2012 DeDecker Botanical Grant Awards
The Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native Plant Society has recently awarded these grants for botanical projects. The Mary DeDecker Botanical Grant Program annually awards funding for projects that increase the understanding and appreciation of our region’s unique native flora.
These grants are supported by the annual native plant sale. Persons funded are required to report on their research findings or how they used the grant money.
Graduate Student project recipients:
Joy England, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, “The vascular flora of Little Lakes Valley and Rock Creek Canyon, Eastern Sierra Nevada, California.” You can see Joy's slideshow from her report on her 2012 field work in a presentation to the chapter, if you are willing to wait for it - it is a 21 MB pdf file, so it may take some time to load for viewing or to download: A flora revisited: survey of vascular species in the upper Rock Creek watershed (pdf 20.76 MB). If you missed her talk, it might be worth the wait to download the file - there are so many gorgeous photos!
Update: Joy will be giving an oral presentation at the 2018 Statewide CNPS Conference: Eighty Years and 2,500 Collections: Flora of the Upper Rock Creek Watershed, Eastern Sierra Nevada. Joy was a recipient of the Mary DeDecker Botanical Grant in 2012 and 2013, and completed her master's thesis at Claremont Graduate University in spring 2017. The results of her research will be presented at the conference's Plant Science session. Joy expresses her sincere gratitude to the Bristlecone chapter for supporting this research!
Will Wetzel, University of California, Davis, “The susceptibility of big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) to gall-making insects”
Local project recipients:
Maureen Finnerty, Devils Postpile National Monument, “Continue the involvement of Native American youth in the First Bloom program through the purchase of native plants and educational signage for the First Bloom native plant garden plot in the Bishop community garden”
Leslie Dawson and Sherry Taylor, Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserve (VESR), Native Plant Project. The Native Plant Project enhances the Mammoth Elementary School biological curriculum through hands-on learning. Fourth-grade children grow native plants from seed and plant the seedlings at Cerro Coso Community College. Fourth- and fifth-grade children participate in a week-long summer camp called Where Wild Things Grow.
