Grief and Gardening: Extinct Plants of northern North America 2021

As in past years, I'm limiting this list to northern North America for two reasons:

1. Restricting this list geographically is in keeping with my specialization in plants native to northeastern North America.
2. There are many more tropical plants, and plant extinctions, than I can manage.

Last year, this paper:

Vascular plant extinction in the continental United States and Canada

caused me to expand my list from 6 to 59 species, including 7 extinct in the wild. The summary is terse, and grim:

Hot Sheets Habitat

My garden is registered as both a National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat and Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat. The insects have certainly gotten the message. During 2021, I've been able to document 14 different species of insects mating in my garden.

1. Acanthoscelidius acephalus, minute seed weevil
2. Epitrix fuscula
3. Harmonia axyridis, multi-colored lady beetle (introduced)
4. Eumerus
5. Orthonevra nitida, wavy mucksucker
6. Syritta pipiens, compost fly (introduced)
7. Toxomerus geminatus, Eastern calligrapher fly
8. Toxomerus marginatus, margined calligrapher fly
9. Xenox tigrinus, tiger bee fly
10. Jalysus, stilt bug
11. Lygaeus kalmii ssp. angustomarginatus, Eastern small milkweed bug
12. Hylaeus modestus, modest masked bee
13. Xylocopa virginica, large Eastern carpenter bee
14. Danaus plexxipus, monarch butterfly

Annie, 2009-2021

Our dear cat Annie passed away less than an hour ago.

Recipe: Maple Sugar Cookies

2021-12-13: Updated with tweaks from my latest batch, the best yet!
I also added weight equivalents for most of the ingredients.

I also added some notes for what, if anything, to adjust when doubling the recipe, which is what I usually do for giving away cookies during the holidays.

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Living in New York City most of my life, I'm not in what one would think of as "maple country". But the northeast is rich with sugarbushes - the managed groves and forests of maple trees from which sap is harvested and boiled down to make this nectar of the gods. And nearly every NYC Greenmarket (farmers' market) has at least one farmer that sells maple syrup and other maple prodcuts, even if it's not their primary business.

Extinct Plants of northern North America 2020

As in past years, I'm limiting this list to northern North America for two reasons:

1. Restricting this list geographically is in keeping with my specialization in plants native to northeastern North America.
2. There are many more tropical plants, and plant extinctions, than I can manage.

In past years, I've only been able to find records for 6 plant species that have gone extinct. This year's list is a major update: 59 extinctions, and 7 extinct in the wild. This is largely due to the research presented in this August 2020 paper:

Vascular plant extinction in the continental United States and Canada

The summary is terse, and grim:

Grief and Gardening: Ashes (Remembrance Day for Lost Species)

My alarm wakes me Saturday morning. I go downstairs to the kitchen, nuke myself a cup of coffee, and get a fresh batch going. I didn’t sleep well. Today is the Remembrance Day for Lost Species.

Extinct Plants of northern North America 2018

I'm limiting this list to northern North America for two reasons:

1. Restricting this list geographically is in keeping with my specialization in plants native to northeastern North America.
2. There are many more tropical plants, and plant extinctions, than I can manage; for example, Cuba alone has lost more plant species than I've listed on this blog post. 

If you have additions to this list, please let me know, and provide a link which I can research.

• Astilbe crenatiloba, Roan Mountain false goat's beard, Roan Mountain, Tennessee, 1885
• Narthecium montanum, Appalachian Yellow Asphodel, East Flat Rock Bog, Henderson County, North Carolina, before 2004?
• Neomacounia nitida, Macoun's shining moss, Belleville, Ontario, 1864
• Orbexilum macrophyllum, bigleaf scurfpea, Polk County, North Carolina, 1899
• Orbexilum stipulatum, large-stipule leather-root, Falls-of-the-Ohio scurfpea, Rock Island, Falls of the Ohio, KY, 1881
• Thismia americana, banded trinity, Lake Calumet, IL, 1916

Extinct in the wild (IUCN Red List code EW)

Franklinia alatamaha, Franklin Tree

Extinct versus Extirpated

I often come across misuse of the word "extinct," as in: native plant extinct in New York City.

• "Extinct" means globally extinct. No living specimens exist anywhere in the world, not even in cultivation. 
• "Extirpated" means locally extinct, while the species persists in other populations outside of the study area. To correct the above example: extirpated in New York City. Any regional Flora lists many extirpated species.

When a species is known only from one original or remaining population, as those listed above were, loss of that population means extinction for the species. In this case, extirpation and extinction are the same thing.

Another category is "extinct in the wild," when the species still exists under cultivation, like an animal in a zoo. A famous example of this is Franklinia alatamaha.

