Botany-- March 12, 2025

The Nature of Naming - Unit 10 in your textbook

Plants - Unit 11 in your textbook  Complete the optional quiz HERE.

Dr. George Diggs, Professor of Biology and Co-Director of the Public Health Program, Austin College 

Read Dr. Diggs's BIO

1. Use the VMS Checklist to make sure you have logged everything you need to.

2. Look over Units 10-11 in your textbook. Complete the optional quiz HERE.

3. Watch the assigned videos

Classification of Life (6:11)

Invasive Plants in Texas (8:49)

Dr. George Diggs on Plants (28:00) 

4. Check out the Go Botany Online Illustrated Glossary It is extremely useful when trying to decipher the many unfamiliar botanical terms used in keys and plant descriptions.. Complete this crossword puzzle on botanical terms, using the Go Botany Glossary as a reference. (Alternate activity: if you don't like crossword puzzles, here's the same information in a simpler fill-in-the-blank format and answer sheet)

5. Complete the What Does That Botanical Name Mean? worksheet.

Optional Activities

Read this article on identifying plants by common plant families: Plant Identification Patterns. See Resources section for more information on identifying plants by families.

Watch additional videos:

Phototropism (6:54)

Taking Better Plant Photos for iNaturalist (7:07)

• Your lighted loupe from your Meet & Greet swag bag

John Bunker Sands Wetlands Center Field Trip

Do NOT use GPS! Follow their instructions to get to the right place.

Logging Hours

*Make sure that you have recorded last week's attendance in VMS.

(If you missed class, contact your pod guides to schedule a make-up.)     

Opportunity: Init Training-Class 05      

Date: March 5, 2025   

Hours: 3.0 

Description: Ornithology with Sam Crowe

If you attended the Chapter Meeting Tuesday evening (either in person or online), 

here's how to enter it in VMS:

Opportunity: AT: BPTMN Chapter Monthly Meeting   

Date: March 11, 2025      

Hours: 1.0     

Description: Amazing World of Odonata with Brent Franklin

If you attended the Field Trip to John Bunker Sands Wetlands, enter it in VMS.

Opportunity:  Initial Training: Field Trip (A) or (B) or (C) 

Date: April 8, 2025    

Hours: 2.5 hours  

Description: Field trip to John Bunker Sands Wetlands

Advanced Training (AT) Opportunities

• Sun, March 9, 2-3pm, McKinney Public Library - Wildlife Gardening: Food, Water & Shelter, see info on the calendar and register

Volunteer Service (VH) Opportunities

• Canyon Creek Wetland and Wildscape Workdays - contact Peter Williams at petew59@gmail.com, see calendar for details

• Baha'i Faith Plano Center - Garden Workdays: Wednesdays (9am-12pm), Fridays (3-6:30pm), Saturdays (9am-12pm) see calendar for details

• McKinney Green Gardens 2nd Saturday Workday: March 8, 9-11am, see calendar for details

• Garden bed maintenance at Holifield Science Learning Center - contact Brett Taylor at brett.taylor@pisd.edu

• Garden bed maintenance at Heritage Farmstead Museum - contact Bryan Beck at mtsub@yahoo.com

• City of Plano park workdays - contact Jean Higgens at jeanh@bptmn.org

• City of Frisco park workdays - contact Rick Travis at travisfam2@yahoo.com

• Heard Museum native plant sale - contact Laura Ragan at lragan@heardmuseum.org

• LLELA garden workdays - contact Erin Piper at epiper@cityoflewisville.com

• Milkweed Grow Out Initiative - contact Carol Clark at carol@r-d-clark.com

• Dr. Diggs's Slide Deck

• Slide Deck for Plant ID by Families Quiz

• Field Identification of Fifty Common Plant Families The Botany Depot site offers this free handbook, available as a PDF.

• Go Botany Online Illustrated Glossary  This site is a life saver when it comes to using botanical keys!

