Minnesota Native Plant Society

From Data to Diversity: Modernizing Minnesota's Native Plant Community System
2025-03-06 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | Dakota Lodge, 1200 Stassen Lane, West St. Paul, MN, 55118, United States
The recorded presentation is on the Videos page.
Presenter: Alaina Berger, NPC Classification Coordinator, Division of Ecological and Water Resources, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Program: From Data to Diversity: Modernizing Minnesota’s Native Plant Community System
Minnesota DNR’s Native Plant Community Classification is a dynamic tool for conservation, vegetation management, and land-use planning, evolving with new data and user experiences. This talk will highlight ongoing efforts to integrate two decades of vegetation data and address knowledge gaps in various plant communities across Minnesota.
Speaker Bio: Alaina Berger is an experienced Forest Ecologist with a passion for understanding and preserving forest ecosystems. With a BS degree in Environmental Science and a Master of Science in Forest Ecology at the University of Minnesota, she has dedicated over 30 years to studying plant communities and how they respond to changes in their environment. Alaina has worked on various projects, from mapping natural habitats to developing guidelines for forest management. Her past research has focused on understory flora response to forest stand structure and disturbance from management activities. Alaina has extensive experience with the Native Plant Community Classification, including 12 years in various roles at the MNDNR, where she was part of the initial launch of the Native Plant Classification. Currently, she serves as the Native Plant Classification Revision Coordinator with the Minnesota Biological Survey (MBS) at the DNR. She coordinates a 3-year project to modernize the DNR Native Plant Community Classification system. Her work is driven by a deep commitment to maintaining the health and diversity of Minnesota’s natural landscapes.

A Dozen of My Favorite Minnesota Plant Stories
2025-04-03 19:00 - 20:30
The recorded presentation is available on the Videos page.
7:00 PM Meeting starts
MN PlantWatch Update by Angela Miner, Conservation Botanist with the MN Landscape Arboretum.
Program: A Dozen of My Favorite Minnesota Plant Stories
Presenter: Dr. Stephen Saupe, Emeritus Professor (Plant Taxonomy, Secondary Metabolism of Plants and Fungi) – St. John’s University

Lessons Learned in Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity
2025-05-12 19:00 - 20:30 | Dakota Lodge, 1200 Stassen Lane, West St. Paul, MN, 55118, United States
Note: This meeting is rescheduled from Thursday, May 1 to Monday, May 12 and will be a hybrid meeting both in-person at Dakota Lodge and on-line through Zoom. MNNPS members, check your email for instructions.
Presenters: Bonnie Harper-Lore & Gary Lore
Program: LESSONS LEARNED IN PROTECTING AND RESTORING BIODIVERSITY, a new book by 85 scientists, educators, practitioners, policymakers and citizen scientists, published 9.13.24 by Cambridge Scholars Press.
Gary Lore and Bonnie Harper-Lore collected a network of conservation stories, written in the authors’ own voices to share with the next generation, when time and money will continue to be short to solve conservation problems, impacted by climate change, development, invasives and public policy.
Readers, including students, professionals and advocates can build on these lessons learned at the local, state, federal, and international levels. Some 52 disciplines are represented because it takes a multidisciplinary approach to do conservation work. These are the actions we took to get it done.
Gary K. Lore holds a BA in environmental ethics, economics, and communications from Metro State University, Minnesota. The majority of his career was in integrated vegetation management for the Colorado Department of Highways, followed by consulting in the midwest. Gary spent 12 years as a federal public affairs officer. Over time he edited and wrote features and columns for Colorado Streamside Quarterly, Trout magazine, “Outdoor Lore”, Minnesota Vietnam Veterans Quarterly, The Metropolitan (Editor) and more. Gary grew up on the prairie of the Nebraska sand hills.
Bonnie L. Harper-Lore holds a MS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she focused on preservation, restoration and management of native plant communities. As a restoration ecologist she spent 20 years with State and federal roadside programs, providing technical transfer, research oversight and policy support to 50 State Departments of Transportation. During that time, she served as editor of a quarterly newsletter, Greener Roadsides. She also co-authored Roadside Use of Native Plants, Roadside Weed Management and Vegetation Management, an Ecoregional Approach. Bonnie grew up in the driftless area of Wisconsin with a goat prairie behind the barn.

