The story of Virginia’s Floras, both past and present, will be told in the Shenandoah Valley on Thursday, at 2 and 7 p.m. at Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC) in Weyers Cave. Exploring Virginia’s Botanical History through Three Centuries, featuring Dick Cheatham as John Clayton and Donna Ware as herself, will be the topic of the 75-minute program. The word “flora” is the technical term used by botanists to describe a guide to plants living in a particular area. Thus a Virginia Flora is a guidebook to all the documented plants with sustainable wild populations in the commonwealth.
The program is one of many events being held as part of the month-long One Book, One Community reading event held throughout the area of Staunton, Waynesboro, and Augusta County. One Book, One Community, which is sponsored by the public libraries of Staunton, Waynesboro, and Augusta County, and the Community Foundation of the Central Blue Ridge, focuses on a single book each year that the community reads and discusses through a variety of activities. This year’s book, A Walk in the Wild by Bill Bryson, focuses on Virginia’s natural world. Among the activities will be the event at BRCC’s Plecker Auditorium.
The magnificent diversity of Virginia’s plants was first documented by Gloucester County clerk and botanist John Clayton. His book, Flora Virginica published in 1762, was Virginia’s first, and until 2012, only plant guide. The audience will meet time traveler “John Clayton” (portrayed by living history re-enactor Cheatham) as he describes his observations of Virginia’s natural world in the 1700s.
“Virginians have played a major role in American history and even world history. Many of their names are recognized around the world,” noted Cheatham, who researched the man he portrays. “John Clayton was known and respected throughout scientific circles in Europe in the 18th century and thereafter, but is sadly all but unknown in his home state today. Clayton’s path-breaking contributions in botany are today being revived in conjunction with the publication of a brand new Flora of Virginia.”
Following John Clayton, botanist Donna Ware will present “Discovery and Documentation of the Virginia Flora in the 20th century.” Ware’s talk includes information about the newly published Flora, in which she co-authored a section. The 1,200-page volume was more than a decade in the making.
Ware will begin the modern Flora story with a bare botanical “cupboard” (i.e. lack of plant collections) in Virginia colleges and universities at the turn of the 20th century. She will tell of the tragic circumstances that slowed the process of documenting the flora during the first half of the century; then how momentum was gained in the latter half of the century. The talk ends with statistics on the level of documentation of our state flora by year 2000 in terms of herbarium specimens that “vouched” for the actual occurrence of individual species geographically and habitat-wise in Virginia and undergirded the publication of the Flora of Virginia.
The program is sponsored by Blue Ridge Community College, BRCC Cultural Affairs Committee, the Shenandoah and Upper James River Chapters of the Virginia Native Plant Society, and the Augusta County Historical Society. The afternoon program begins at 2 p.m. and repeats at 7 p.m. For more information, visit www.communityfoundationcbr.org.
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