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Oklahoma Native Plant Record  3 
Volume 14, December 2014 
 

 

Foreword 
 

 We are very excited that such a wide range of contributors, from gardeners and students to 
professional botanists and ecologists, submitted articles for Volume 14. This demonstrates the 
strength of our membership and helps us, as a society, bring all our interests together in a way 
that best promotes our goal of encouraging the study, protection, propagation, appreciation, and 
use of the native plants of Oklahoma. 
 Our “historic” article this year is about the flora of Kiowa County. There is very little 
historic plant distribution information from that far southwestern part of the state, but we hope 
that Lottie O. Baldock’s 1938 master’s thesis will spark interest there. This article will be of 
special value to today’s botanists and ecologists studying historic species distributions and 
environmental changes.  
 Stan Rice and Sonya Ross have done a small scale study of the different effects our warmer 
winter temperatures might have on the timing of spring budburst in three native tree species: 
sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), pecan (Carya illinoensis), and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua). 
Katie Keil raises awareness of three invasive species by updating and proposing revisions in the 
formats of distribution maps for purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), Japanese honeysuckle 
(Lonicera japonica), and multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora). Sadie Gordon reports on research that she 
has done regarding the use of native species in historic, domestic gardens in the NE Oklahoma, 
SE Kansas, SW Missouri, and NW Arkansas region. All three of these articles will pique the 
interests of both professional and amateur botanists and gardeners.  
 Angela McDonnell’s article will be valuable to both professional and amateur field biologists. 
She describes the characteristic features and distributions of two milkweed vines, Matelea biflora 
and M. cynanchoides, and provides a valuable key for the species in that genus that, until now, have 
been difficult to discern. 
 Educators will be inspired by Gloria Caddell’s Critic’s Choice Essay. As Professor of Botany 
at the University of Central Oklahoma, she describes pollination studies done by undergraduate 
students at UCO’s field site at Lake Arcadia east of Edmond as well as the Arcadia Conservation 
Education Area. 
 As we continue to develop the quality of the journal and its usefulness for botanists, 
researchers, enthusiasts, and gardeners, the global footprint of the Society grows. Statistics show 
that, in addition to the hundreds of printed volumes sold, valuable information from the 
Oklahoma Native Plant Record has been accessed thousands of times from Oklahoma State 
University’s eJournals Digital Collections. The Oklahoma Native Plant Record is listed in the 
“Directory of Open Access Journals”, and our abstracts are indexed in the “Centre for 
Agricultural Bioscience International”, which is based in the U.K.  
 Our editorial board has included many Society members over the years, and The Record could 
not have reached those milestones without their help. We are especially grateful to Paula 
Shryock, who has been our valuable, multi-talented Production Editor in this process since 2008. 
Sandy Graue has updated our previous electronic versions, produced between 2001 and 2010, 
and reformatted them for upload into the OSU Digital Collections website. She has been our 
Electronic Production Editor since she joined us in 2010, and she now uploads each new 
volume of The Record. We thank both of them for the time and work they put into getting our 
journal out each year. We also appreciate the many members and colleagues who have authored 
and reviewed articles, as well as the members who have served on our editorial board as 
technical assistants and proof-readers. We thank them all for their support. 
 
Sheila Strawn, Managing Editor