Check out all of the beautiful photographs of plants blooming along the upper Hudson River this time of year. Click the link in our list to the right.
Lots Blooming on the Saratoga Woods and Waterways Blog
Posted July 18, 2009 by nyfloraCategories: What's Blooming
Invasive Plants and Wildlife: “The Good, the Bad and the Really Bad”
Posted July 16, 2009 by nyfloraCategories: Happenings
LIVING ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE
Invasive Plants and Wildlife: “The Good, the Bad and the Really Bad”
An Environmental Education Multi-disciplinary Workshop for Educators
August 3-7, 2009, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM daily
This exciting, hands-on workshop will include field study and classroom activities to look at native, non-native and invasive plants and animals and consider how they affect our environment. Field trips include seining the Hudson River and walking at Thatcher Park, the Pine Bush and along the Erie Canal/Mohawk River.
LOCATION: Meet each day at Five Rivers Environmental Education Center, 56 Game Farm Road, Delmar, NY. Field trips will depart from Five Rivers.
Join us to learn how to incorporate environmental topics in an interdisciplinary manner to meet state standards. Content will include the Living Environment Core Curriculum and parts of other standards. For more information call 518-475-0291.
New York State DOT Website on Dangerous Plants
Posted July 10, 2009 by nyfloraCategories: Natural History, Plant Identification, Publications, Apps, and Websites
The New York State Department of Transportation now has a website featuring plants that can be dangerous to touch or with dangerous sap. There is information about the plants along with photographs. Access the site at: https://www.nysdot.gov/display/programs/dangerous-plants
Carex Identification Videos Being Posted on YouTube
Posted July 7, 2009 by nyfloraCategories: Plant Identification
In 2008 Steve Young filmed Tony Reznicek identifying Carex species during the NYFA Sedge Workshop in Saint Lawrence County. These videos are now being made available on YouTube. On YouTube click on Channels and search for nyflora1. The Carex videos will be listed. You may also click here.
New Rare Plant Finds for Franklin County
Posted June 30, 2009 by nyfloraCategories: Plant Sightings, Rare Plant Surveys
A new large occurrence of rhodora, Rhododendron canadense, was found in southern Franklin County this Spring and a new occurrence of fragrant wood-fern, Dryopteris fragrans, was found on a mountainside in the northern part of the county. Both occurrences were found by Douglas Egeland of Bloomingdale, NY and reported to the New York Natural Heritage Program. Congratulations Douglas!
Update on the Biodiversity Research Institute Program & Biennial Report, 2007-2008
Posted June 26, 2009 by nyfloraCategories: Plant Organizations
A copy of the recently completed Biennial Report is now available as a pdf on the BRI website: http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/bri/. As required, the report is electronic and cannot be distributed as a printed copy.
The report highlights the activities of the past two years and provides a glimpse of what we plan to accomplish in the next few years.
Over the last several months the Executive Committee and BRI staff tried to establish BRI in a new long-term relationship. Currently we are negotiating with the SUNY Research Foundation. The contract with The Nature Conservancy expired and TNC is not able to continue. Over the last 18 months, we have tried working with several groups in several different scenarios, but without success. As a result, the BRI Program Office will close on 30 June 2009 unless an extension or an arrangement can be worked out. If there is a break, I remain optimistic that it will be a short one and that staff will be able to return in the very near future. We will proceed with BRI projects, like the October Biology and Conservation Lecture Series and the Northeast Natural History Conference in April 2010, so please plan on participating!
Currently, staff is supported by the Natural Heritage Trust. At present, our relationship with NHT will end on 30 June and the BRI staff will no longer be employed. The relationship with NHT was always meant to be a stopgap, but the effort to move the Program Office and other activities has stalled. You may be familiar with the state’s Attachment A process and that is the first obstacle. (If you are not familiar with them, attachment As basically seek permission to spend money, if approved, then you can submit the paperwork to spend.) We are trying to make this happen, but Attachment As have a checkered history, are difficult to track and often are rejected. Then we need to get permission for a contract. Assemblyman Englebright is working with the rest of the Executive Committee to expedite these processes.
I hope that you will agree that BRI has demonstrated itself to be a valuable and productive organization that has provided resources to measure and monitor biodiversity and has served as an information source on biodiversity. We plan that it will continue to do so in the future. Thank you all for your past and continuing efforts and I will keep you posted of any developments. We truly appreciate your support.
Robert A. Daniels, Ph.D.
Assistant Director, Research and Collections
Acting Director, Biodiversity Research Institute
Curator of Ichthyology
New York State Museum
CEC 3140
Albany, NY 12230
Office telephone: 518-473-8121
Laboratory telephone: 518-283-9005
Fax: 518-486-2034
e-mail: rdaniels@mail.nysed.gov
Reviving the American Chestnut May Help Climate Change: Purdue Study
Posted June 19, 2009 by nyfloraCategories: Ecology, Natural History
See the progress Purdue University is having on reviving the American chestnut. Click here.
A Combination of Woolly Adelgid and White Tailed Deer Increases Invasives
Posted June 19, 2009 by nyfloraCategories: Invasive Species
A study by the University of California has some interesting implications for hemlock forests in New York. See the study at the University of California.
Invasive Plants in the Northeast of Asia and America: Trading Problems,
Posted June 12, 2009 by nyfloraCategories: Invasive Species
Dates: 10-12 August 2009, at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
Symposium sponsored by the New England Invasive Plant Center
For more information, the symposium agenda & schedule, and to register see: http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/default.aspx?EventID=726341
This symposium will have open sessions with invited speakers and panel discussions, plus contributed presentations and posters. One objective of the symposium is to develop potential international research collaborations of mutual interest on the broad problem of biological invasions.
The invited participants will include scientists with interests in both pure and applied research related to invasive species biology from the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China and far eastern Russia. We have also invited selected scientists and policy makers from the U.S. and Asian government agencies.
Large twayblade, Liparis lilifolia, in Canada and New York
Posted June 10, 2009 by nyfloraCategories: Plant Identification, Rare Plant Surveys
Holly Bickerton, a Canadian biologist, is preparing the Canadian COSEWIC (Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) status report update for large twayblade, Liparis liliifolia (S2 for ON, S1 for QUE), also a state endangered orchid in New York.
She reports that since the last status report in 1998, eight new occurrences have been discovered in Canada (for a new total of 19 extant occurrences, a substantial increase), with a significant range movement to the north and east. Large new populations have recently been documented near Kingston, ON, and north of Montreal. Previously, the species Canadian range was believed to be near Toronto. Interestingly, the Kingston occurrence is from a red maple swamp growing on sphagnum hummocks, which is a new habitat type for Canadian populations, but is not uncommon in NY. This opens up a lot of potentially suitable habitat in such swamps, across eastern Ontario and western Quebec.
Before the early 1990s the plant was known from the Hudson Valley as far north as Albany County. Then in 1992 and 1994 it was discovered in central New York near Syracuse and along Lake Ontario. Both of these occurrences were on hummocks in red maple hardwood swamps, just a few plants each. Since then we have not found any new occurrences to the north. Our largest occurrence is in a red maple hardwood swamp down in Ulster County. We should be searching more red maple swamps along the Great Lakes and into the Adirondacks to see if populations are expanding north as they are in Canada.
New York Flora Association Blog 