Rare Plant and Plant Community Phenology at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve
2025-07-11 09:00 - 16:00
When: Friday, July 11th from 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Where: Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, 2660 Fawn Lake Drive NE, East Bethel, MN 55005
Cost*: $10 for Current Members of the Wetland Professionals Association
$30 for Nonmembers and $10 for students (both include a 1-year WPA membership)
*All money collected goes directly to support the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve
Guide: Jason Husveth, Principal Ecologist at Critical Connections Ecological Services (CCES)
Join us for a full day ecological and botanical field trip to the Bison Enclosure area of the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve. This is a unique opportunity to visit and botanize the diverse wetlands, prairies, and savannas within the Cedar Creek Bison Enclosure in a year where there will be no bison present. We discuss landscape setting, surficial geology and soils, hydrology, plant community ecology and rare species autecology. Jason will cover the identification of over a dozen rare plant species of the Anoka Sand Plain, including some of the rarest species in the state.
Pre-registration is required. Please see the July 2025 Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve Field Trip flyer for more details and registration information. Space is limited so please reply at your earliest convenience.

Red Lake Wildlife Management Area History and Habitat Management
2025-10-09 19:00 - 20:30
The recorded presentation is available on the Videos page.
Presenters: Charlie Tucker– Manager at Red Lake Wildlife Management Area
Program: Charlie will discuss the settlement history of the Red Lake WMA area, and how it relates to current land ownership. He will also talk about using Native Plant Community information to manage for a variety of forest habitats. Ongoing WMA habitat management projects will be discussed.
Bio: Charlie Tucker grew up in Saint Paul before pursuing an undergraduate degree in wildlife ecology from UW-Madison. He worked for various conservation entities before attaining a Master of Science in biology from Missouri State University. His project focused on the breeding ecology of ornate box turtles where he was fortunate to conduct research on large remnant sand prairies in the driftless area of Illinois. After working for the US Fish and Wildlife Service for a couple years, he returned to Minnesota as the assistant wildlife manager at Red Lake WMA. For the last two years he has been the manager at Red Lake WMA, the largest Wildlife Management Area in Minnesota.

Fire behavior and tree mortality, by Dr. Lee Frelich
2025-11-12 19:00 - 20:30
The recorded presentation is available on the Video page.
Presenter: Dr. Lee Frelich – Director of the Center for Forest Ecology, University of Minnesota
Presenter Biography: Lee Frelich is Director of the University of Minnesota Center for Forest Ecology. He has authored 200 publications with 275 coauthors from 25 countries. He is listed among the top 1% of all scientists in the world (Ecology and Environment category) by the Web of Science. His research has been featured in the news media 500 times, including The New York Times, Newsweek and Washington Post. Current research interests include large-scale fire and wind, earthworm invasion, and climate change in temperate and boreal forests.

An Evening of Q&A with Ron Bowen, founder of Prairie Restorations, Inc.
2025-12-18 19:00 - 20:30
The recorded presentation is available on the Videos page.
Presenter: Ron Bowen – founder of Prairie Restorations, Inc.
Program: Spend an evening participating in a Q&A with special guest Ron Bowen, founder of Prairie Restorations, Inc.
Presenter Biography: Ron began dreaming of and creating what would become Prairie Restorations, Inc. (PRI) in the early 1970s after finishing a forestry degree at the University of Minnesota. His first restorations were created while working as a gardener for Bruce Dayton of the famed Dayton family. PRI was incorporated in 1977 as Ron and his brother John moved the business up to the Anoka Sandplain and ramped up seed and plant production. Over time, PRI has grown to be a leader in the ecological restoration movement, continuing to do meaningful projects and inspiring others to do the important work of restoring native plant communities.
We will be exploring the early days, with stories of challenges and successes, hear about some of Ron’s favorite plants, and what is in store for the future of Ron and PRI.

