Vol. 41 No. 1 January / February 2015

Hello, Society members. Our first Are you caught up on your Society dues? newsletter of 2015 is devoted to the Membership dues account for 50% of our memory of Jim Reveal who passed away operating revenue. Last year we spent on January 9th. Noel Holmgren has $1,450 on research grants, $1,700 on written a lovely tribute to our friend. newsletters, and $1,025 on new items for our store, all of which would have been Please come to our February meeting impossible without our members’ support. as UNR’s Dr. Leger will demonstrate It’s easy to check on your membership how herbariums play a critical role in status – just go to nvnps.org and login or understanding our communities. click the Join tab. In May we’ll hold our annual garden party. If you would like to show off your Northern Nevada collection, be sure to read the happening Happenings section.

Despite a Sierra snowpack that is less Meetings than 20% of normal, we’re still planning February 5th 7:00PM – What can we on heading out to the field this summer. learn from dry, dead ? Dr. Beth If we want to see anything more than Leger, UNR Associate Professor and As- last year’s dried flower stalks, we’ll need sociate Director of Ecology, Evolution, and some creative ideas for field trips. If you Conservation Biology Graduate Program, have place in mind that would make a discusses the importance of herbarium great Society destination or would like to collections and why we all should contrib- lead a trip, please contact our field trip ute specimens to our local herbarium. coordinator, John Weiser, at (775) 331- The February meeting will be held in 4485 or [email protected]. room 300G of the Fleischman Agriculture Need some new wall art? Our Eastern Building on the campus of the University Mojave Wildflower posters are $5 off now of Nevada, Reno. The building is north of through February 14th at Amazon.com. the intersection of 9th Street and Evans You can also support NNPS by shop- Avenue. Park in the lot on the southeast ping at smile.amazon.com and choosing corner of Evans and Record Way. NNPS as your charity. Enter the building under the breezeway on the west side near the street. There’s

NNPS Newsletter Vol. 41, No. 1 January / February 2015 1 an elevator at the east end of the building. Society Business Meet on the third floor down the hall from the UNR herbarium in room 300G. Looking for something to do? We need members to assist with Society business: Social time starts at 7 PM and the pro- gram will start at 7:30. If you would like to Newsletter Editor – Assemble and edit join any of the speakers for dinner before- field trip reports, announcements, and ar- hand, meet at Carrow’s Restaurant on the ticles for the newsletter nine times a year. northwest corner of Wells Avenue and 6th Access to publication software like MS Street at 5:30. Publisher or Adobe InDesign is desirable. Note: The outside door will be automati- Treasurer – Keep track of the money cally locked at 7:30 so don’t be late! brought in and spent each year. Deposit checks, pay bills, and reimburse members March 5th – TBA for expenses. Online account manage- April 2nd, 7:00PM – Steve Matson, bo- ment will allow the treasurer to work from tanical photographer extraordinaire con- anywhere. As a non-profit, our tax report- tributing to CalPhotos, will give a presen- ing is a simple postcard. tation titled Botanizing Big Pine. Join us Online Store Keeper - Maintain item list- for our last spring meeting of 2015. ings, fill orders, answer questions, and May 7, time and location TBA - Show look after the Society’s online store. off your natives! Please contact Jan, (775) If you would like to volunteer for one of 233-2469, if you would like to host the an- these positions, please email Janel at nual garden meeting at your home this [email protected]. spring.

Southern Nevada Happenings Meetings Southern Nevada Meetings are suspend- ed while we search for a new program co- ordinator. Please contact Cayenne Engel at [email protected] if you would like to volunteer to help organize meetings and get our group out in the field again.