Related Content

Extinct Plants of northern North America 2015, 2015-11-29
Extinct Plants of northern North America, 2014-11-30

Links

Wikipedia: List of extinct plants: Americas
IUCN Red List: List of species extinct in the wild
The Sixth Extinction: Recent Plant Extinctions
Extinct and Extirpated Plants from Oregon (PDF, 5 pp)

100 Years Ago

On November 1, 1918, the worst transit disaster in New York City history occurred just outside Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The wooden cars of the Brighton Beach line of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (B.R.T.) company left the tracks, crashing inside the tunnel beneath the busy intersection where Flatbush Avenue, Ocean Avenue and Malbone Street met [Google map]. The Malbone Street Wreck killed nearly 100 people and injured more than 250. Criminal trials and lawsuits arising from the accident dragged on for years, contributing to the bankruptcy of the BRT. The name "Malbone Street" became associated with the disaster; it's known today as Empire Boulevard.

Remembering Sandy, Five Years Later

Rockaway Beach Boulevard, between Beach 113th & 114th Streets, Rockaway Park, Queens, November 4, 2012

The storm surge flooded this block to at least five feet. Fire broke out and was quickly spread by 80-mph winds. These buildings burned down to the water line.

This was the site of a heroic rescue by FDNY Swift Water Team 6 and other firefighters attached to this unit for rescues during the storm. Firefighters Edward A. Morrison and Thomas J. Fee received awards for their actions during these rescues.
www.fireengineering.com/articles/print/volume-166/issue-5...
www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/pdf/publications/medal_day/2013/Med...

Investigators later determined this fire was caused by downed electrical wires falling onto 113-18 Rockaway Beach Boulevard. 16 homes were destroyed by the fire.
www.nydailynews.com/new-york/sea-water-surge-behind-serio...

There was worse destruction than this on Beach 130th Street, between Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Beach Channel Road. That fire started at 239 Beach 129 St. and destroyed 31 buildings.

Related Content

Links

Remembering Sandy 5 Years Later, National Weather Service
Saved by Sand Dunes, Cool green Science blog, Nature
Five years later, AN looks at the impact of Hurricane Sandy on New York’s built environment, Audrey Wachs, The Architects Newspaper, 2017-10-27

Extinct Plants of northern North America 2015

I'm limiting this list to northern North America for two reasons:

1. Restricting this list geographically is in keeping with my specialization in plants native to northeastern North America.
2. There are many more tropical plants, and plant extinctions, than I can manage; for example, Cuba alone has lost more plant species than I've listed on this blog post. 

If you have additions to this list, please let me know, and provide a link which I can research.

• Astilbe crenatiloba, Roan Mountain false goat's beard, Roan Mountain, Tennessee, 1885
• Narthecium montanum, Appalachian Yellow Asphodel, East Flat Rock Bog, Henderson County, North Carolina, before 2004?
• Neomacounia nitida, Macoun's shining moss, Belleville, Ontario, 1864
• Orbexilum macrophyllum, bigleaf scurfpea, Polk County, North Carolina, 1899
• Orbexilum stipulatum, large-stipule leather-root, Falls-of-the-Ohio scurfpea, Rock Island, Falls of the Ohio, KY, 1881
• Thismia americana, banded trinity, Lake Calumet, IL, 1916

Extinct in the wild (IUCN Red List code EW)

Franklinia alatamaha, Franklin Tree

Extinct versus Extirpated

I often come across misuse of the word "extinct," as in: native plant extinct in New York City.

• "Extinct" means globally extinct. No living specimens exist anywhere in the world, not even in cultivation. 
• "Extirpated" means locally extinct, while the species persists in other populations outside of the study area. To correct the above example: extirpated in New York City. Any regional Flora lists many extirpated species.

When a species is known only from one original or remaining population, as those listed above were, loss of that population means extinction for the species. In this case, extirpation and extinction are the same thing.

Another category is "extinct in the wild," when the species still exists under cultivation, like an animal in a zoo. A famous example of this is Franklinia alatamaha.

Related Content

Extinct Plants of northern North America, 2014-11-30

Links

Wikipedia: List of extinct plants: Americas
IUCN Red List: List of species extinct in the wild
The Sixth Extinction: Recent Plant Extinctions
Extinct and Extirpated Plants from Oregon (PDF, 5 pp)

Extinct Plants of northern North America

Updated 2014-12-22: Added years of extinction, where known. Started section for Extinct in the Wild (IUCN Red List code EW).

