Northern Chapter |
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The Northern Chapter meetings are the first Thursday of the month (unless stated otherwise), November through May, 7:00 pm, at The Gardens on Spring Creek, 2145 Centre Ave., Fort Collins, CO Northern Chapter President – Pam Smith pamelas4824@earthlink.net ; 970-223-3453 Meetings and field trips are free and open to everyone. Please join us. Prior to meetings we meet for dinner with the speaker at Café Vino, 1200 S College Avenue, Fort Collins at 5:30 p.m. Please join us. We formerly called ourselves the Fort Collins Chapter, but our membership is from Fort Morgan, Greeley, Fort Collins, Longmont, Laramie, Estes Park, etc. so we have changed our name to the Northern Chapter of the Colorado Native Plant Society to reflect our diversity. We hope that wherever you are in north-central and northeastern Colorado, you will join us for our free programs and field trip. NORTHERN CHAPTER PROGRAMS - FALL/WINTER 2011-2012 Life Among the Headstones - a look at two years (2010-2011) in the natural happenings of Fort Collins’ Grandview Cemetery Thursday, November 03, 2011, 7 p.m. Much more than just a “graveyard”, this 40 acre site at the west end of Mountain Avenue is home to over 600 trees (two of them State Champions), around 20 species of birds on any given visit (over 180 seen during the last 37 years), amazing insects and spiders, a wide variety of plants (native, weedy, ornamental, and plastic), mushrooms crayfish, deer, squirrels, golfers, foxes, and much more. This presentation chronicles natural events observed over the last two years during in excess of 250 visits. Learn about shiny wasps with 2-inch long bodies, baby birds over 6 times the mass of their parents, the building materials of hornets, peonies decorated with meadowhawks, and how cute little squirrels can be anything but cute. Featured will be the unprecedented double-nesting at low elevation by Loxy and Larry, an endearing pair of White-winged Crossbills. And no description of this remarkable place would be complete without touching the strong ties to Nature memorialized at Grandview by the people and families who rest there. Nurturing a Seed: Developing a Therapeutic Garden Wednesday, December 07, 2011, 7 p.m. Kim spoke to us last year to tell us of her plans to develop a plan for a therapeutic garden at Poudre Valley Hospital. Since that time so much has happened. Kim has become a PhD student and also landed a significant grant to make her dream come true. This is a sequel to an amazing story with an amazing person to tell us about her adventure! Fractals from the Forest Thursday, January 05, 2012, 7 p.m. During 2010, Renee was trying to figure out her next botanical project when she started collecting pine cones from around the world using Facebook and the internet. With the help of individuals and gardens and arboreta in the US and Mexico, Project Pine Cone was quickly born. This hands-on educational display is intended to "keep botany alive in our culture" and already includes over half of the world's pine species and counting. Renee says that even with her education in Botany and Forestry, she still had many "wow" and "ahah" moments during the pursuit of pine information and is ready to share them. In January, she will bring the collection and talk about pine ecology, classification, and her experiences taking Project Pine Cone to the Poudre School District during the 2011-12 school year. This a good time to review our own knowledge and celebrate our local pines. Edible Wild Plants of Colorado: An Archaeological Perspective Thursday, February 02, 2012, 7 p.m. With a little bit of knowledge and a good digging stick, resourceful Americans were able to find plenty to eat among the wild plants of Colorado. Whereas this virtual cornucopia of seeds, berries and roots would never be mistaken for a Big Mac, it did provide a year-round supply of nutrients and calories to sustain the native populations for thousands of years. Some of these plants, such as wild plums and pinion nuts, require only a slight stretch of the modern imagination to be considered for tonight’s dinner. Others, such as the slime covered cattail root, stinking gourds, nauseous rabbitbrush and the aptly named pincushion cactus, take a bit more thought. Thankfully, the collection and preparation of these plants is often described in ethnographic accounts from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. These accounts provide great reading and valuable analogies for the interpretation of plant remains from archaeological contexts. Meg’s 45-minute PowerPoint presentation will cover the excavation and extraction of botanical remains from archaeological sites, the interpretation of the remains and a review of some of the plants and their uses. Many of the plants discussed are common in our yards and open landscapes. RESTORING NATURE Thursday, March 01, 2012, 7 p.m. Join Jim Tolstrup on a virtual tour of the High Plains Environmental Center. Jim will share the strategies involved in designing, funding, building, vegetating and maintaining the center’s extensive native plant gardens and restored natural areas, as well as the center’s mission to educate the public about the propagation, conservation and use of native plants and the corresponding benefits to wildlife. Colorado Wetland Field Guide Thursday, April 05, 2012, 7 p.m. Many of you have heard about the project to create a field guide for Colorado wetlands. It is our great pleasure to present the project leader and lead author, Denise Culver. Denise will give you a summary of her new guide and share her adventures as she embarked on this three-year odyssey to create a great tool for our state. Many of you know Denise, and if you don’t and her name is familiar it is because she served as Northern Chapter President and the State Treasurer for CoNPS for a number of years!! Keeping Up with Technology – Using Online and Electronic Keys Thursday, May 03, 2012, 7 p.m. Ernie Marx will facilitate as we come together for this workshop-style program. Ernie will have plants for us to key using some of the newest programs like XID for keying plants on your computer! These keys can be easier to use than typical dichotomous keys, especially if you don’t have both fruits and flowers or all the parts. Once you become familiar with these keys they offer a totally different keying experience. You may bring in a plant if you like and we can investigate your plants too as time allows.
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