Jones, and Deborah White for insightful correspondences
Cranfill, R. 1980. Ferns and Fern Allies of Kentucky. Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commis-sion Scientific and Technical Series, no. 1. 284 pgs.
Grusz, A.L., and M.D. Windham. 2013. Toward a monophyletic Cheilanthes: the resurrection and recircumscription of Myriopteris (Pteridaceae). PhytoKeys 32: 49-64.
Jones, R.L. 2005. Plant Life of Kentucky. The University Press of Kentucky. 834 pgs.
Reed, C.F. 1952. Notes on the ferns of Kentucky, III. Cheilanthes feei on Silurian limestone in Kentucky. American Fern Journal 42: 53-56.
Rothfels, C.J., E.M. Sigel, and M.D. Windham. 2012. Cheilanthes feei T. Moore (Pteridaceae) and Dryopteris erythrosora (D.C. Eaton) Kunze (Dryopteridaceae) new for the flora of North Carolina. American Fern Journal 102: 184-186.
Wieboldt, T.F., and S. Bentley. 1982. Cheilanthes feei new to Virginia. American Fern Journal 72: 76-78.