---

I'm limiting this list for two reasons:

1. Restricting this list geographically is in keeping with my specialization in plants native to northeastern North America.
2. There are many more tropical plants, and plant extinctions, than I can manage; for example, Cuba alone has lost more plant species than I've listed on this blog post. 

If you have additions to this list, please let me know, and provide a link which I can research.

• Astilbe crenatiloba, Roan Mountain false goat's beard, Roan Mountain, Tennessee, 1885
• Narthecium montanum, Appalachian Yellow Asphodel, East Flat Rock Bog, Henderson County, North Carolina, before 2004?
• Neomacounia nitida, Macoun's shining moss, Belleville, Ontario, 1864
• Orbexilum macrophyllum, bigleaf scurfpea, Polk County, North Carolina, 1899
• Orbexilum stipulatum, large-stipule leather-root, Falls-of-the-Ohio scurfpea, Rock Island, Falls of the Ohio, KY, 1881
• Thismia americana, banded trinity, Lake Calumet, IL, 1916

Extinct in the wild

• Franklinia alatamaha, Franklin Tree

Extinct versus Extirpated

I often come across misuse of the word "extinct," as in: native plant extinct in New York City. "Extinct" means globally extinct. No living specimens exist anywhere in the world, not even in cultivation. "Extirpated" means locally extinct, while the species persists in other populations outside of the study area. To correct the above example: extirpated in New York City. Any regional Flora lists many extirpated species. When a species is known only from one original or remaining population, as those listed above were, loss of that population means extinction for the species. In this case, extirpation and extinction are the same thing. Another category might be "extinct in the wild" when the species still exists under cultivation, like an animal in a zoo. A famous example of this is Franklinia alatamaha.

Related Content

Links

Wikipedia: List of extinct plants: Americas IUCN Red List: List of species extinct in the wild, The Sixth Extinction: Recent Plant Extinctions Extinct and Extirpated Plants from Oregon (PDF, 5 pp)

Shrubberies

Update 2014-11-23:

• Completed Step #4 today, nearly injuring myself in the exertion. Did I mention that established grasses have deep and extensive roots?
• Also completed Step #5, replacing the Panicum.
• Added Step #9. I'd overlooked this shrub, and need to find a place where it can be featured, while still kept in bounds with the garden. I think where the Aronia once stood, a transplant I did in the Spring of this year.

Update 2014-11-10:

• I'm taking photos as the work progresses. See Before and After below.
• Reordered based on the progress I'm making. Because the Rhododendron is shallow-rooted, I decided to leave that until the last weekend before Thanksgiving, when I'll visit my sister and deliver her plants.

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It's a long weekend for me. The weather favors gardening.

I've got seven shrubs - and one or two mature perennials - to plant, transplant, and move out. Here's the plan.

Japanese Garden, BBG, Veteran's Day

Stone Basin with Cherry Leaves, Japanese Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden


The Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden was another station on my tour of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Veteran's Day with Blog Widow. What's the connection between Veteran's Day and BBG's Japanese garden? Its designer, Takeo Shiota, died in a U.S. internment camp during World War II.

There are different styles of Japanese gardens. The hill-and-pond style is intended to be viewed from a fixed point, in this case, the pavilion that reaches out over the shore of the pond. The stone basin above adorns the entrance to the pavilion.

It is a blend of the ancient hill-and-pond style and the more recent stroll-garden style, in which various landscape features are gradually revealed along winding paths. The garden features artificial hills contoured around a pond, a waterfall, and an island while carefully placed rocks also play a leading role. Among the major architectural elements of the garden are wooden bridges, stone lanterns, a viewing pavilion, the Torii or gateway, and a Shinto shrine.

The steep hills, representing distant mountains, are a maintenance nightmare: they cannot be mowed by walking a mower across them. Instead, the mower must be rigged to bypass its safety features, and carefully lowered and raised down and up the slopes using ropes controlled from the tops of the hills. BBG staff are gradually replacing the turf of the original design with slow-growing dwarf Ophiopogon, Mondo grass. These will eventually provide the same scale and texture as lawn without the hazards to life and limb.

One of the treacherous slopes along an idyllic path.

Natural History: Patrick Dougherty at BBG

The view from within.


Blog Widow and I observed Veteran's Day by visiting the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The Fall foliage was still brilliant, especially in the Bonsai Museum. My other must-see destination was "Natural History," BBG's first site-specific installation, by Patrick Dougherty. This was my first visit to the Garden since it was installed in August:

The sculpture at BBG is woven from nonnative woody material that was collected from Ocean Breeze Park on Staten Island. The harvesting site was chosen by BBG's director of Science because of its proximity to the Garden and its large population of nonnative willow (Salix atrocinerea), which is designated an invasive species in New York State. Removal of saplings of this species helped protect the site's excellent assemblage of herbaceous plants. The park is owned by the City of New York and is targeted for restoration under the City's PlaNYC sustainability initiative.

