2021 Virtual Wildflower Week Closing Meeting & Thanks!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our 2021 Virtual Wildflower Week! This was a new experience for us hosting a virtual week-long event, but with the help of many people, it was a great success! Special thanks to our website guru Jeff Nelson, our video editor Kendall McDonald, and the iNat extraordinaire Vanessa Voelker!

Here is a recording of the closing meeting on Saturday, May 17th in case you missed it!

The centerpiece of our Wildflower Week was a state-wide BotanyBlitz on iNaturalist from April 10th – April 17th. More than 100 members joined the project and posted over 3,200 observations of Kentucky plants within a one week span! Over 450 different species were photographed. Observations were posted in over 60 counties ranging from Carlisle County in the west to Pike County in the east.

Distribution of iNatuarlist observations from the 2021 KNPS BotanyBlitz April 10th -17th

We also posted virtual field trips throughout the week. If you didn’t get a chance to see them, you can still see them on our website or take a gander at our YouTube channel. The most popular video was by our very own Tara Littlefield, along with her kids Estella and Henry, teaching us about Kentucky Trillium species. Thank you to all those who submitted videos!

We hope you enjoyed this virtual event!

-Heidi Braunreiter, KNPS Vice President

2021 Wildflower Week BotanyBlitz Results

by Vanessa Voelker, Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves

The 2021 Wildflower Week BotanyBlitz was a huge success, and your enthusiasm for this event massively exceeded our expectations! In all, the community of 110 observers made 3,193 observations of 460 species of wildflowers, blooming woody plants, graminoids, and mosses. Of those observations, an impressive 2,680 (83.9%) reached Research Grade status.

It was a tight race in both winning categories, but our 1st place champions are @ktuttlewheeler for Most Observations (196 observations), and jabrams_foc for Most Species (108 species). In Most Observations, close behind in 2nd place was jabrams_foc with 193 observations, while sekistler and terrikoontz tied for 3rd place, both with 128 observations. For most species, sekistler was another close 2nd place with 104 species, and ktuttlewheeler in 3rd with 90 species. This was an awesome week of intensive botanizing, Kentucky!

Many thanks to the identifiers who helped elevate so many species to Research Grade: vvoelker, jabrams_foc, hbraunreiter, thomashulsey, jkoslow, rynxs, kentuckybotanist, mjpapay, williambee, laurabaird, trscavo, and ktuttlewheeler all helped to identify 50+ observations during the blitz.

A dreamy Dwarf Larkspur, observed by mtwyandell

The most observed species during Wildflower week was Dwarf Larkspur (Delphinium tricorne) with 68 observations, and filling out the rest of the top 5 were Blue Phlox (Phlox divaricata) with 66 observations, Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia) with 60, Virginia Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) with 54, and Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) with 53 observations.

A final note: if this was your first iNat blitz and you enjoyed your experience, we’d like to invite you to join the Kentucky Botanists Big Year 2021 project as well! This is essentially a year-long botany blitz, where you can test your botanical mettle across the seasons. It’s a fun way to learn even more new species, and become more familiar with the ones you already know!

Neat Flora of Dry Outcrops and Woodlands in the Kentucky River Valley – Length 16:29

Cedar, ash, oaks, and honeysuckle aren’t the only things inhabiting the dry, rocky, steep habitats above the Kentucky River. Join Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves botanist Devin Rodgers for a tour of some of the neat flora adapted to these sunny, erodible, rugged, beautiful places.