April 2011 Volunteer and Docent Newsletter

APRIL — Talk — —VOLUNTEER MEETINGS — SEABA, the Southeast Arizona ALL-VOLUNTEER MEETING Butterfly Association, will meet Tuesday, April 19, 7-9 PM in the Thursday, April 14 Education Building at Tucson Botanical 9:30AM, Porter Hall Gardens. Free.

Topics: Monzo Elementary School’s Butterfly Garden , and Eric Eaton, Assistant Curator, Butterfly Magic, will present of the Gardens . Refreshments and great company

provided. Guest speaker Elizabeth Willott, Butterfly Curator, will give a short program on “Interacting with Visitors to the Gardens.”

To help celebrate National Volunteer Week 2011 , VOLUNTEER April 10 th through April 16 th , the department heads will be providing awesome snacks for the All-Volunteer APPRECIATION meeting on April 14 th ! Just know how much we all value POT-LUCK the time and effort that you put into the Gardens. We all know that we have the best volunteers in Tucson!!! A Head’s Up! The Volunteer Appreciation Pot-Luck is being scheduled for Horticultural Therapy Meeting th Wednesday, April 6, 10AM Thursday, May 5 .

Education Building A sign-up sheet will be available

Tour Guides/Proctors/Instructors at the April Monthly Meeting Wednesday, April 6, Noon-1PM and then afterwards in the Education Building Volunteer Office.

Tree Adventures Brainstorming Meeting Since it’s “Cinco de Mayo” , Tuesday, April 12, 10AM-Noon Latin-inspired dishes would be Friday, April 22, 1-3PM welcome!! Education Building

We will be discussing our youth programming for Trees, ¡Olé! part of a grant by the Arizona Forestry Council. We will be gathering ideas for activities for a tree-themed home school day, our summer camps, and an outreach program. If you are interested in working with the youth programs, stop on by!

2150 North Alvernon Way, Tucson, Arizona 85712 326-9686 www.tucsonbotanical.org 1 —FROM HORTICULTURE—

A NEW NIGHT-BLOOMER COMES TO THE GARDENS!

The Gardens has received a donation of an Arizona Queen of the Night cactus, Peniocereus greggii. This species is well known for its display of large white flowers, which appear for one night only in the middle of June. This huge specimen came from a local home, and the donor reports it had 100 flowers during one productive bloom night.

This unusually large specimen had a tuber weighing about 60 pounds and required a lot Emily Rockey, of work to dig it out of the ground and to transport it.

I have had the opportunity to meet many of the Manny Cuen and Dalziel Dominguez (Dalziel is friendly garden staff and volunteers, but for pictured below) dug it out and brought it to those whom I have not yet had the pleasure, the Gardens. please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Emily Rockey, now the curator for beautiful

Tucson Botanical Gardens. I graduated in 2009 from the University of Arizona with a B.S. in

Plant Sciences, focusing on Controlled

Environment Agriculture.

Since graduating, I have worked in the conservatory at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, which gave me a great appreciation for the value and importance of public garden spaces. I also took an internship last year in the hydroponic display greenhouses at The Land Pavilion at Disney’s Epcot Center in Florida. These were wonderful experiences, but I am thrilled to be back in Tucson, my home of seven years, and I am even more excited about being part of the team here at TBG. The plant will be allowed a couple weeks to dry and heal up any scrapes or damage to the Although part of my days will be spent within tuber before being planted. the plant database, I will also be focusing on the Tropical Greenhouse. One anticipated project I Traditionally native people used this plant for will be working on is the upcoming Mad About food and medicinal purposes. The Gardens Orchids exhibit this summer. I welcome ideas will add it to our display of native Arizona and suggestions from all! I truly look forward cacti. With luck, it will be ready to bloom to meeting and working alongside every one of again this June. you, and I appreciate the warm welcome. 2 Elizabeth Willott, Spring (Butterfly) Beauties , Butterfly Curator by Eric Eaton