NNPS Newsletter Vol. 41, No. 1 January / February 2015 2 James Lauritz Reveal part of the war effort, worked in the man- agement of tree harvest in the coastal (1941-2015) redwood forests. Jim grew up in California. He attend- A Tribute to My Field ed kindergarten and first grade in Dun- Companion, Colleague, and smuir, then, in 1948, the family moved to Friend the small Sierra Nevada resort town of Pinecrest, where his father served as a by Noel H. Holmgren district ranger on the Stanislaus Nation- al Forest. While living in Pinecrest, Jim Jim was born 29 March 1941 in the Wash- completed his schooling from grades oe County Hospital near Reno, Nevada, two through twelve. His second and third the first of two children to Jack Liburn Re- grades were in a two-room school house veal (1912-1988) and Arlene Hadfield Re- in Long Barn, a ten-mile ride from home. veal (1916-2005). Prior to Jim’s birth, Jack In 1950 a one-room school house was was working summers in the Elko Coun- established in Pinecrest, from which he ty range survey with my father, Arthur and one other student graduated in 1955. Holmgren, while both were students at From Pinecrest he rode the bus 30 miles Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah to a high school in Sonora. State University). By 1941 Jack had grad- uated and the Reveals were living in Yer- In 1951, at the age of ten, he began work- ington, Nevada. Soon after Jim was born, ing summers for a high Sierra packer, they moved to California where Jack, as working around horses and guiding pack

NNPS Newsletter Vol. 41, No. 1 January / February 2015 3 trips into the Emigrant Wilderness Area and I were in the field gathering plants in of the high Sierra Nevada of Tuolumne Dinosaur National Park for his dad. Later, County, developing skills that have served in late September, we were sent to south- him well on several occasions later in life. ern Utah to search for Asclepias tuberosa These early years in Jim’s life are possi- so that Robert Woodson of the Missou- bly fairly accurately reflected in the ficti- ri Botanical Garden could drive West and tious character of Jerrit Trover in the novel gather specific populations without having by Jim and his childhood friend, Joanne Knowles, whose nom de plume is Jo to actually search them out. DeEds (DeEds & Reveal, 2013). Thinking back on the events of early 1964, After graduating from high school in 1959 I do not now remember when I learned and a summer working on the Toiyabe that Noel and I would be collecting plants National Forest, he entered Utah State for the Intermountain Flora project. (Re- University, majoring in forestry, and in veal, 2013) Jim’s own words: I also don’t remember the details that led I arrived in Logan in the fall of 1959, ma- up to this pairing, except for the fact that joring in forestry; my mother drove me Dr. Cronquist and my father made the ar- there from California and took me around rangements for Jim and me to use of the to meet all of her old professors. My fa- Intermountain Herbarium pickup and plant ther drove me to Logan in the fall of 1960, collecting equipment, and Cronquist had and one of his stops was the herbarium the funds on his Intermountain Flora NSF atop the botany building where we visit- grant to pay mileage and $7.00 per diem ed Art Holmgren; I was scheduled to take for each of us. We were thrilled. his plant class in the spring of In June of 1964, as soon as school was 1961 so meeting the professor was a nice out, Jim and I loaded the truck and head- touch. I listened to tales of the old days ed out for an adventurous summer of field and looked around the fourth floor see- work, not realizing then that we would ing all the tall cases filled with specimens. have those same opportunities for the fol- I had collected plants for my high school lowing two summers as well. advanced biology class, and in anticipa- The first two summers Jim was a masters tion of taking taxonomy I had spent the student at Utah State, and the third sea- summer of 1960 collecting on the east son he had moved to Brigham Young Uni- side of the Sierra Nevada. versity for his doctorate. That third season I was in Art’s taxonomy course that (1966) we were allowed to stray beyond spring, and about halfway through his the region boundaries to collect Eriogo- class, and under the intense prodding of num and Castilleja for our thesis studies. Arthur Cronquist who was in the West col- The three years are described in more lecting plants for the Intermountain Flora detail by Jim in Memoirs of the New York project, I changed majors and was now a Botanical Garden (Reveal, 2013). botany student and Art Holmgren’s newest I was the designated leader of the expe- protégé. . . . In September of 1961 Noel ditions, so the collection numbers were mine. I did all the driving, but we both had

