Place an Ad | Subscribe | Advertise With Us

Guidebook to Va. plants in the works

Photo

Mark Gormus / Times-Dispatch

Lara Call Gastinger is the illustrator for a huge Flora of Virginia project—a comprehensive book outlining Virginia’s 3,700-plus native plants.

Text size: small | medium | large

By Julie Young

Published: November 21, 2008

Finding out what's growing in and beyond the borders of your backyard is a $2.2 million, 10-year-long venture.

But when it's finished, the Flora of Virginia Project will provide state botanists, educators, government land planners, foresters and gardeners something they have lacked since Jamestown was settled -- a comprehensive guidebook that describes and illustrates the state's approximately 3,700 native flowers, trees, ferns, shrubs, grasses, and vines.

Why is a native-plant guide important?

Interest in native-plant gardening has grown in the past decade. "If you go outside and take a walk through the woods and fields of Virginia, you don't have a book to tell you what plants you're looking at," said Chris Ludwig, chief biologist for the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation's Division of Natural Heritage. "You might have to use six or eight different books to figure out [the plant life in] one site," said Ludwig, who is co-author of the flora book and executive director of the Flora of Virginia foundation.

Gardeners need the information to help them understand the impact non-native species might have on their landscape. Invasive plants can choke out natural plants and render a habitat unusable for wildlife.

Virginia plant-life researchers now must rely on other state flora books. But West Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina flora books, for example, lack information specific to Virginia.

Leaders who shape Virginia through zoning, regulation, legislation and other actions also need the information to make sound natural-resource decisions, Ludwig said.

What's involved in the Flora of Virginia project?

The centerpiece is the plant manual, with a target publication date of 2012. The manual will be placed in every Virginia library. An accompanying Web site will feature color photographs and additional history. The information will be incorporated into Virginia schools' Standards of Learning and other educational programs.

The funds come from donations, grants, and in-kind contributions. About $1.2 million has been raised so far.

Leadership includes a board of directors, an advisory board, and numerous volunteers.

How did the project come about?

Various attempts have been made, the first by a Dinwiddie County botanist in 1743, to document Virginia's plant life. Most were incomplete or fell through for lack of funds.

The current project kicked off in 2001 with the formation of a not-for-profit organization spearheaded by Ludwig and colleagues Marion Lobstein, a Virginia wildflower expert and biology professor at Northern Virginia Community College; botanist Johnny Townsend of the Department of Conservation and Recreation; and Alan Weakley, curator of the herbarium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

How is the research being done?

Ludwig and his co-authors, Weakley and Townsend, are writing the descriptions for each plant and its family members. Lara Call Gastinger, a Charlottesville artist and botanical illustrator, is the chief illustrator.

"We have documented somewhere between 3,500 and 3,700 native and naturalized plants in Virginia," Ludwig said.

Board members and volunteers are gathering plants in the field and mailing them individually in plastic bags to Gastinger's home studio. Plans call for Gastinger to illustrate about a third of the documented plants; she's done 900 so far, she said last week. Gastinger is assisted by artists Roy Fuller, who's sketching ferns, and Mike Terry, who's doing grasses.

Gastinger sketches the plants in pencil, then scans and e-mails the drawings to the project's botanists. They suggest revisions, if needed. "When we arrive at a final sketch, I go ahead and ink it on smooth cream paper," she said. Completed illustrations are sent to Ludwig for storage.

Gastinger expects it will take two more growing seasons to finish the drawings.

How can people contribute?

Donations can be sent to The Foundation of the Flora of Virginia Project Inc., P.O. Box 512, Richmond, VA 23218-0512. Donations are tax-deductible. Donors of $1,000 or more will receive a first edition of the flora book.

To learn more, visit www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural_heritage/vaflora/index.shtml.
Contact Julie Young at (804) 649-6732 or .