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ix>cai resident oners
bounty for identification
of native plants
By Pam Owen
Special to the Rappahannock News
When Bruce Jones starting naturalizing his property at the base of Long Mountain in the 1980s, he was interested in seeing native plants and animals return to what should be their natural home. Years of cattle grazing and logging had changed the land, and little of it was in its natural state.
Jones began reintroducing native plants, focusing on wildflowers—his passion—including many species that are now scarce in Virginia. The one thing most of these plants have in common is their beautiful and varied blooms-from the subtle grace of the yellow lady’s slipper orchid to the audacious scarlet blooms of the red buckeye, a small tree that is a favorite of hummingbirds and butterflies.
Returning farmland to native habitat is a difficult, time-consuming, and costly project, but Jones now can enjoy the blooming of native wildflowers from March through November in his woods, along his ponds) and in his meadows. He says he learned a lot about native wildflowers in the process, but knowing that the Appalachian region has some of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, he wondered just how biodiverse his property is arid wanted to catalog what is there.
So how do you get professional botanists to take the time to catalog your property? One way, he figured,
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