During a visit to BBG a year before beginning the work, Dougherty drew sketches and made word associations based on the feelings he experienced while exploring the potential work site. When asked about some of the words that came to mind as he contemplated what he wanted to build in Brooklyn, Dougherty smiled and said "lairs; a place for feral children and wayward adults."

The sculpture will be on display until August 2011, when it will be dismantled. It's going to look awesome in snow.

Slideshow

Fall Foliage at BBG's Bonsai Museum

Detail of the fall foliage of a Moyogi (informal upright) specimen of Acer palmatum in BBG's Bonsai Museum.

Dad's Dogwood

The Dogwood which my family sponsored, and I helped to plant, outside the 3rd Street Playground in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.


My father's birthday was November 2. He would have been 79. He died almost two years ago, early in the morning of December 1, 2008. I've been going back over what I wrote about his death. But the best thing to read, to get a sense of who he was, is in his own words: How Old Will I Be?

This morning, Blog Widow and I helped plant a tree in his memory in Prospect Park. The Prospect Park Alliance Commemorative Giving program provides opportunities to sponsor an existing tree or plant a new tree. There are no plaques or signs on the trees themselves or in the park; their Web site provides an online register, indexed by commemoration name, of the sponsored trees, their locations, and the season they were planted, going back to 1983. My father was born and raised in Brooklyn, so this seemed an appropriate way for the family to remember him.

My Dad's favorite tree was the native Dogwood, Cornus florida, so that's what the family selected to commemorate him. Luis Lemus, the Prospect Park arborist who coordinated this morning's planting, told me he purchased it from a nursery in Pennsylvania. Just three days ago it was in the ground. And now it is again. Luis was joined by his Parks colleagues, Eric and Jose. The three-man crew made quick work of planting. It was all over in a little more than a half-hour.

The location is lovely, just outside the 3rd Street Playground, behind Litchfield Villa. Prospect Park lost hundreds of trees over the past year, in a winter storm, and this summer's tornado-macroburst storm. A few large trees were taken down in this location, opening up the canopy. Countless thousands of park visitors, a few of whom we met and spoke with during the planting, will enjoy this tree for decades to come.

Slideshow

NYC Leaves: Project LeafDrop 2010

Cherry Leaves, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, November 2008.


For the second year, a city-wide coalition of community gardens and other groups has organized Project LeafDrop to collect leaves from residents for composting. Again this year, most of the drop-off sites are located in Brooklyn. Check the map for locations near you, and the dates and times of your preferred locations.


View NYCLeaves: Project LeafDrop 2010 Locations in a larger map

Flatbush area residents have three exciting new options: community garden and composting sites which didn't even exist a year ago, for last year's LeafDrop! Sustainable Flatbush is collecting leaves this Saturday, November 6 and next, November 13, from 11am to 1pm at East 21st Street and Kenmore Terrace, at the site of the new Communal Garden in partnership with the Flatbush Reformed Church, the Flatbush CSA, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Compost for Brooklyn, at Newkirk Avenue and East 8th Street in Kensington, and Prospect Farm, in Windsor Terrace, and also new.

Press Releases

Flatbush Daffodil Project - 11/14 & 11/15

11/14 ONLY - CANCELLED due to rain (remains of Hurricane Ida). Join us Sunday, 11/15, for a beautiful day of Daffodil bulb planting!

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Join Sustainable Flatbush and your fellow urban gardeners to beautify neighborhood tree beds by planting daffodil bulbs!

The Daffodil Project was originally created to commemorate September 11th; a Dutch bulb grower donates 500,000 bulbs each year to NYC community groups who plant them in neighborhoods all over the five boroughs. This year, New Yorkers for Parks distributed more than 125,000 Daffodil bulbs for planting throughout the City. Sustainable Flatbush received 500 bulbs for planting in tree beds and other public areas in our neighborhood.

This will be Sustainable Flatbush's second year of co-sponsoring the Daffodil Project locally. If you enjoy gardening, feel like digging in some dirt, or if you just want to delight in the company of your neighbors, join us this weekend!