• Eat Your Weeds! Also from Botany Depot: several brochures about edible wild plants including recipes, plus info on plant toxicity.

• Shinner and Mahler's Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas the book is available for free as downloadable, searchable PDFs. 

• Carolsworld.net - Carol Clark's (BPTMN member) naturalist blog

• Audubon's Native Plants for Birds database - put in your zip code and see what birds are attracted to specific native plants in our area

• Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT)

• www.foragingtexas.com - website

• Plants of the World Online

• Native, Invasive, and other plant-related definitions - USDA

• Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT), Collin County Chapter - website

• Native Plant Nurseries and Events in DFW - from the Collin County NPSOT Chapter.

• Native Plants for Landscape Use for DFW from NPSOT

• Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region - book by Sally Wasowski &Andy Wasowski (2003)

• Plants of Texas Rangelands

• Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas by George M. Diggs et al - online or hardback

• The Biota of North America Program's North American Plant Atlas - internet database

• GoBotany Illustrated Botanical Glossary - website

• Texas Native and Adaptive Water Conscious Landscape Plants - brochure created by Lauren Kraus, 2024

• Getting Started with Native Host Plants - brochure created by Joshua Peterson, 2024 

WEEK SIX CLASS UPDATE

  If you feel inspired after last night's ornithology class, these are just a few VHAT opportunities:

• Bird Banding at the Heard Museum - contact Laura Ragan at lragan@heardmuseum.org

• Bird Walk guiding at Connemara or LLELA - see chapter calendar

• Blackland Prairie Raptor Center - education, animal care, or maintenance workdays - contact Marla Layne at volunteer@bpraptorcenter.org

• Great Backyard Bird Count in February each year

• The Big Sit events at LLELA or Hagerman NWR - see chapter calendar

• The Little Sit events at Hagerman NWR - see chapter calendar

• Project FeederWatch

• Light's Out Dallas Bird Survey in spring and fall - see chapter calendar

• AT - Bird walks at Hagerman, Heard, Connemara, LLELA - chapter calendar

• AT - Beginning Birding at McKinney Public Library on 3/20 - details on chapter calendar

• AT - Beginning Bird Course at Hagerman NWR on 4 Saturdays, 3/22-4/12 - details on chapter calendar

• AT - Heard's Owl Prowl Night Hike on 3/22

Week Five leftovers

I've attached Lisa's iNaturalist handout. It includes a class list of iNat usernames and some QR codes to lead you to helpful info. Make sure to check it out.

I've added links and info from Sam's presentation onto the Resources page of the class website. Just scroll down to "Week Five extras". (The linked PPT does not include the videos. He is going to send me an updated file with all of the content embedded. 🙂 I'll add it when I get it.)

Sam mentioned cats as the number one predator of birds. Check out ED Burke's Deep Dive on that very topic.

Time to Restore volunteer hours should be logged as:

Opportunity: BPTMN: Bird/Wildlife/Insect/Plant or other Surveys

Date:

Hours:

Description: Time to Restore Observations and Data Collection, list location, and a brief description of service performed

Week Six: Mar 6 - 12

Pre-Work:

Get ready for next week's botany class by completing the pre-work prior to class. Bring your lighted loupe to class.

John Bunker Sands Wetlands Center Field Trip:

The tour will start promptly at 9am. Please plan to arrive by 8:45am to park and walk in. 

Make sure to follow the instructions provided by JBS. GPS will take you to the wrong gate!

If your plans change by Friday night, please update the SUG. Don't know how? Read here.

If your plans change on Saturday morning, text me at 214-725-2309.

Chapter Meeting:

The March 11th chapter meeting sounds really interesting. Brent Franklin will be talking about damselflies and dragonflies.

You can get 1 hour of AT by attending in-person or online via Zoom.

If you plan to get VH by helping set up for the meeting, remember that we start set-up at 5:00pm.

See you next week,

Nancy