NNPS Newsletter Vol. 41, No. 1 January / February 2015 4 equal say in where we were to collect. It In 1967, while I remained in New York turned out to be the best division of la- working on my dissertation, Jim spent bor, taking advantage of Jim’s uncanny eight days in early June collecting in ability to spot interesting plants at high- southeastern Utah with Johnnie Gentry way speeds and my ability to negotiate (Cronquist’s new graduate student) and the slower, but sometimes tricky, unmain- Gerrit Davidse (a master’s student of my tained, back roads. father). Beyond that, Jim was taking short We gathered 2,164 collections during the trips collecting eriogonums, often assist- three years, 1,031 of them from Neva- ed by his first wife (Caroline Grace Pow- da. Among the 891 collections made in ell Reveal). The summer concluded with a 1964, four from Nevada became types September trip into New Mexico and Tex- for names new to science. The numbers as with Gerrit Davidse. in parentheses are my collection num- Most of Jim’s summer of 1968 was spent bers: two buckwheats, nutans collecting on the Nevada Test Site for Dr. var. glabratum Reveal (1037) from west Janice C. Beatley (1919-1987), an ecolo- of Deeth and E. holmgrenii Reveal (1576) gist working on the flora of that area. For from the ridge above Johnson Lake in the eleven days in August 1968, I joined him, Snake Range, Geranium toquimense N. collecting in and around the Test Site. H. & A. H. Holmgren (1518) from a cirque This time he did the driving and was own- just below Jefferson Peak in the Toquim- er of the collection numbers. as, and Cirsium eatonii var. viperinum D. Eight of his collections became types, six J. Keil (1588), not far from the Holmgren of which he described himself: Eriogonum buckwheat locality in the Snake Range. umbellatum var. vernum Reveal, near In 1965 our collections included the types Yucca Flat (Reveal 1139); Townsendia jo- for Primula nevadensis N. H. Holmgren nesii var. tumulosa Reveal, Las Vegas (2216) from Mount Washington in the Valley (Reveal 1326); Eriogonum cernuum Snake Range and P. capillaris N. H. & Reveal, Timber Mountain (Reveal 1501); A. H. Holmgren (2154) from the Ruby Machaeranthera ammophila Reveal, Ash Mountains. Meadows (Reveal & N. H. Holmgren In 1966 most of our collections were from 1882); Grindelia fraxinopratensis Reveal, out of state, but in Nevada our collec- Ash Meadows (Reveal & N. H. Holmgren tions included types for Castilleja sal- 1887), and Eriogonum microthecum var. suginosa N. H. Holmgren (2764) from lapidicola Reveal, South Belted Range Monte Neva Hot Springs, C. dissitiflo- (Reveal & N. H. Holmgren 1926); and two ra N. H. Holmgren (2772) from the White by other authors: Astragalus beatleyae Pine Range, Eriogonum heermannii var. Barneby, South Gold Flat (Reveal 1071); clokeyi Reveal (2990) from the Spring Penstemon pahutensis N. H. Holmgren, Mountains, Draba oreibata var. serpentina on Rainier Mesa (Reveal 1206). Tiehm & P. K. Holmgren (2761) from the Jim finished all the requirements for a Snake Range, and Potentilla holmgrenii Ph.D. in the spring of 1969. His thesis D. F. Murray & Elven (2818) from the was a revision of the Eriogonum, Snake Range. consisting of 546 double-spaced pages, which represented a condensed version of an 1,800-page manuscript. Dr. Reveal

