Brief descriptions and photos are presented for twenty species of the mushroom genus Amanita that are common to Oklahoma.The descriptions and illustrations introduce mushroom morphology and terminology for Amanitas that are important for their identification.Short diagnoses are also presented for each of the seven sections of Amanita.The species are arranged according to their placement in each section.One species, A. persicina, has not yet been reported for Oklahoma but we include it with the speculation that it is present in the pine forests of eastern Oklahoma.

Palafoxia callosa (Nutt.)Torr.& A. Gray is a critically imperiled plant that has an extremely restricted distribution in Oklahoma with all previous observations recorded from Caddo and Pontotoc Counties.Here we report the first observations of P. callosa in Washita County, Oklahoma.Considering the restricted distribution and limited information available on P. callosa in Oklahoma, additional surveys are needed to assess the population status and current threats to the conservation of this species.

The numbers of disk floret anthers of Calyptocarpus vialis in Wichita County, Texas form a consecutive series of one to four; four anthers (71%) and three anthers (27%) were most common. Three anthers is an unusual, perhaps singular, number for Asteraceae. These florets also have four-lobed corollas. The extruded pollen-mass is enclosed by a vaulted dome created by apical appendages of the anthers that are lanceolate and inflexed. Pollination appears to be via autogamy ( sensu stricto ) for disk florets and (considering each head as a single blossom) facultative autogamy and allogamy (both geitonogamy and xenogamy) for the ray florets.

Juniperus virginiana L. (eastern redcedar) is known as an encroaching native plant species. It poses particular problems in the Great Plains, where fire suppression in the 20 th century has led to the expansion of its population and the area it affects. There is some evidence that the genus Juniperus contains members that are allelopathic; work with western species of juniper have demonstrated negative effects of litter on seedling growth. We established laboratory experiments to test the effect of a water leachate of eastern redcedar litter (100 g litter per liter DI water; steeped 8 h) and eastern redcedar litter on the growth and germination of five native herbaceous species. We saw no clear negative effect of leachate or litter; in fact, there is limited evidence that the leachate increased percent germination, and the presence of litter may have led to greater height growth in inland sea-oats. There was no evidence of the litter or leachate acidifying the soil, at least over the short course of the experiment. It is possible the main negative effect of the presence of eastern redcedar on herbaceous species is through light or nutrient competition by mature trees. We are repeating this study in a field setting.

A taxonomic study of the flowering plants of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, exclusive of the grasses, sedges, and rushes, was made from 1955 to 1959. A total of 585 species, representing 99 families and 335 genera, were identified and are on file in the herbarium of the University of Tulsa. The largest families in order of number of species are: Compositae [Asteraceae], 110 species; Leguminosae [Fabaceae], 50 species; Euphorbiaceae, 22 species; Cruciferae [Brassicaceae], 21 species; Rosaceae, 19 species; Scrophulariaceae [Linderniaceae, Orobanchaceae, Phrymaceae, Plantaginaceae, Scrophulariaceae], 18 species; Labiateae [Lamiaceae], 16 species; Polygonaceae, 16 species; and Onagraceae, 15 species. The number of plants found is comparable to similar collections in Muskogee County by Little (1938) and in Pontotoc County by McCoy (1958). The plant list of Tulsa County may be increased by further study. Editor’s Note: Where nomenclature has been updated using ITIS-Integrated Taxonomic Information Service ( http://www.itis.gov ), the revised name is in brackets [ ], as are other updates.

Foreward

Reprinted from Gaillardia, Fall 2000

The effects of climate change on the phenology and pollination of plants is expected to be a major factor in the problem of maintaining biodiversity as well as that of feeding a growing global population.Though ecologists and agricultural researchers have historically tried to stay out of each other's domains, climate change has dealt them a globe of shared problems that will not easily be teased apart.For example, the honey bees that agriculture depends upon to pollinate crops are not native to North America.Whether those introduced pollinators help or hinder native species is a complicated problem, but they are certainly a part of the environment that researchers are going to have to study more closely as the world's population grows.Many native species and human-produced cultivars have co-evolved to depend upon or compete with each other in ways that we haven't yet discovered.We are reaching back in time to pull out some phenology and pollination data that can be compared with current data to study changes in species genomes or gene activity that might be related to climate change.Connie Taylor wrote "Pollination Ecology of Sabatia campestris" in 1972 based on data she collected while taking a summer course at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station at Lake Texoma.Written as a student research paper, its significance lies not in numerical data, but in her descriptions of pollination processes she observed in the field, which differed from those processes described from research done in green house environments.Shang-Wen Liaw was a graduate student at the University of Central Oklahoma who studied under Gloria Caddell.His 1999 Master's thesis went unpublished as he took

In many tree species, winter chilling accelerates budburst in response to spring warmth. Global climate change has already accelerated budburst in deciduous tree species around the world. But as global climate change leads to milder winters, tree species also experience less chilling, which may actually delay spring budburst in some species. We hypothesized that reduced duration of winter chilling would delay spring budburst in sycamore ( Platanus occidentalis ) and pecan ( Carya illinoinensis ), but would not delay it in sweetgum ( Liquidambar styraciflua ). We tested this hypothesis experimentally by manipulating the number of weeks of chilling from 0 to 6 weeks. Lack of winter chilling did not delay budburst in sweetgum but did delay it in sycamore and pecan, in agreement with the hypothesis. Mild winters in Oklahoma may eventually favor the growth of sweetgums at the expense of sycamores and pecans.