AC2012—It’s All About the Plants

Spend a delightful Saturday mingling with friends, meeting new ones, and learning about the many facets of native plants at the INPAWS Annual Conference, November 3, at Schwitzer Student Center, University of Indianapolis.

The last two conferences focused our attention on biodiversity and conservation. The theme for AC2012 brings us back to the basics of botany, focusing on the identification of plants and their occurrence in nature. The better we can identify native plants, the better we can be advocates for them. This year’s conference co-chairs, Jeff Pitts and Mike Homoya, have arranged a terrific line-up of speakers, including Rob Naczi, one of the leading botanists/taxonomists in the world, and James Locklear of Nebraska’s Lauritzen Gardens.

Registration Brochure  Note: Discounts apply if you register by October 25.

Sponsorship/Exhibitor Information

Conference Schedule 

AC2012 Flyer

Keynote Speakers

 Dr. Rob Naczi, Arthur J. Cronquist Curator of North American Botany, The New York Botanical Garden. Co-editor, Sedges: Uses, Diversity and Systematics of the Cyperaceae (Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 2008) and currently revising one of the most commonly used manuals to our North American flora, Manual of Vascular Plants of the Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada (Gleason & Cronquist). PhD, University of Michigan.

Topic: Cool Stuff I’ve Learned While Updating Gleason & Cronquist  The New York Botanical Garden is sponsoring a complete revision of Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada by Henry Gleason and Arthur Cronquist (1991). Gleason and Cronquist is the most recent in a long line of books on the spontaneous flora of northeastern North America. The rapid pace and broad scope of botanical advances in the past two decades amply justify a revision. This presentation will review the kinds of changes necessary, the plan for the revision, and the innovations relative to Gleason and Cronquist. As with Gleason and Cronquist, the New Manual will be first and foremost a tool to facilitate accurate identifications of the flora (ca. 5000 species) in a vast region (all or portions of 22 U.S. states, including Indiana, and 5 Canadian provinces). In addition, the New Manual will provide detailed information on geographic distributions, habitat, conservation status, and etymologies.

http://www.nybg.org/science/scientist_profile.php?id_scientist=105

http://sweetgum.nybg.org/northeastflora/index.php

 James Locklear is Director of Conservation at Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha, Nebraska, where he is responsible for efforts to conserve the endangered plants of the Great Plains. He has worked in public horticulture for 25 years, previously at the Dyck Arboretum of the Plains in Kansas, the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum, and the Morton Arboretum in Illinois. He is the author of Phlox: A Natural History and Gardener’s Guide (Timber Press in 2011). In 2012, Jim received the Edgar T. Wherry Award from the North American Rock Garden Society for “outstanding contribution in the dissemination of botanical and horticultural information about native North American plants.” Jim and his wife Lynn live in Lincoln. M.S., Southern Illinois University.

Topic: The View from Phlox Mountain  Phlox, a genus of 60 species that includes many of America’s most beloved wildflowers, has yielded plants that are cultivated by gardeners around the world. Nine species of phlox are native to Indiana, occurring in a variety of plant communities. This illustrated presentation will explore the ecology of these beautiful plants and the remarkable wild places in which they occur all across America.

Other Highlights

 Dr. Paul Rothrock, Professor and Director of the Graduate Program, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Taylor University. A specialitst in wetland plants. Author, Sedges of Indiana and the Adjacent States–the Non-Carex Species (Indiana Academy of Science, 2009). Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University.

Topic: My Favorite Sedges, Grasses, and Rushes: Know ‘Em, Grow ‘Em  Indiana is blessed with hundreds of species of grasses, sedges, and rushes. These plants display an amazing range of sizes, textures, forms, and habitat preferences. This presentation will demonstrate the distinctiveness of these 3 families of plants, introduce some common and beautiful species, convince you that they are easy to grow, and provide ideas for how to include them in your landscape.

 Sally Weeks, Dendrologist and Botanist, Department of forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University. Sally Weeks’s 25 years of experience studying both woody and herbaceous plants in the Midwest and beyond helps provide a solid learning environment to the classroom. She has degrees from Purdue University in wildlife management and forest ecology, has published Trees of Indiana on CD, Native Trees of the Midwest in book format,  Native Shrubs of Indiana on CD, and the new release Shrubs and Woody Vines of Indiana in book format.  Her enthusiasm for plants is contagious and she is asked to speak across the State on the subject. 

Topic: Native Shrubs and Vines I Have Grown and Loved  Growing native woody plants can be challenging: often there is no information on how to do it; there is usually a time commitment before full results are seen; and the plants can be difficult to acquire. Sally will address these issues using knowledge gained from years of growing and experimenting with our native woody plants.

 Kay Yatskievych, Research Associate, Missouri Botanical Garden. First author, Indiana Vascular Plants Catalogue (due out 2013) and author, Field Guide to Indiana Wildflowers (Indiana University Press, 2000). Since purchasing a camera in 1976, Kay’s primary focus has been on learning how to identify Indiana’s wild plants and providing image-based tools to help others to do so. She is now authoring and designing PDFs of Indiana Wildflower Finders and Indiana Species Pages, available online as free downloads athttp://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/curators/kay.shtml.

Topic: Indiana Vascular Plants Catalogue—What’s Next?  The Indiana Vascular Plants Cataloguewill be a complete list of the plants currently known for Indiana. The beginning of the talk will be about the Catalogue and the numbers of species and new species records in it. The “What’s Next?” part of the talk will be about Kay’s next project, the expanded Indiana Wildflower Finder, which will include all Indiana Wildflowers and will be a redesign of the Indiana Spring Wildflower Finder, which is available as a 4-page PDF that can be downloaded free from Kay’s personal webpage at Missouri Botanical Garden (http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/curators/kay.shtml).

 Michael Homoya, Indiana State Botanist/Plant Ecologist, Department of Natural Resources. Mike’s work focuses on rare species and natural area inventory and assessment. Author, Wildflowers and Ferns of Indiana Forests: A Field Guide (Indiana University Press, 2012) and Orchids of Indiana (Indiana Academy of Science, 1993). M.S., Southern Illinois University.

Topic: The Outer Limits – Indiana on the Biological Edge  Though small in size compared to other Midwestern states, Indiana has a remarkable array of natural community types and associated plants and animals. Certain major ecosystems, e.g., tall grass prairie, tamarack peatland, and bald cypress swamp, meet at their outer limits of occurrence within the state, and this “collision” has resulted in a fantastic assemblage of nature. We’ll look at this cornucopia of life that makes Indiana so special, paying particular attention to those natural communities and plants that challenge our perception of the typical Hoosier landscape.