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Perguson, Dee Carl, 1921-2010 (Sc 2861), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Oct 2014

Perguson, Dee Carl, 1921-2010 (Sc 2861), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2861. Letters of Ohio County, Kentucky native Dee Carl Perguson, written to Marjorie Clagett, his French teacher at Western Kentucky State Teachers College, during his World War II military service and afterward. He writes observantly of military life while training in Ohio, Georgia and Pennsylvania, of his experiences while serving in North Africa and Italy, and of his reassignment to Florida after suffering an arm wound. He also describes local plant life to Clagett, an accomplished amateur botanist. After the war, he writes from England during his postgraduate study. Settled in Seattle, Washington, …


Oh No! Something Is Eating My Coral Honeysuckle!, W. John Hayden Aug 2014

Oh No! Something Is Eating My Coral Honeysuckle!, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

Let’s imagine a situation that could happen in your own backyard. Suppose you have a healthy specimen of 2014’s Virginia Native Plant Society Wildflower of the Year, coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens). Suppose further that this plant rewards you every spring with a flush of flashy red flowers that you treasure all the more because they consistently bring hummingbirds to your yard. Now imagine that one fine morning you notice some little green caterpillars voraciously eating the leaves of your beloved coral honeysuckle. What do you do?


Coral Honeysuckle Easy To Propagate With Cuttings, W. John Hayden Jul 2014

Coral Honeysuckle Easy To Propagate With Cuttings, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

One of my earliest botanical/horticultural memories involves time spent with my dad taking cuttings of ornamental plants. Every spring, he would start several dozen new chrysanthemums from carefully overwintered stock plants. He was also fond of long yew hedges that he developed by taking numerous cuttings from just a few original shrubs in our yard. And, from time to time, both my grandmothers would propagate, via cuttings, house plants like geraniums, African violets, and Christmas cacti. But I think it was my dad’s comparatively larger scale operation that fascinated me; with just a little effort, a single shrub could yield …


Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia) Provide A 21st-Century Perspective On Infraspecific Ranks And Interspecific Hybrids: A Modest Proposal* For Appropriate Recognition And Usage, Aaron M. Ellison, Charles C. Davis, Pat Calie, Robert F. C. Naczi Jun 2014

Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia) Provide A 21st-Century Perspective On Infraspecific Ranks And Interspecific Hybrids: A Modest Proposal* For Appropriate Recognition And Usage, Aaron M. Ellison, Charles C. Davis, Pat Calie, Robert F. C. Naczi

Biological Sciences Faculty and Staff Research

The taxonomic use of infraspecific ranks (subspecies, variety, subvariety, form, and subform), and the formal recognition of interspecific hybrid taxa, is permitted by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. However, considerable confusion regarding the biological and systematic merits is caused by current practice in the use of infraspecific ranks, which obscures the meaningful variability on which natural selection operates, and by the formal recognition of those interspecific hybrids that lack the potential for inter-lineage gene flow. These issues also may have pragmatic and legal consequences, especially regarding the legal delimitation and management of threatened and endangered …


Humming Birds: Pollination Facts And Fancy, W. John Hayden Apr 2014

Humming Birds: Pollination Facts And Fancy, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), the 2014 VNPS Wildflower of the Year, is a classic example of a hummingbird-pollinated flower: bright red petals, often with contrasting yellow tones in the corolla throat, provide visual attraction, drawing hummingbirds to the flowers, where they are rewarded with a rich supply of nectar. Whereas hummingbirds have good color vision, they have a poor sense of smell. So it is not surprising that coral honeysuckle flowers are nearly scentless, at least to the human nose; even modern analytical instruments detect only traces of volatile molecules emanating from them. And open coral honeysuckle flowers, …


Two Honeysuckles: A Tale Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, W. John Hayden Feb 2014

Two Honeysuckles: A Tale Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, W. John Hayden

Biology Faculty Publications

There are about 180 species of Lonicera (honeysuckles) widely distributed in the north temperate zone. These are mostly shrubby plants, but in Virginia, we have two species that are woody vines (lianas). These two lianous honeysuckles should be familiar to all Virginia Native Plant Society members. One is this year’s VNPS Wildflower of the Year, Lonicera sempervirens (coral honeysuckle), and the other is Lonicera japonica (Japanese honeysuckle), widely and deservedly reviled as one of our most aggressive invasive exotic species. Together, these two plants make an odd pair, a sort of botanical Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. What is it, …