ANPS Fall Meeting 2019
September 27-29
Arkadelphia – Caddo Valley
Come along and join us for the Fall ANPS meeting. Registration is $10 with no pre-registration required. Doors open at 5:00 PM at Parks & Recreation Building, Feaster Park on Friday, Sept. 27.
It 16 years ago when we last had a meeting in this area, so join us for our Fall Meeting complete with the annual Native Plant Auction!
Hotel: Meeting Location:
Hampton Inn Parks & Rec. Bldg, Feaster Park
108 Malvern Road 2555 Twin Rivers Drive
Arkadelphia AR 71923 Arkadelphia, AR 71923
870-403-0800 870-246-5499
Driving directions to hotel and meeting location to follow in later online newsletter.
Posthaste!!! ** Hotel reservations must be made by Sept. 1. **
There are 15 double queens at $109 per night plus tax and 5 single queens for $89 per night plus tax. Breakfast is included. Be sure to mention that you are with ANPS when making your reservation in order to get the discount.
We were only allowed a block of 20 rooms, but if more are needed AND AVAILABLE, they can be reserved at the same reduced group rate. If desired, there are also other hotels and campgrounds in the area. Call now 870-403-0800 and save your room.
Dining Options: Potluck meal on Friday and Saturday evenings at the Parks & Rec Bldg. Meeting Room, Feaster Park. Bring a dish or just come and join us. If preferred, there are also other dining options in the Arkadelphia area.
We’ll have an ice machine available, coffee maker, plus a regular size refrigerator to store leftovers. There are also refrigerators in the hotel rooms, so if not enough space in the refrigerator at the meeting site, your food will need to go back with you to your hotel room.
Poster Session Friday and Saturday – Stop by to visit with Diana Soteropoulos and view her poster about citizen science herbarium transcription activity. Also, ask her about getting involved! More information in this issue of The Claytonia.
Evening Programs:
Friday
6:45 PM
Welcome: Donna Hanke, President
Discussion of Field Trips: Becky Hardin and Susan Hardin, Co-presidents-elect
7:00 PM – Annual NATIVE PLANT AUCTION. Bring your native plants, books, homemade jelly, jewelry, or plant art for the auction. Proceeds from the auction support ANPS scholarships, research grants and small grants programs.
Field Trips:
Sign up for Field Trips on Friday night so that trip leaders will have list ready for Sat. AM. Some trips may have a limit on number of participants.
Field trips to areas of botanical interest at Terre Noire Blackland Prairie Natural Area, DeGray Lake State Park trails and also Ross Foundation Properties. The Ross Foundation areas are usually behind locked gates and include seeps, glades, pine and hardwood forests. Mark Karnes, Land Management Staff Director of Operations and Ross Foundation Board of Trustees, has graciously offered to assist with field trips.
Saturday 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Sunday 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Details of field trips with directions and GPS to follow.
Saturday
6:00 PM- Membership Meeting
6:45 – 7:45 PM – Theo Witsell, Ecologist & Chief of Research, Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission: Following Nuttall: A Bicentenary Interpretation of Thomas Nuttall’s Exploration of the Arkansas Territory.
Our very own Theo is back for this presentation and states that “2019 marks the 200th anniversary of the great botanist and naturalist Thomas Nuttall’s year-long journey of discovery through the Arkansas Territory (present day Arkansas and Oklahoma). He would be the first trained naturalist to record observations and collect specimens in most of the territory. His first-hand account of this trip, later published as A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory in the Year 1819, provides some of the earliest reliable information on the natural history of the region. His observations on the flora, ecology, and geology are detailed and correlated to specific dates and places, making them especially useful to the scientist and historian. These observations and his botanical specimens are the earliest surviving for much of the region and are central to our understanding of what things were like before being forever altered by the ravages of human progress. To commemorate the bicentenary of Nuttall’s trip, I’ve worked for the past several years on a “200 years later” reinterpretation of all the natural history observations he made in Arkansas Territory. This included retracing his route using both historical and modern geospatial datasets, updating the nomenclature and taxonomy of all of the plants and animals he mentions, visiting many of the places he did, and weaving in my own observations gained over the past 24 years conducting field work for the Arkansas Natural Heritage Program. The aim is to provide a detailed interpretation of Nuttall’s natural history observations, and discuss changes in the landscape since his trip, specifically as they relate to ecological and biological diversity. The full bicentenary account will appear as a series of heavily illustrated articles published in Phytoneuron (www.phytoneuron.net), an open access botanical journal available for free online, in late 2019 and early 2020.”
Announcements and Adjournment of Meeting
Save the Date! ANPS Spring Meeting: Northwest AR, May 15-17, 2020
For complete and up-to-date details go to www.anps.org or contact Becky Hardin at rebeccabutch@aristotle.net or cell 501-584-8545 or Susan Hardin at whizcats@sbcglobal.net or cell 501-584-8455.
Arkansas Native Plant Society 