Maryland Native Plant Society

MNPS has started a project to produce lists of plants seen in parks and other places where we do field trips. These can be posted on our web site as a record of the walk and as a service to our members and other people who wish to visit these places. A long-range goal would be to monitor the changes in populations of sensitive plant species.

We are looking for volunteers who want to take part in this interesting and useful activity. You don't need to be a botanical expert. If you are on a field trip, the leader will be able to give you the names of the plants seen. You can write them down in the field, print them up as described below, and send them to Cris Fleming (cjfleming@aol.com). Please use Word (not Excel) and make a simple list with just two columns, the first one containing the scientific name and then second containing the common name. We plan to follow the familiar nomenclature as in Gleason & Cronquist, Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada until newer nomenclature becomes more commonly used. Be sure to note the location of the field trip, the county, the date, the name of the leader, and your name as recorder. Take a look at the lists on our web site (Field Trip Surveys Listed by County and Field Trip Surveys Listed by Site) for examples of the type of lists we want to produce. You can ignore printing the general information; we have a template for that. Please help us move along with this project on your next field trip. Our goal is to keep records of all MNPS field trips in 2008. Thanks so much for your help!

Because most people tend to care more about things in their "backyards", the Society has been working to get local chapters established that will focus on education and conservation efforts in a given geographic area. This, of course, requires determined leadership. All chapters are looking forward to having more local volunteers.

If you are interested in volunteering to assist a chapter's steering committee, contact the individuals listed for each chapter.

We try to have a restoration project activity at least once a month. These are opportunities to learn more about a specific habitat and to identify non-native invasive plants that are having a detrimental impact on the native community. There will be plenty of plant ID opportunities, plus you will learn some management strategies and tactics, and meet other people with similar interests.

To find a project to help with, visit Local Habitat Restoration Projects.

Our Habitat Stewardship program coordinator needs assistance with documenting the project results, as well as with photographing the sites and the activities. He is working on putting together a report of the projects conducted around the state. If you are interested in helping with these projects, please contact stewardship @ mdflora.org.

Places at risk are environmental areas that are in need of immediate protection from enroaching development. If we work together to act now, these places can be put into conservancy, whether through legislation to protect the areas or to add them to the park systems, or through agreements with private landowners. The Society has knowledgeable individuals who lobby for protecting these areas. You can help by adding your voice.

For more information, read about our Places at Risk, and read some of our success stories.

If you know of a site that should be added to this list, please contact volunteer @ mdflora.org.

In addition, we want to expand our conservation advocacy efforts into every county in the State. Our conservation advocates stay on top of local legislation affecting sites within a county, and write and/or provide testimony supporting or opposing that legislation. If you are interested in learning more about becoming a county conservation advocate, please contact volunteer @ mdflora.org.

Occasionally, legislation at the state or national level is proposed that will benefit our natural areas. We need individuals to monitor legislation, in several ways:

• to identify State and/or Congressional legislation being proposed, and to inform the members of the pending legislation; this includes providing items for Native News and the Web site;
• to monitor the status of the pending legislation, and provide regular status updates, especially for the Web site;
• to add their voices to support or oppose the passage of that legislation.

You may sign up to receive notices of pending legislation affecting our natural resources by signing up for an e-mail list listed on our Action Alerts page.

One of our primary goals is to educate the public about the benefits of using native plants, and the problems that are caused by the use of non-native invasive plants. We do this through monthly meetings, field trips, workshops, site surveys, and our annual conference.

Meetings

Annual Fall Conference

Field Trips and Workshops

The Society needs volunteers to:

• contribute stories on meetings, conferences, and other timely tidbits of interest to our readers;
• submit articles to Marilandica that document both the unique and common aspects of Maryland's native habitats;
• submit articles to Marilandica of results of personal botanical research.

To submit articles to the Native News editor, send e-mail to nativenewseditor @ mdflora.org.

To submit articles to the Marilandica editor, send e-mail to marilandicaeditor @ mdflora.org.

Mailing Parties

The Society needs volunteers to:

• e-mail monthly announcements; requires the capability of sending bulk mail;
• distribute membership recruitment brochures; have membership information available at meetings and events (regular trip leaders should have a bunch on hand to bring to outings).

We have a new Membership Brochure (PDF, ~303KB) available on our web site. Feel free to download, print, and distribute!

The Society receives requests for speakers and booth displays. The Society can always use volunteers to:

• man our booth at a variety of events around the state;
• speak at garden clubs or nature centers, or invite a speaker to talk to your organization.

The Society needs volunteers to:

• distribute flyers, send announcements (by mail, FAX, or email) to newspapers and publications;
• distribute flyers and other items to local libraries where they have information sections;
• write articles and/or press releases for local papers;
• photograph our events.

The Web Committee could use volunteers to help code pages, or to collect information or write articles for different sections of the MNPS web site. All pages are coded in HTML 4.01 Strict, and should be tested using the W3C's validator, as well as viewed in Internet Explorer and one of the Gecko clones (Mozilla, Firefox, NetScape).

Currently, the site is maintained as followed: monthly, remove old activity information; bi-monthly, add new activities and Native News; occasionally, add activities that didn't get into Native News.

The following sections of the site could use some volunteer help:

• Gallery: collect or coordinate the collection of photos on plants (see the topics), and organize the collection.
• History and Accomplishments: research archival information for posting to the web site.
• Places at Risk: identify places in need of protection, describe why they need protection, summarize activities to date to get the site under protection.
• Action Alerts: identify legislation related to conserving Maryland's habitats that needs our support or opposition. Post this information, or links to it, in various locations. Stay on top of the legislation and make sure the posted information is current. If there seems to be enough interest, set up an e-mail list for alerts. Note: our non-profit status requires that we do not endorse candidates, but we can take positions on legislation.
• Government: identify the government contact people, key committees on environmental activites, and so forth, so people who want to contact the local government can easily find the right people. Set up or link to information about how to contact Congress, etc. If you're really enthusiastic, set it up to directly e-mail the person.

We would also like to see articles and photos on outings you have attended, or a discussion of the local ecology at a site, or anything else of interest related to native plants. These can also be published in Native News or Marilandica, at the discretion of the editors.

If you are interested in volunteering for any of the above web site activities, or have a suggestion on what you would like to see (and work on!), please contact webmanager @ mdflora.org.