Active augmentation and recovery of rare species and native orchids – what we’re learning so far
2026-02-12 19:00 - 20:30
The recorded presentation is available on the Video page.
Presenter: Dr. David Remucal – Curator of Endangered Plants, Adjunct Professor University of Minnesota
Biography: The Plant Conservation Program works to promote the conservation of rare and native plant species of Minnesota, reaching region and nation-wide. Our focus is on individual species preservation, with a focus on applied research and ex situ conservation. We manage a long-term seed bank for rare plants and native orchids. As part of this work, we research the propagation of all of these species, with special attention to the complex propagation and ecology of terrestrial orchids. Our goal is to create a rigorously scientifically-supported set of guidelines and protocols for preserving and restoring some of the most complex species which are not currently restoration material as well as develop the infrastructure to support restoration efforts with these plants with field protocols and scaled-up production of the plants. As climate change and human manipulation of the environment progresses, this work becomes increasingly vital and must extend beyond pure basic research to application.

Peat Keepers: Healing Minnesota’s Carbon-Rich Landscapes
2026-03-12 19:00 - 20:30
The recorded video is available on the Videos page.
Presenter: Meredith Cornett – MNDNR Peatland Resilience Project Planner
Program: Peat Keepers: Healing Minnesota’s Carbon-Rich Landscapes
Description: With more peatlands than any other state in the US outside Alaska, Minnesota has a role to play in sustaining and restoring peatlands as part of a multifaceted climate mitigation strategy. The state’s Climate Action Framework recognizes the power of peatlands, naming the restoration of partially drained peatlands as an important strategy for climate mitigation. The 2023 Minnesota Legislature created the MNDNR’s Peatland Protection and Restoration Demonstration Project as a first step toward implementing the Climate Action Framework’s peatland strategy. We will dive into peatland restoration work being planned for the DNR’s Winter Road Lake Peatland Scientific and Natural Area in Lake of the Woods County, including our approach to monitoring pre-restoration conditions for vegetation, hydrology and greenhouse gases. For more information about the project: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/wetlands/peatland-resilience-initiative.html
Biography: Meredith Cornett is the Peatland Resilience Project Planner at Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources (MNDNR), a role she has held since January 2024. She has come full circle in returning to the DNR, where she began her professional career in conservation as a Community Forest Ecologist in the Twin Cities Metro Area. For nearly two decades, Meredith served as Director of Science for The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Over the years, she has also enjoyed working with students and faculty at the University of Minnesota through an adjunct appointment in the Conservation Sciences Graduate Program. She lives with her family in Fredenberg Township, where they harvest sunlight, tend beehives, protect pine seedlings from deer browsing, and coexist with human and other neighbors.

The Evolution of Wetland Seed Mixes, Revegetation and Management
2026-04-02 19:00 - 20:30
The recorded presentation is available on the Video page.
Presenter: Dan Shaw – Sr. Ecologist & Vegetation Specialist, MN Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR)
Program: The Evolution of Wetland Seed Mixes, Revegetation and Management
Description: Minnesota’s wetland plant communities are changing due to climate change, development, increased nutrients, and invasive species. These impacts are contributing to declining pollinator, bird, and other wildlife populations, and decreasing wetland functions. Fortunately, the conservation community in Minnesota has been actively addressing challenges and pursuing new strategies for restoring and managing wetlands and other aquatic systems. This presentation will cover emerging methods for seed mix design, site preparation, seeding, and wetland management; and we’ll discuss future challenges for wetlands and needs for further study and innovation.
Biography: Dan Shaw is the Senior Ecologist and Vegetation Specialist with the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR). Over the last 30 years his work has focused on plant community restoration, climate mitigation and adaptation, rare species protection, invasive species control and building conservation partnerships. He has also taught ecological design and restoration classes at the University of Minnesota for the past 25 years and authored or co-authored several books on native plants and restoration.

Iron Springs Bog Scientific and Natural Area
2026-08-15 10:00 - 14:00
A day of touring the SNA.
Where: Iron Springs Bog SNA, MN Trunk Highway 200, Clearwater County. See map.
When: Saturday August 15, 2026 (10:00 AM to 2:00 PM)
Leader: Rhett Johnson, MNDNR, Minnesota Biological Survey.
The field trip will be led by Rhett Johnson and will involve exploring the native plant communities on the SNA, including Mesic Hardwood Forest NPCs, Forested Peatland NPCs, Wet Meadow, and an upland prairie restoration on the adjacent University of Minnesota property. Waterproof boots are recommended.
As always, this field trip is for members of the MN Native Plant Society only and will be limited to 10 registrants; pre-registration is required.
In the event of potential bad weather, participants will be notified of any changes to the day.
To register for this field trip, email Ken Arndt.
