Category Archives: Botany

Halberdleaf Rosemallow 2018-07-16

Each bloom last only one day, but you can see another coming along.

Five petals, Bloom and bud

Hibiscus laevis All. Halberdleaf Rosemallow, Rosemallow, Halberdleaf hibiscus, Scarlet rose mallow, Swamp mallow, Swamp rosemallow.

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Swamp rosemallow

Didn’t know there was one on that path.

Also known as Halberdleaf rosemallow, Hibiscus laevis All. It’s a forb that grows all over the eastern U.S. and in Ontario. I’ve got one in a pot here on my front porch that I dug up to get it out of the next path mowing. No, they don’t have much of an odor. Yes, they are five-lobed flowers, and they do seem to like disturbed soil. The ones I have are not in a swamp; they’re in upland woods.

Halberdleaf rosemallow

This Hibiscus laevis All. we saw June 19th 2016 Closeup halberd-leaved rose mallow is on a different stalk than the one of May 30th. Continue reading →

Elsie Quarterman, Hall of Fame, Tennessee Botanists

2011 inductee, Tennessee Botanists Hall of Fame, Elsie Quarterman,

Elsie Quarterman was born in 1910 in Georgia. She completed her undergraduate work at Georgia State Woman’s College in 1932. Post-graduate studies were done at Duke Univ. where she obtained her Ph.D. in 1949 under Henry J. Osting. She accepted a faculty position at Vanderbilt Univ. and later became the University’s first female department chair, heading the Biology Department in 1964.

Dr. Quarterman is best known for her work on the ecology and plant communities of the cedar glades of the Central Basin. She is widely recognized for the re-discovery of the Tennessee Coneflower (Echinacea tennesseensis) in 1969, a plant once thought to be extinct and subsequently the first plant endemic to Tennessee to be protected by the Endangered Species Act. She has received many honors including our very own TNPS Conservation Award. The Elsie Quarterman Cedar Glade State Natural Area was named in her honor in 1998.

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Dr. Elsie Quarterman, Champion of the Cedar Glades and Natural Areas –Brian Bowen

Thanks to Kim Sadler for sending this.

Brian Bowen, for Tennessee Conservationist Magazine, Sep-Oct 2014, Remembering Dr. Elsie Quarterman, Champion of the Cedar Glades and Natural Areas,

300x258 George Fell Lifetime Achievement Award 2008, in Tennessee Conservationist, by Brian Bowen, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 1 September 2014 Dr. Quarterman was a longtime member of the Natural Areas Association, the professional organization representing the interests of natural area professionals in the US. She received the NAA George Fell Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 at the 35th Annual Natural Areas Conference in Nashville. In receiving the award, she humbly said that there “is no greater honor than to be recognized by my peers.” Her most significant legacy will be the thousands of acres of natural areas she helped to protect in Tennessee including the cedar glades and the once endangered Tennessee Coneflower.

(Tennessee Natural Areas Program Administrator Brian Bowen works in the Department of Environment and Conservation in Nashville.)

There’s much more in the article.

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Elsie was more than a biology professor and ecologist –Jonathan Ertelt, Community

Saying what many students think: “Students of all ages are thankful that her appreciation of the plant kingdom and the world around her touched them and made their lives.”

Jonathan Ertelt, Vanderbilt Magazine, Summer 2014 issue, Quarterman Was More Than a Biology Professor and Ecologist, Continue reading →