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Save the Date! Dec 12, Annual Potluck & Silent Auction

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— by Susie Hickman

Southwestern Bristlegrass
Southwestern Bristlegrass

Join us on December 12 from 7-9pm for NPSOT-Wilco’s annual potluck and silent auction!   Please plan a dish to share and start gathering items you might donate to the silent auction.   Guests are welcome.

IMPORTANT:  This month we meet at Georgetown Parks & Recreation Administration Offices, at 1101 N College St, Georgetown, TX 78626 (map),  NOT at the Georgetown Public Library.

A main meat dish, the drinks and paper products will be provided.  Bring any side dish, appetizer, salad, dessert, or another main dish that you’d like to share.  Please bring a serving utensil if your dish needs one.

The auction is a fun way to pass along something you’re ready to part with… while you bid on items you can’t pass up.  Download bid sheets for your auction items at this link and bring them along. We’ll also have copies at the meeting.

Marci Wutke and Susie Hickman are organizing the potluck.  If you have any questions for Marci and Susie, send an email to wilco-chapter@npsot.org with “Potluck” in the subject line.

See you there!

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NPSOT-Williamson County meetings are free and open to the public. Coming to the potluck in December?  Bring along a dish to share!

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Program Summary: Nov 14, Seeds for Education & Outreach

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Our program tonight was by Minnette Marr, Conservation Program Manager at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.  Minnette presented Seeds for Education and Outreach sharing information on collecting and saving seeds.

image of person

Minnette has an interesting background being involved with wetland restoration at Aquarena Springs on the San Marcos River in San Marcos and the Regional Seed bank. Now she is involved with Education and Outreach at LBJWC.

She taught us how to save native seeds, how to store them and how to use them in sensitive areas. We learned to determine a plant’s conservation status by looking at www.NatureServe.org. She went on to tell us how to collect a variety of seeds from the same species to get the most diversity and how to collect seeds from Threatened (S2) or Endangered (S1) species.

Minnette is obviously passionate about her work and gives many others a desire to save seeds important to the biodiversity of our environment.   You can contact her through the LBJWC or on iNaturalist  (www.inaturalist.org/people/beeblossomseeds).

View Minnette’s presentation below.

[embeddoc url=”https://npsot.org/wp/wilco/files/2019/11/19.1114-Seeds_LBJWC-Minnette-Marr.pdf” download=”all”]

You can see the November 14, 2019 business presentation slides here.

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Field Trip Report: Garey Park Plant Survey 10 of 12

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— by Vicky Husband

Garey Park

Eight field trip attendees enjoyed a mild and peaceful evening walk through an eastern off-trail portion of grazing land ringed with Cedar elms, Spanish Oaks and native Pecans. We began by crossing a culvert with spent Maximilian sunflowers (Helianthus maximiliani), Broomweed (Amphiachyris amoena), and the seed burs of Rough cockleburr (Xanthium strumarium), affectionately known as Porcupine eggs.  An open field of predominately KR Bluestem (Bothriochloa ischaemum) revealed hints of fall blooming Heath aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides) with stems that turn maroon in winter.  This field sports a couple of specimen Huisache trees (Acacia farnesiana), with one exceeding fifteen feet in height.  After the field, we cut though the Ashe juniper to the exposed river bank below. The setting sun enticed us to use the trail up from the river bench, where we observed some isolated but interesting specimens of narrow-leaved Sneezeweed (Helenium amarum), White tridens (Tridens albescens), Silver bluestem (Bothriochloa saccharoides) and Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). Hoping to add a new species, two went back to investigate a prostrate and hoary vervain-type specimen along the trail.  Join us in December and January on a free Tuesday for the final two months of our plant surveys of Garey Park in Georgetown, Texas.

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