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Category: Local News Releases Local News Releases
Published: 12 June 2020 12 June 2020

coryphantha vivipara copyPhoto of Coryphantha vivipara (Photo courtesy of Dr. Edwin Leuck)The Gila Native Plant Society will hold another virtual meeting via Zoom on Friday, June 19, 2020, at 7:00 pm MDT. Dr. Edwin Leuck will follow up his May survey of the whole Cactaceae family with a closer-to-home look at the cacti to be found in our state. His presentation, “The Cacti of New Mexico,” will cover most of the native cacti present in New Mexico, their distributions, habitat specificities, and salient (hopefully diagnostic) characteristics, illustrated with photos. Included will be 13 genera and 40+ species.

Dr. Leuck, now a resident of Silver City, is emeritus Professor of Biology at Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, LA. He taught courses in botany, plant systematics, ecology, conservation biology, microbiology and introductory biology from 1980 to 2016. His interest in cacti is of long standing: While studying for his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Oklahoma, he researched and presented scientific papers on the distribution of the Oklahoma cacti and their propagation. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the systematics of the small-flowered hedgehog cacti in the genus Echinocereus, a project that entailed extensive field work in the Texas Big Bend region as well as the prairies and mountains of west Texas and areas of New Mexico and Colorado east of the Continental Divide. He continues to look for cacti in New Mexico, especially in the Bootheel and southern Gila regions, and is currently involved in a long-term study of a Peniocereus greggii (Arizona Queen of the Night) population near Rodeo, New Mexico.

Those who missed the May presentation can find the Power Point on the Programs page of the Gila Native Plant Society website: http://www.gilanps.org/events/programs/.  

As always, the public is welcome. Those interested in joining in to the Zoom presentation at 7:00 pm on Friday, June 19th, should send a request for an invitation to gilanative@gmail.com.

Sadly, the Covid-19 pandemic has made it impossible, at least in the near future, for the Gila Native Plant Society to conduct its usual summer field trips, but a video of a virtual field trip by Russ Kleinman may be found on the Field Trip page of the website (www.gilanps.org/events/field-trips/); Russ points out and discusses a number of plants to be found right in and around town. The GNPS Facebook page (@Gila Native Plant Society) offers tips on where to find interesting plants as the season progresses.

The Gila Native Plant Society is committed to promoting education, research and appreciation of the native flora of the Southwest; encouraging the preservation of rare and endangered plant species; and supporting the use of suitable native plants in landscaping. For information on programs, publications and membership, please visit www.gilanps.org.