We’re into our final month of Butterfly Magic Spring has definitely “sprung” here at the Tucson for this season. I hope you have continued to Botanical Gardens. Many flowers are in bloom, enjoy the butterflies and the plants in the and native butterflies are taking full advantage of greenhouse. Although a strange monsoon the bounty of nectar. We are now up to forty (yes, season limited some of the diversity from 40) confirmed butterfly species seen on the Malaysia we still have done well; several times grounds. Recent observations have yielded some this season we exceeded 40 different species in surprises, including one supposedly rare species of the exhibit at any one time. Each of our two . suppliers from Costa Rica seems to be doing their best to be our best supplier, which is The “usual suspects” are here: definitely to our advantage. Pipevine Some of our regular butterfly volunteers are Swallowtail, Giant leaving for other parts of the country, so there Swallowtail, Checkered White, are a few openings for anyone interested in Southern Dogface, giving the butterfly exhibit a try for this final Sleepy Orange, month. We have a training video and provide Dainty Sulphur, one-on-one instruction, so if you wish to give Gray Hairstreak, this a try in our final month, you are more than Marine Blue, welcome to do so. Contact us at Reakirt’s Blue, [email protected] . Gray Hairstreak Fatal Metalmark, Gulf Fritillary, Also, we have school groups visiting most Texan Crescent, American Snout, and Painted mornings. If a full shift is just too much yet you Lady. What is new, then? Plenty. One of the more would like to be volunteering, consider coming startling species I spotted a couple weeks ago was for 1-1.5 hours and helping with a school group a Desert Orangetip, Anthocharis cethura . Just as I either in the exhibit or by explaining about the focused my camera on it, away it flew. That chrysalises and life cycle at a station in the figures. I haven’t seen one since, either.

Grove. Another mild surprise was a Mourning It being spring, we are Cloak, Nymphalis seeing a surge in our antiopa . This large, native butterfly black butterfly with a populations. Almost any creamy border is more day, any daylight time, you typical of riparian will see giant swallowtails areas since it feeds on on the grounds. Other willow in the species may require more caterpillar stage. This patience and multiple male specimen was visits. The article by Eric frequenting the bird garden. He perched Giant Swallowtail Eaton discusses a few that you may not have seen or where he had a good Mourning Cloak that you need to look closely to see. For vantage point and darted out after any intruder, especially other instance, many hairstreaks are small, butterflies like Pipevine Swallowtails. After a brief sometimes less than one inch wingspan. Other chase he returned to the same area he started from. butterflies and skippers may not look He even alighted on a visitor’s ballcap while I was dramatically colored from a distance; a careful watching . look can often be highly rewarding. (continued, p. 4) 3 The real shockers have Certainly no violet to come from the skippers in be seen! You would the Hesperiidae. Sure, the think that this would Fiery Skipper, Orange be among the more Skipperling, Common abundant of butterfly Checkered-Skipper, and species given that the Eufala Skipper are common caterpillar feeds on enough, but I’ve seen other Bermuda grass, species that I would not barnyard grass, and expect here. other weedy plants. Instead, most reference Orange Skipperling books list it as “rare.” Violet-clouded Skipper

The first of these was a Last but not least, I added a species by proxy. One Sleepy Duskywing, Erynnis of the visitors to the Butterfly Magic greenhouse, brizo , seen on March 4. Carolyn Vieira, mentioned to me that she also This species feeds on oak takes pictures of butterflies on the Gardens’ as a caterpillar, so it really grounds. I told her I had yet to see a Great Purple belongs a couple of Hairstreak, Atlides halesus , and as luck would have thousand feet higher in it she had a picture she took a couple years ago or elevation. There it was, so. I still expect to see this spectacular butterfly though, on a Dalea here myself, but it is nice to have an existing blossom in the butterfly record. garden. Sleepy Duskywing Keep your eyes peeled, you never know what you might spot in this mid-town oasis! The Funereal Duskywing, Erynnis funeralis , is a much more likely species here at the Gardens. I finally ~~~~~~ spotted one on March 19, but failed to get a picture. This fast-flying skipper is fairly large. Mostly black, CONGRATULATIONS! it has a blazing white border along the edge of its hind wing which makes it easily identifiable.

Another surprise was an Arizona Powdered-Skipper, zampa , sitting on a brick in the barrio garden late in the afternoon of March 6. I initially figured it SPRING 2011 DOCENTS for a Fatal Metalmark, to which it bears superficial Margi Alkire resemblance. Tom Ganser

The Golden-headed Steve Horn Scallopwing, ceos , Jean Hubbard also resembles a metalmark at first glance. Michael Koribanic

Georgina D. Krizsa The most amazing of all the spring skippers was a Marianne Martin Violet-clouded Skipper, Kristie Melkers arabus . It is Sidney Thompson relatively non-descript, save for a distinct dark Katherine Waser brown patch on the Golden-headed Scallopwing Wendy A. Weiss underside of its hind wing. Stephanie White (continued, next column) 4 — APRIL CLASSES —

EDIBLE PLANTS OF THE SONORAN DESERT Instructor’s Biography :