WHAT: Flatbush Daffodil Project
WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, November 14th and 15th, from 10:00am until 12:00pm
WHERE: Meet in front of Vox Pop Cafe at 9:45, 1022 Cortelyou Road (corner of Stratford Road)

(Please note: rain cancels this event! Call us at 718-208-0575 if in doubt)

BK DECAY: Brooklyn Community Leaf Composting, 11/7&8, 11/14&15, & 11/21&22

Update 2009-11-21: In just 4 hours over 2 days, the Flatbush CommUNITY Garden diverted 1,740 lbs of leaves from landfill to compost which will enrich the Garden and more of Brooklyn's urban farms and gardens. As Director of the Urban Gardens and Farms Initiative of Sustainable Flatbush, I want to thank everyone who participated, whether by planning, volunteering, or dropping off leaves.

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Cherry Leaves, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, November 2008


Until 2007, NYC collected and composted residential leaves. For the second year, 20,000 tons of leaves will be treated like household garbage, added to the City’s already-overburdened waste stream. Sign the petition to restore leaf composting to NYC.

Stepping into the void left by the City's abandonment of leaf composting, more than a dozen Brooklyn community gardens, as well as gardens in other boroughs, have banded together in partnership with the GreenBridge Community Garden Alliance of Brooklyn Botanic Garden,  Council on the Environment of NYC, bk farmyards, Vokashi, and the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition,

Over the next three weekends, from 11am to 1pm, Brooklyn residents can bring leaves, free of trash, twigs and branches, in clear plastic or paper bags to one of the locations marked with a blue pin on this map. Not every garden is participating on all dates, so check the garden nearest you to see when you can drop-off in your neighborhood.

View larger map

Information will be available at many of the participating gardens about how to make compost in your own garden or apartment and about efforts to encourage the City to reinstate its municipal leaf collection and composting program.

The Flatbush CommUNITY Garden is participating on two dates: this Sunday, November 8, and Saturday, November 21. The drop-off will be at 1550 Albemarle Road, near Buckingham Road (East 16th Street). The Garden is a project of Sustainable Flatbush, part of the Urban Gardens & Farms initiative.

Who Cares About Honeybees, Anyway?

2021-10-26: Scraped and back-dated from an Internet Archive copy of Garden Rant.

Originally published as a Guest Rant on Garden Rant on November 4, 2009. The original is no longer available on their Web site.

 

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Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been making the news rounds for a few years now. It's old, if still current, news. Dire outcomes from the loss of honeybees have been proffered. For example, PBS recently introduced an online "ask the expert" feature with this:

Since the winter of 2006, millions of bees have vanished, leaving behind empty hives and a damaged ecosystem. 

- Ask “Silence of the Bees” Expert Dr. Diana Cox-Foster, PBS Blog

Really? The ECOSYSTEM?! Did they not notice that honeybees aren't part of the ecosystem? 

Honeybees are livestock. They are animals which we manage for our uses. We provide them with housing and maintenance. We even move them from field to field, just as we let cows into different pastures for grazing.

Perhaps, if CCD can neither be prevented nor cured, disaster would come to pass. However, the underlying cause would not be the loss of the honeybees but our dependence on them as a consequence of unsustainable agricultural practices.

The old ways of farming include hedgerows, uncultivated areas between fields. The biodiversity of these patches provide substantial habitat for native pollinators, as well as other beneficial insects. When even these rough “unproductive” patches of land are cleared, we set the stage for the patterns that have come to dominate agriculture: more herbicides, more pesticides, more machinery. All of these also damage the soil food webs that support both soil fertility and agricultural ecosystems. Although  manufactured inputs provide temporary relief, they reduce the ecological functions of the land, requiring more and greater inputs to achieve the same effect. This is the definition of addiction, and it’s a clear sign that this way of doing business is unsustainable.

Why do we need to ship and truck pollinators around? There are plenty of native pollinators to do the job, where we haven't decimated their habitats. There are 4,000 species of bees alone in North America. 226 species are known in New York City. Many of them visit my gardens in Flatbush, Brooklyn; some have even taken up residence. Many native bees are ground-dwellers which need only some open ground in which to dig their nests. When every patch of ground is cultivated, plowed under or paved over, native pollinators disappear. Suddenly, we “need” honeybees for pollination.

I care about the honeybees. I like my honey and beeswax candles. I support efforts to legalize beekeeping in New York City. But not at the expense of the biodiversity that is all around us, even in the city, if only we care enough to look for it, value it, and nurture it.

Related Content

Cellophane Bees Return, 2009-05-02

Links

Ask “Silence of the Bees” Expert Dr. Diana Cox-Foster. [http://www.pbs.org/engage/blog/ask-%E2%80%9Csilence-bees%E2%80%9D-expert-dr-diana-cox-foster], PBS Blog 

The Great Pollinator Project North American Pollinator Protection Campaign

Saving [Honey] Bees: What We Know Now [About CCD] http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/saving-bees-what-we-know-now/], NY Times, 2009-09-02