August updates for Time to Restore

Time to Restore

Greetings!

Here is your monthly update for those participating in the Time to Restore project in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. If you know others who may be interested in this newsletter, please send it their way! If you were forwarded this message, you can sign up to get on our list here.

Upcoming virtual trainings

Join us for a virtual training August 6th!

We are now hosting monthly virtual training calls. The next call will be Wednesday, August 6th at 5:30pm MT / 6:30pm CT and will provide a one-hour session with an update on data collection and a chance for Q&A about the project. Come find out whether which geographic area is our top data contributor so far this year!

You can also sign up for our other scheduled call in September via the link below.

Plant of the Month: Tall blazing star, Liatris aspera

Photo: © aric4sloth via iNaturalist (cropped), CC BY-NC 4.0

Each month, we feature one of the plants on the Time to Restore list. Tall blazing star (Liatris aspera), also known as rough blazing star and tall gayfeather, is one of our regional priority species. This species is found throughout the eastern half of the U.S.

Tall blazing star blooms throughout the late summer months into the fall. The flowers occur along a zig zagging inflorescence that can be 1-6 feet tall.

You can observe this species as a single plant in Nature's Notebook. However, due to its growth form with a single flower stalk (inflorescence) this species is best observed as a patch of several plants. If you have more than one plant or patch, consider monitoring 2-3 individuals at the same site to capture the variation between plants.

For the plant pictured below, you would report:

Flowers or flower buds - yes

Open flowers - yes

Fruits - no

Ripe fruits - no

Photo: © Michael Wilpers via iNaturalist (cropped), CC BY-NC 4.0

As for the optional intensity questions, you are answering the question "How many flowers or flower buds are present?" Remember that for this species, you should count the number of spikes, or inflorescences, on the plant, or patch of plants.

For the small patch below there are two inflorescences (each circled in white), so you would report Less than 3 flowers or flower buds.

As for the question "What percentage of flowers are open?", do your best to estimate the percentage of flowers where reproductive structures are visible. In the photo below, approximately the top 1/6 of the flowers of each stalk are open, which would put the estimate into the bin of 5-25% flowers open.

Photo: © pisum via iNaturalist, CC-BY-NC 4.0

Questions? Reach out to Erin@usanpn.org.

Data Collection Spotlight

This month, we take a look at your top observed Time to Restore species so far this year. Across the region of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana, the top observed species is American beautyberry with 5,398 observation records collected! See other top species in the table below.

If you'd like to see more stats on data collection so far this year, don't miss our upcoming Time to Restore virtual meeting on August 6th! We'll share more about top observed species in each state, and also take a look at which cities and states are leading the pack so far this year for data collected and number of observers.

Additional Resources

Nature's Notebook Nest

Stay connected with fellow observers and Local Phenology Leaders this summer at the Nature's Notebook Nest! These standing monthly meetings on the first Monday of the month at 12pm PT / 3pm ET are a great chance to ask your questions and get advice from fellow observers. Mark your calendars, next Nest is August 4th! If you sign up for reminders we'll send you an email a few days before and then the morning of the call.

Training options in your state

Participants in all states are invited to join us for monthly training series on the first Wednesday of the month. The next training will be Wednesday, August 6th, 2025 @ 6:30 p.m. CT and will provide an orientation to the Time to Restore project. Register here.

Louisiana

Interested in organizing a training for your group in Louisiana? Reach out to Gina Lloyd to schedule.

New Mexico

Interested in organizing a training for your group in New Mexico? Reach out to Kim Eichhorst to schedule.

Oklahoma

Interested in organizing a training for your group in Oklahoma? Reach out to Jane Breckinridge to schedule.

Texas

Interested in organizing a training for your group in Texas? While we have scaled back on trainings at this point in the project, we are still providing virtual trainings for larger groups of 40 of more. Reach out to David Gwin to schedule.

The table below shows the Texas counties that are represented by Master Naturalist and NPSOT chapters that have already approved the project. We are now up to 74 counties! Let us know if you are already planning on participating in the project but your county is not represented below!

North Texas Counties	Dallas, Denton, Collin, Cooke, Fannin, Hunt, Kaufman, Montague, Parker, Rockwall, Tarrant, Parker, Wise
Central Texas Counties	Bell, Caldwell, Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Comanche, Erath, Hamilton, Hays, Lampasas, Llano, Milam, Palo Pinto, Travis
East Texas Counties	Polk, San Jacinto, Trinity, Tyler
Southeast Texas Counties	Austin, Brazoria, Brazos, Burleson, Colorado, Fayette, Fort Bend, Galveston, Grimes, Harris, Lee, Leon, Madison, Montgomery, Robertson, Walker, Waller, Washington, Wharton
Southwest Texas Counties	Bexar, Comal, Kinney, Medina, Uvalde
West Texas Counties	Bailey, Borden, Cochran, Cottle, Crosby, Dawson, Dickens, Floyd, Garza, Hale, Hockley, Kent, King, Lamb, Lubbock, Lynn, Motley, Scurry, Stonewall, Terry, Yoakum