Friday, April 8 Vicky Stromee is an accomplished Tucson-based 9AM-Noon fine art photographer who is represented by What is ethnobotany? How have indigenous groups in Waxlander Gallery in Santa Fe, NM, PhotoPlace the Americas (past and present) utilized plants for food, Gallery in Middlebury, VT and arts+interiors in fiber, and healing purposes? How were New World New York City. She has a particular interest in plants that we take for granted today domesticated? macro photography and is a frequent visitor to The Participants will learn the basics of ethnobotany and Gardens for its wealth of photographic gain background knowledge of many native plants and opportunities. She has had two solo exhibitions at how they were and in many cases are still used. There The Gardens. Her work hangs in private and will be a number of tastings and recipes will be corporate collections throughout the United discussed. Join Ron Bridgemon, M.A., on this fun and States. You can view a sample of her work on her informative exploration of the ethnobotany of the website: www.VickyStromeePhotography.com . Americas. Ron has degrees in anthropology and $85, $70 members cultural geography with an emphasis on the American southwest and northern Mexico. BEYOND BUTTERFLIES $32, $25 members Wednesday, April 13 10AM-Noon INTERMEDIATE NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY Everyone loves having butterflies visiting their CLASS AND EXHIBITION garden, but did you know how many other kinds of 3 consecutive Saturdays: April 9, 16, 23 and related organisms call your yard their Noon-3PM home? In this class you will discover the myriad Join Vicky Stromme at The Gardens for a series of creatures lurking among the leaves, living in the intermediate workshops on nature photography. On compost, and flying over head. Find out how to tell the first Saturday we will meet in the Education Building the ones you can tolerate from the ones you can at noon to discuss techniques and tips for nature live without. Share your own secrets to photography including lighting, depth of field, shutter coexistence with “bugs” and take home some new speed and lenses, shooting in RAW, and the use of knowledge and ideas. histograms. Then we’ll head out to the grounds to take $20, $15 members our best shots! We’ll wrap up the day with a discussion about post-production adjustments. On the second AMAZING ARACHNIDS and third Saturdays we’ll start with a critique of the Thursday, April 14 previous Saturday’s pictures (bring in your 5 best 6-8PM images from the previous Saturday); we’ll project them Arachnids are the eight-legged creatures that on the large screen and conduct a structured critique include spiders, scorpions, daddy-long-legs, and of each other’s work. Then we’ll head back out on the many other . Did you know that arachnids grounds for more shooting. On the last day we’ll are the second-most diverse group of land-dwelling discuss printing, framing and hanging options for a invertebrates, only behind the insects? potential student exhibition. Unfortunately, many people fear these remarkable What to bring: animals. This class will introduce students to the • Your digital camera and camera instruction book (if interesting world of arachnids. We will also try and you have got it) dispel people’s fears and misconceptions about • Extra digital media and batteries for your camera them. Jeff Babson of Sky Island Tours leads us on • Thumb drive (for your 5 best images in week 2&3) this fun, interesting look at our arachnid neighbors. • Your enthusiasm and questions $20, $15 members • Students are responsible for their own printing and framing • If students want us to print their photographs for MORE, NEXT PAGE! exhibition, $25 per print

5 — APRIL CLASSES (con’t) —

THE SONORAN SUPERMARKET: HERBS FOR TUCSON ETHNOECOLOGY OF THE SONORAN Saturday, April 30 DESERT 9AM-Noon Tuesday, April 19 Do you dream of growing fresh herbs for use in 1-3PM your kitchen? If so, join Nate O’Meara, M.A., as he Learn how Native Americans and modern residents gets you started with growing herbs in the home of the Sonoran Desert Region have used their garden. This class will cover such topics as environment to find food, medicine, and tools to seasonal and perennial varieties for Tucson, site live in harmony with the surrounding desert. selection and care, and how to propagate herbs Experiment with native foods, natural fibers, from seeds or cuttings. Nate is a lifelong Arizona pigments and medicinal plants. Learn techniques to gardener and has worked as a Tucson nurseryman, gather and process them. Permaculture farmer, ethnobotanist and agricultural anthropologist. The Sonoran Supermarket covers a lot of $32, $25 members Ethnobotany and Ethnozoology concepts; how humans, in this case the Native Americans of the Sonoran Desert, Tohono O’Odham, Pimas, Yaquis and Seris interact with their environment by using plants and animals. We talk about medicinal plants, edible plants, tools and utensils including plant and

fibers to make cordage and rope.

$14, $10 members

SOUTHERN ARIZONA’S BEAUTIFUL To register by phone BUTTERFLIES Thursday, April 28 with a credit card 6-8PM Butterflies are the world’s most popular group of or for more information, insects. Butterflies can be found just about anywhere and they delight us with their beautiful call 326.9686, ext. 19. colors. This class will focus on butterfly diversity, If you have a question about a class, with an emphasis on those species found in southern Arizona. We will also discuss how to contact Ron Bridgemon at 326.9686, ext. 39, attract butterflies to your yard by planting a butterfly garden. Join Jeff Babson of Sky Island or email [email protected] . Tours as we explore the world of butterflies in southern Arizona. $20, $15 members

6 2150 North Alvernon Way Tucson, Arizona 85712