Journal of the Oklahoma Native Plant Society Volume 12, December 2012


Oklahoma Native Plant Record  3 
Volume 12, December 2012 
 

 

 
Foreword 

 
This year’s Oklahoma Native Plant Record is all about learning from history. Publishing Dr. 

Marilyn Semtner’s 1972 Master’s thesis this year offers us an opportunity to gain another 
perspective on why some introduced species become invasive in natural habitats where others 
do not. As the Oklahoma Invasive Plant Council, formed in 2008, seeks ways to guide our state 
agencies to determine best practices for preserving our native plant species, research like this, 
both old and new, can inform policy decisions. 

Mr. Randall Ledford has collected extensive information regarding use of Oklahoma’s native 
plant species by the Pawnee Native Americans. He gives us a preliminary plant list that is sure to 
become part of an important resource that can be used in Pawnee cultural education and by 
ethnobotanists. With full respect for the Pawnee culture, his list includes scientific names as well 
as Pawnee names and descriptions of uses that have been carefully researched and whose 
content has been approved by the Pawnee elders. We are hoping to build interest and 
anticipation in this area of social and botanical research overlap. His goal is to collect and 
organize a larger body of this little known ethnobotany for wider dissemination 

Dr. Gloria Caddell and Ms. Kristi Rice have provided us with the long anticipated flora of 
Alabaster Caverns State Park. It also compares flora in those Gypsum outcrops with two other 
previous studies done ten years ago at Selman Living Lab in Woodward County and on a ranch 
in Major County. 

Teaching and inspiring botany students at McLoud High School and at the University of 
Oklahoma Biological Station, Dr. Bruce Smith has contributed several articles to the Record in 
the past. This year he offers us a comparison study of two oak forests based on data collected by 
his students. Engaging his students in plant distribution and ecological studies, he strives to 
fulfill our need to collect and preserve data for the future — a future history, to be used by 
future scientists. 

 This year our “Critics’ Choice Essay” is from Dr. Wayne Elisens. He tells us how new 
software and digitization methods are bringing new light to historical collections, virtually. 
Herbaria are making specimen data and images globally accessible. We will be able to see and 
learn from historical and current collections from all over the world. 

 The Oklahoma Native Plant Record will keep passing on the science and building on what 
we know. We do not want to lose, or fail to learn, what future generations will need to know to 
keep Oklahoma’s native plant species thriving in Oklahoma. As our practice of publishing 
historical, unpublished work shows, we believe in the importance of historical studies and how 
they can inform current science policies and future research. Moving into the future, all previous 
volumes of The Record are now available on the internet at 
http://ojs.library.okstate.edu/osu/index.php/index, and it is listed on the Directory of Open 
Access Journals through http://www.doaj.org. 
  
Sheila Strawn 
Managing Editor 

http://ojs.library.okstate.edu/osu/index.php/index
http://www.doaj.org/