NNPS Newsletter Vol. 41, No. 1 January / February 2015 5 Jim (center with cowboy hat) at Sunday classroom at McGee Creek - 2011 Erigonum Society, California had a job waiting for him as Assistant Pro- During the 80’s and early 90’s his re- fessor at the University of Maryland, but search focus changed to studying the before heading east he made a quick trip colonial flora of Maryland (1680-1725), to southern Nye County to collect the type which involved travel to England, including of Eriogonum inflatum var. contiguum Re- a year and a half (1990-1992) residence veal (Reveal & M. E. Matthews 2157). in London as Visiting Research Fellow Promotions during his career at UM in- at the Natural History Museum, studying cluded Associate Professor in 1974 and specimens of American plants named by full Professor in 1981. During his first few Carl Linnaeus. years he was able to concentrate his re- During the 90’s he was doing research search on the first two volumes ofIn - and writing about history of botanical ex- termountain Flora and on his beloved plorations in the west and on validating Eriogonum. During a sabbatical in 1975- supra-generic nomenclature. The lat- 76, he spent six months working with ter work earned him the name The Great his former major professor, Stanley L. Validator. Welsh (b. 1928), on the Utah Cruciferae He retired in 1999 from the University of (Brassicaceae). Maryland with the title Professor Emer- Fieldwork during his University of Mary- itus and moved to a country home near land years included Eriogonum hunting Montrose, Colorado, where he and sec- trips throughout the western United States ond wife, C. Rose Broome (b. 1939), had and Mexico. Trips further afield include a couple horses and a truck that would Panama (1979), the People’s Republic of pull a horse trailer and sometimes a large China (1981), and Nicaragua (1994), and, fifth-wheel trailer. The two of them trav- in retirement, a brief respite from Eriogo- eled widely throughout the west collect- num collecting in the Eurasian country ing Eriogonum species and camping in of Georgia (2005), where there are no style with the comforts of their fifth-wheel eriogonums. trailer. Back in the 60’s, Jim and I would

NNPS Newsletter Vol. 41, No. 1 January / February 2015 6 dream about such comforts when for them in print before he had finished his two summers we camped with a rickety, masters degree. somewhat reinforced, plywood box, built Awards received include: Washington to resemble a camper, anchored to the Academy of Sciences Outstanding Bi- bed of the Intermountain Herbarium pick- ologist for 1972 and again for 1978; the up truck. The trailer came in handy for Edger T. Wherry Award from the North one of his projects, which was following American Rock Garden Society in 2009; the path of the Lewis and Clark Expedi- the Merritt Lyndon Fernald Award by the tion and collecting the plants observed by New England Botanical Club in 2009; the them. This resulted in the book Lewis and Outstanding Academic Book Award from Clark’s Green World: the expedition and the Association of College and Research its plants, co-authored with Earle A. Scott Libraries for his 1992 book Gentle Con- (Scott & Reveal, 2003). quest: The botanical discovery of North Jim was a Research Associate at the America with illustrations from the Library Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science of Congress (Reveal 1992). from 2001 to 2006, during which time he Jim was the mentor, leader, and inspira- studied the collections of the Lewis and tion of the Eriogonum Society. He was still Clark expedition. Since 2003 he has been actively working on various research proj- an Honorary Curator at the New York Bo- ects in his office at Cornell University only tanical Garden, where he spent time do- two days before his sudden and untime- ing library research and working on the ly death on 9 January 2015. He was tak- Eriogonoideae for Flora of North Ameri- en far too young. Rest in peace, Jim. We ca and for Intermountain miss you. Flora. In 2007 he and Rose opened yet another Literature Cited chapter in their lives, selling the Colora- do farm and moving to Ithaca, New York, DeEds, J. & J. L. Reveal. 2013. Between where he was an Adjunct Professor in the icebox and the stairs. Pittsburgh: Cornell University’s Department of Plant Dorrence Publishing Co., Inc. Sciences and where he continued to work Reveal, J. L. 1992. Gentle conquest: The on Eriogonum and various other genera. botanical discovery of North Ameri- He was a popular speaker. His CV lists ca with illustrations from the Library of more than 80 invited talks on a host of Congress. Washington, DC, Starwood subjects in addition to Eriogonum, includ- Publishing. ing biogeography, ecology, the Endan- Reveal, J. L. 2013. Noel Holmgren and gered Species Act, pre-Linnaean collec- the early days of collecting in the Inter- tors in North America, and botany of the mountain West. Mem. New York Bot. Lewis and Clark expedition. Gard. 108: 13B23. One of the many remarkable things about Scott, E. A., and J. L. Reveal. 2003. Lew- Jim is his voluminous list of publications, is and Clark’s green world: The expe- which exceeds 530 titles of scientific pa- dition and its plants. Helena, Montana: pers and books. Even before complet- Farcountry Press. ing his doctoral degree, he had 36 publi- cations in print or in press, the first ten of

NNPS Newsletter Vol. 41, No. 1 January / February 2015 7 Nevada Native Plant Society PO Box 8965 Reno NV 89507-8965

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